Rob van Tol

YouTube video by RvT Wargames New Book - Opening the Gates of Hell, Barbarossa June-July 41

If you want a new take on a well-covered topic zooms into just the opening two weeks of the campaign to give you a sense of the shock and brutality of the war for both soldiers and civilians. It's a sweeping narrative that brings colour to those old black and white photographs.
youtu.be/Smb-rNDNLGk

YouTube video by RvT Wargames Great New Book - Air Battles Before D Day

If you are a World War 2 or aviation buff, I strongly recommend this new book, available on pre-order.
youtu.be/ToxFCmdi8og

Tank shaped rubber duck

Love has many faces. Since we're not doing Easter Eggs we've exchanged silly gifts. How delighted am I with mine from the TankMuseum.org!

44 working years
528 working months
10,250 working days
82,000 working hours
4,920,000 working minutes

Permission to retire granted! Time to hang up my consultant hat, hand back my lanyard, close my laptop lid, and de-work my travel backpack.

Last day 31st July 2025.

500k views of YouTube channel certificate

This has happened to my niche YouTube channel. It's hard to articulate the combo of surprise and pride and pleasure. Unintended Covid consequences rattle on!

While History with a capital H is being made all around us, I'm finding it hard to post anything of consequence.

I feel you missed a key step explaining how toaster and coffee beans got so close.

Amazon books was one of the first great e-commerce experiences back in the last century. I stopped buying physical books from them a while back, and today, because of their monopolistic behaviour I've moved my ebooks to Kobo, Perlego, several free ebook sources and Derbyshire Library services 📚 👋

War, in the Russian conception, covers many more aggressive actions than (hot) war in the Western sense. From the Russian perspective, yes, they are at war (or in conflict, if you prefer) with the UK and the rest of Europe. Or their "rightful sphere of influence".

Ukraine Fact Sheet - February 21, 2025: isw.pub/UkraineFacts...

I seem to have four videos in various stages of prep and an explainer article I need to write. Having ideas like Homer Simpson following a line of doughnuts is an interesting form of procrastination. Today needs to be productive. Yet I fear a new idea forming!

Detail of the wargame Mirages by Vuca Simulations

Today I have been pushing cardboard counters around a paper map with my fingers while performing simple mental maths and occasionally cross referencing my memory with a rule book (spoiler alert: the rule book usually wins). Funny the things that keep us amused.

vucasims.com/products/for...

Taking my impressionable drama loving 13yo for his birthday treat in January. Hoping it will blow his teeny mind.

4,000 YouTube subscriber count

Touched and proud and delighted to reach this small milestone in an ultra niche topic.
youtube.com/@rvtwargames

In terms of tools that means the game (PC or cardboard) + PowerPoint + OBS + Canva + DaVinci Resolve + YouTube Studio + Notion, plus six games forums and mics and cameras and lights and tons of settings and stuff

Creating depth wargame videos = doing some game analysis + designing slides + screen recording + thumbnail design + video editing + publishing + analytics + companion website + planning & thinking time + actually learning & playing the games

I really need to retire!

Ambleside, Cumbria, The Lake District

The Greatest Day: Utah Beach, Grand Tactical Series (from mmpgamers.com)

Operation Mercury, Grand Tactical Series (from mmpgamers.com)

Spent a lovely week in a cottage with 6 lovely men. Wargaming. Beer drinking. Nonsense talking. Daftness all around.

YouTube video by RvT Wargames Using AI to enhance your wargame experience

This moving so fast in this AI space. Didn't expect to have to do this so soon. But here's a second video exploring further ways that gamers can use AI to help them enjoy our overly complex games.

youtu.be/Ce8BzLVT4Vw?...

YouTube video by RvT Wargames Wargame Rules with your AI helper: NotebookLM

I did a rather nerdy video on how to use AI (specifically NotebookLM) to help wargamers understand the complex rules they play with. OK, that's probably double Nerdy. Anyhow, I'm pleased with the many interesting responses.

youtu.be/eVDk7vmRdcg?...

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #6,155,734!

Quite proud to be an early-ish adopter and free of that other crazy place.

I may have upgraded doing nothing to reading wargame rules. #MMPgamets

Today nothing appears to be something worth doing, to paraphrase Winnie-the-Pooh.

#Holidays

YouTube video by Wise Guy History GOSS Rant [Not a review!] - Grand Operational Simulation Series

Taking a break from editing the waffle out of a video script, I'm enjoying Wise Guy History's rant about the poor quality of rules for GOSS (Grand Operational Simulation Series).
#GameDesign
youtu.be/vRDX7jTPhEQ?...

It's small beer in the world of YouTube content creators. But I'm still both proud and awed at the same time.

The money in my pension has made me work at least an extra year before I retire, and I doubt that will cover the damage he caused me at 65.

The real joys in being in the body of writing scripts for video explainers. Being in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's state of Flow. Forgetting the dishes, the weeding, the hoovering. Just me and my thoughts, flowing.

Struggling to understand the fetish some organisations stull have for 'wet' signatures when they have no reference for what my signature 'should' look like. Literally anybody could scrawl anything and they would be none the wiser.

Saddened by the sudden unexpected death of my psychotherapy trainer. Just 51. So much joie de vivre. We only spoke a week ago. Planning a book on Relationship Therapy. He wanted me to add a chapter. Such a good, clever, funny, outrageous, compassionate man.

Dear Nature, I like butterflies as much as the next person, but could you leave me at least some Brussels sprouts for the autumn?

It's 2024 and I am having to accept a design for an account creation and login that is whatever the thing is beyond 'clunky'. Swear words might be helpful here.