A and A Game Engineering

Quality Wargames Rules since 1996

Our Products

Wargames Rules

We aim to develop rules that provide an enjoyable game in 3 to 4 hours on a 6 foot by 4 foot table, where possible without lots of paperwork or record keeping. The rules that the player sees are ‘simple’ but the various factors are based on extensive research into the historical data, whether that be about ships, aircraft or tanks.

All our rules have data listings for as many examples as we can find, so that players can play games in many theatres. In addition, we can provide the game data for any item that a player wants to use, so long as the historical data is available.

We write sets of rules ourselves, but also publish rules which have been developed by other people.

Why 'Engineering'?

When we are writing a set of rules ourselves, one feature of our work is that we spend considerable time researching the equipment that will be used in the game concerned. We want to be able to demonstrate the relative effectiveness of the weapons used by the protagonists, be that by comparing the rate of fire of a gun, the weight of a shell, the thickness of armour etc. Having done that these values have to be converted into a number or factor that can be used to represent this effectiveness. From this information we then 'engineer' the game data.

As a rule of thumb, when we are satisfied with the underlying basic calculations, we have adopted the idea of setting one aircraft, ship or tank as the standard, and all other aircraft, ships and tanks are tuned so that their relative performance appears in the game. As part of the process we now ask ourselves, "which piece of equipment is going to serve as 'The Hurricane' this time?"

This requires the extensive use of software to carry out some of the more intricate calculations in one process. Where possible we also like to have some sort of cost mechanism, so that a game can be fought with balanced "points values". Real life battles were very rarely fought between sides of equal strength; this would be no fun for players though as both sides must feel that they have a chance to win the engagement.

It can be that the final game data may indicate that some piece of equipment, tank, aircraft or ship may not match the player's expectations. It may appear to perform better or worse than its historical counterpart. What is often the case is that the evidence of the relative performance of, say, this or that enemy aircraft compared to my aircraft is anecdotal, reported after the event by a pilot who has just been through combat and has been scared witless, which might colour his perception somewhat. What is more difficult to take into account is the effect of long term use of equipment in action, or the use of less suitable fuel, for example. In most part, these effects can be represented as part of the results of the roll of the dice, representing the randomness of real life. It is also possible in some cases to allow the players to reduce some game factor to represent this sort of thing, but to maintain "fairness" the cost of the item concerned would also be reduced.

Product Availability

All our products are available to purchase on-line from WargameVault, which is part of the US-based OneBookShelf organisation. If you click on the WargameVault banner below you will be taken our Publisher's Page on their website. This will open a new tab in your browser.

On each of the product pages in our site you will find a similar icon; if you click it you will be taken directly to the actual product page in the WargameVault site, where you can order the title concerned.

Pricing

It is important that we explain how the prices work when you are buying our products from WargameVault. We register all our prices in £ Pounds Sterling when we set up our titles on WargameVault. When you are interacting with WargameVault you can set the prices to be displayed in US Dollars, Euros, Canadian Dollars, Pounds Sterling, Yen and Australian Dollars. This can be done at the bottom of the page on their website. The prices of all products on WargameVault are then converted to the currency you have chosen.

Product Bundles

Some of our titles in PDF Format are also available as a part of a Product Bundle. In this case, two or more linked titles can be bought together at a reduced price. In the case of our titles the reduction is approximately 25%. If a title comes as part of a bundle, this is shown on the product pages concerned and on our Catalogue page, with a link set up to the bundle on the WargameVault website.

Our Terms and Conditions when using WargameVault

Products are made available for your personal use only. Please do not copy the data file wholly or in part, and/or distribute it to other users. If you do this, you defeat the purpose of our offering the product at a lower price for a download version, and this also works against our continuing to provide you with our products in this way.

In all cases it does require honesty on the part of the customer, and some sites specifically draw attention to the fact that handing the file around to a wide circle of friends is effectively theft. WargameVault actively pursue cases where files have been re-sold or otherwise distributed in contravention of their conditions of use.

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Product Formats

Our rules are available in A4 page format either as an electronic file (PDF) for the customer to print at home or as a printed copy through the WargameVault Print on Demand (POD) facility. This facility is supported by printers in the USA, Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe, who print and deliver the product direct to you. The customer must bear in mind that a printed copy will cost more than the PDF download, and there will be a postage cost.

The product pages on our website and that of WargameVault indicate the availability of the title either as a PDF or POD.

The rules usually include various game markers and perhaps record sheets. Where these appear they are also available to download separately from our website, which is particularly useful if you are using a printed version of the title purchased from the Print on Demand service or through a retailer in the United Kingdom.

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Product Support

We support all our products by means of this website. On the individual product pages you will find links to the following features, where appropriate.

  • Quick Reference sheets
  • Rules Updates and Clarifications.
  • Rules Support packages, which incorporate any game templates or record sheets required within the rules.
  • New and updated Game Data.
  • "Other Stuff"

All the Support Documentation can also be found in our Rules Support Library where the documents are grouped by Type.

Customer Feedback

We always welcome feedback from our customers; it is a vital resource for us because you may well spot something which does not work, and this then leads us to make any necessary changes; sometimes we do this immediately if the problem is actually critical to the smooth operation of the rules; at other times this may be after a while, especially if we get a suggestions for something new to be added, and we need to check that the proposed change will fit into the way the game operates.

Quick Link to our Contact Us page

Quick Reference Sheets

Quick Reference Sheets (QRS a.k.a. “Quick Play Sheets”) for our products can be found on the relevant product pages; in some cases rules have relatively few pages so we do not produce a QRS for that set. We welcome all feedback and suggestions about these sheets and their content. We feel that they should not restate the actual rules, and should not normally be bigger than 2 sides of A4.

When using these, you must bear in mind that the body of text in the “rules as written” always prevails in the case of any difference between them and the QR Sheet. We hope that we do not make too many errors !

Sheets may need to be revised when rules undergo a revision. It is necessary to ensure that there is no mismatch between the content of the sheets and the body of the rules. Quick Reference Sheets are in A4 format, and may be made up of several pages. The pages can be printed back to back to reduce the clutter on the table.

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