Behind the Scenes at Mark's Game Room

Players and video crew getting ready for the video session

I helped host a skirmish wargame at Mark Fastoso's Game Room today. Mark is setting up a new youtube channel devoted to military history and wargaming. His channel will feature wargame play throughs, historical vignettes, game reviews and other gaming related content. His premiere will be June 6, 2023. The theme will be D-Day. He plans to feature several videos mostly related to paratroopers fighting on D-Day. He has a lot of interesting content associated with that including some rare never-seen footage of actual band-of-brother survivors. 

In case you don't know, Mark is an Emmy winning video documentary producer.  Here is a link to one of his documentaries.  https://www.pbs.org/video/alabama-public-television-documentaries-jeremiah  He has also designed some miniature wargames such as Fire Ball Forward.

Mark operating his video mixer. He can control multiple
cameras in real time

To prepare for producing high quality videos for the youtube channel, he has converted his basement game room into a rather sophisticated video gaming studio.  There are overhead cameras, lights, multiple microphones, etc.  He has a video mixer that can control multiple cameras in real time. The device creates a Davinci Project file with all the cameras on separate channels, so he can go straight to editing. It is an impressive set-up.

When Mark learned that I had designed a scenario and built a terrain board for the La Fiere battle, he asked if I would be willing to run it for his youtube channel. It would fit perfectly with his D-Day theme. He suggested we try a new game called One Hour Skirmish Rules. I was willing to try it and I'm glad I did. It is a relatively simple game system that plays quickly yet captures the weaponry, tactics, and chaos of small unit combat. To prepare for the video recording session, I built a new terrain board that was slightly smaller and portable to fit his game table. Then I had some of my regular gamers playtest the game in my basement to check for issues and play balance.

Germans preparing to run the gauntlet into dug-in American
paratroopers. Will they succeed?

Today we ran the game three times in about 5 hours with a break for lunch and set-up. I won't get into the details of the games, you'll have to wait for the video to see that. But it went really well. The guys seemed to enjoy it. The outcome was in doubt right to the very end- you know you have a good scenario when both sides feel like they are losing.  

I am planing on building another scenario for his gaming channel. This one will likely be an American Civil War engagement where one side is trying to destroy the other's railroad.  Stay tuned for that.