Wargaming ODS

[JALU3]

If I am looking to wargame Operation Desert Storm, or Operation Iraqi Freedom (the fall of the Saddam Regime) where would I go about doing that online?

I mean I know there are board games that do ODS rather well, but I don't know enough people around here that are interested in that type of thing.

[Blacklight]

The first thing I would do is grab a copy of Cyberboard. It's a free program designed for playing board games (Especially wargames) over the net via email. (There's a program called Vassal that is good too and allows you to play in real time as well as via email.. but I believe there is a lot more stuff out there for Cyberboard so I use that. Try both... see if you can find what you're looking for in both platforms. They are both very good)

Assuming you're sticking with Cyberboard, your next trick is to find what's called a Cyberboard Game Box. What this is is basically a version of the game that you want to play set up for Cyberboard and there's a ton of boxes out there on the net for it.. you just need to search. You need to actually own the game in order to play because the game boxes do not include manuals and such... they just supply the virtual boards, counters, and cards.

If you can't find a gamebox for the game you want to play, hope is not lost. On the Cyberboard website, there's also a toolkit you can download so you can make your own game boxes... so with a bit of work, you can make a game box of the board game you want to play.

Next, you just find someone online who also has the game (Or someone you can send a copy of your rules to if the game is out of print). You both get Cyberboard, get the game box to your opponenet, and via email, you have yourself an excellent time blasting Saddam's forces into shrapnel.

Cyberboard has a feature that will list all your opponenets moves and dice rolls so you can make sure you're not getting cheated as well.

You can get Cyberboard here.
http://cyberboard.brainiac.com/index.html

In the Available Games list, there's some sites that have a LOT of game boxes all ready to go as well.
Steve Jackson Games even has a cyberboard box for their game OGRE that I used to play a lot with Cyberboard.
http://surf.to/hawkmoon

If you have the Compass Games WWII submarine game Silent War(Excellent solo game), there's a Cyberboard version of that game on their website as well.
http://www.compassgames.com/downloads/SWcyberboard.zip

Another option is this fantastic game:
NORM KOGER'S THE OPERATIONAL ART OF WAR III
by Matrix Games found here..
http://www.matrixgames.com/games/game.asp?gid=317

The Operational Art of War III is basically a massive wargame constuction set. A LOT of people play it and there are several Desert Storm scenarios out there on the net. Also go into the Matrix Games forums and look into their Operational Art of War message board in there. You're BOUND to find people who would be willing to play against you there and you DEFINITELY can find sites to get pointed to that would have interesting scenarios... and like I said.. it's a construction set too so if you can't find what you like, you can build your own scenarios, maps, and everything.

There's only one very minor shortcoming with this game. It was originally designed to model operational scale land battles. Naval vessels and such have been added but due to limitiations in the game system, the naval code is not very good so using it to model naval battles will not be very accurate, but anphibious landings and naval bombardments seem to work pretty good.

Overall, the good outweighs this tiny negative so I think it's well worth the purchase. I havn't made a purchase from Matrix Games that I ever regretted.