Internet links to BKN-Related Information
Consimworld Consimworld is a great resource for gamers. It provides an on-line forum for discussion of game-related matters. Separate forums are available for each game and an enormous number of games are covered. Participants in the discussion fora debate rules interpretations, strategies and tactics and find new gaming partners. Tournaments are planned and their progress is reported. The link to the left takes you to the Breakout: Normandy forum. If you are not yet registered at Consimworld, go instead to the Consimworld home page.
AREA The AREA rating system establishes player rankings for the gaming community. The link to the left gives the ratings for Breakout: Normandy. You can also find AREA ratings for other games on the AREA home page.
BPA The Boardgame Players Association (BPA) organizes face-to-face and e-mail gaming tournaments, including BKN tournaments. The BPA also publishes an a yearbook. Every serious boardgamer should be a member.
AHIKS The Avalon Hill International Kriegspiel Society (AHIKS) is an association of individuals who play board wargames by ordinary mail or e-mail. Established in 1965, AHIKS exists to foster a mature, responsible pool of gamers throughout the world. Back when AHIKS was established, the Avalon Hill Game Company of Maryland, USA was perhaps the only company publishing board wargames. Nowadays, AHIKS members play games from a large number of game publishers, but the organization has kept its original name.
Avalon Hill The Avalon Hill Game Company had a long and distinguished history as a pioneer in the field of wargame publishing. Breakout: Normandy was one of its many excellent titles. The company folded and no longer has a web site. Most of the assets of Avalon Hill were sold to Hasbro Incorporated a few years ago. However, Breakout: Normandy was not one of those assets. More recently Multiman Publishing sold the game for a while. You can often find copies for sale on eBay.
The Boardgamer The Boardgamer is a terrific wargaming magazine that is published on the desktop of Bruce Monnin. The magazine is devoted to Avalon Hill/Victory games. Unfortunately the magazine plans to stop publishing in the second half of 2004.
Web-Grognards The Web-Grognards site provides links to information about a vast range of wargames, including Breakout: Normandy.
PBeM Ladder Several years ago Tom Pavy established a play-by-e-mail ladder for enthusiasts of Breakout: Normandy and Turning Point: Stalingrad. The ladder as such is inactive at the moment, but Tom continues to help gamers find PBeM opponents.
Shadow Islands dice server The Shadow Islands dice server is the most popular tool on the Internet for purposes of generating random dice rolls. It's used in virtually all of the play-by-e-mail wargame tournaments, including those for Breakout: Normandy.
Irony Games dice server The Irony Games dice server is another good Internet tool for generating random dice rolls. It's handy for those occasions -- not infrequent -- when the Shadow Islands dice server is not functioning.
War Game Central Another dice server, with some nice features including immediate rolls followed up with e-mail and an on-line log of all rolls generated over the last ten days.
Warplanner Another dice server is available at this site.
Titan dice server Yet another dice server, offered by Bruno Wolff III.
Newdice
 The newdice dice server does not have a web site. It was set up for use by Victory in the Pacific PBeM gamers. To obtain information about this dice server, send a blank e-mail message to newdice@dartmouth.east.sun.com.
SMS Strategic Map Simulator (SMS) is a first-rate software tool for playing wargames. It's worth good money, but it's free. SMS is just the sort of tool one needs to play Breakout: Normandy by e-mail. Highly recommended!
ADC2 Aide de Camp version 2 (ADC2) is another software tool for playing wargames. It's quite good as well, but you must pay for it. It has a discussion folder on Consimworld. Wayne Melnick has designed a gameset for Breakout: Normandy.
ACTS Automated Card Tracking System is another die roller on the Internet that is favoured increasingly by BKNers. See some games in progress using the generic game module.
PBEGAMES Yet another dice server, offered by Electron Games.
Daggerford The Daggerford dice server.
BoardGameGeek Specifications and comments on the game.
Cyberboard Cyberboard is another fine wargame simulation program that can be used with Breakout: Normandy. Andrew Maly created a gamebox for BKN. Nicholas Markevich has provided a scenario file for BKN.
Heaven Ken Suzuki provided me with software he calls "Heaven" that can be used to play Breakout: Normandy interactively over the Internet. It has very nice graphics. The program is intended for other wargames as well, but at the moment the only module available is for Breakout: Normandy. Ken also makes available a set of jpg files displaying the BKN tokens, although these are not needed for the program.