Napoleonic Skirmish

I wanted to develop a Board game adaptation of the Neil Thomas skirmish rules I was using for my miniature games so I painted up some Airfix French and British infantry, using primary colours only and basing them on 1.5cm square bases.

Combined with the C&C board I played out a quick standard game, drafted the board conversion and then had an enjoyable French v British encounter where the action centred on a small chateau and surrounding woods and farmland. I used the Command Event determination which introduced the necessary friction. It had a board game look but miniatures game feel and I was quite satisfied as to how the rules developed. The level was small scale with my units composed of eight musketeers and one sergeant. A captain commanded two or more units and this game fielded two units a side. I now need to draft a modern WWII version to play out some small scale infantry action with my old Airfix figures.  

One Hour Wargames: Napoleonic Scenario

I had an interesting game of OHW using scenario 3, the bridge crossing. The forces were roughly equal with a French v British encounter setup - probably somewhere in the Peninsular. I used my solo rules which immediately caused the French some disruption when their cavalry unit retreated off the board and didn't return. The game was close with the British steadily gaining the upper hand. This was confirmed when they received the bonus of an extra unit through the random events roll forcing the French to quit the field.

 

For this game I used some Risk board game figures mounted on bases to represent the respective forces. I'm planning to use them for C&C Napoleonics but thought I'd give them a spin with an OHW setup. They looked good combined with the wargaming terrain spread out on the C&C board. Again a pleasant run out of the rules, however, I still feel they don't quite give me enough detail to satisfy and I still prefer the Napoleonic Ruleset in Napoleonic Wargaming. For a quick game that doesn't require much in the way of preparation they still offer an enjoyable alternative and I plan to play more games using the scenarios in the book across different periods.

One Hour Wargames: American War of Independence

This was my second game playing the OHW system by Neil Thomas. It was an encounter battle set in the AWI and based on scenario 2: Pitched Battle. There were a couple of objectives to make the game interesting and set some tactical problems for both sides to address.

 

The basis were the H&M Rules in the book but I did overlay a few house rules and utilised my solo amendments to simulate command friction. I also extended the random events table so as to allow a D20 determination of events. This generated a lot of interesting variations and kept both sides on their toes.

Initially the British looked set to eliminate the Americans who had adopted a more defensive posture but a series of poor rolls, the British general being shot and the US Militia faring better than expected, buying time for the Continentals to wear down the British left flank, meant a gradual recovery for the US forces and an outcome after 15 turns of a decisive victory for the Rebels.

Reflecting on the game. Again I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the experience. Despite being on the face of it a simplistic simulation of period warfare it actually had some intriguing tactical choices and outcomes. Coupled with the friction generated from my solo rules it played out in a evolutionary way and I didn't feel limited by the sparseness of the rules. On the contrary I think that in this case it is it's strength. As has been mentioned by other commentators of these rules the author deliberately reduces the rules to a bare minimum which hits the core aspects of each period but allows an easy overlay of any particular preferences a gamer has to add to these without breaking the core system. Some special rules for each game and army can be incorporated without much issue. This is what I did in this game e.g. for Militia any hits against them were doubled to account for their fragile morale. This means they are extremely brittle and likely to run after one good volley against them, unless of course they are positioned in defences which neutralise this penalty.  

Going forward I've developed some OHW rules for WW2, again incorporating my own house rules. A bit more tinkering here as I wanted to represent a few more features of this period of warfare which I felt needed to be simulated. The playtest will confirm whether this works.

One Hour Wargames: Playtest

I decided to try out the One Hour Wargames Rules, written by Neil Thomas, that I had purchased last year but had never got round to playing. I setup an ACW game based on Scenario 1, a straightforward encounter battle with 6 units a side. I included some random events and my own Command rules to inject the feeling of friction.

The rules gave me a surprise and the game played much better than I had expected. There was far more variation than you would have imagined. It certainly spurred me on to develop some more modifications and additions to provide a bit more specific period chrome and assist the solo gaming dimension through refinement of some of the features I'd playtested. In the game a rapid Confederate advance, initially successful, was repulsed by some stubborn Union resistance. It lasted 9 turns with quite a convincing victory for the Federal forces.

I'm going to give a few more games a try covering some more periods. I'm using my Memoir'44 and C&C boards with the right flank section refused to give me a square gaming area and cm measurements for my 6mm figures. On top I'm using the terrain tiles from the board games but may start using actual terrain.  

Memoir'44 Skirmish: Classic Traveller Simulation

I tried out some modifications to the Memoir'44 system to adapt this to a basic skirmish setup. The setting I used was a squad on squad action set in the Fifth Frontier War between an Imperial Marines formation and an equivalent Zhodani Consulate unit. I used the desert board with a scattering of terrain determined randomly. The figures were the orange and red Clone Wars / Star Wars Risk ones which looked excellent.

The rules involve a simple system of activation whereby different coloured chits for each side are used to determine which side can activate a figure and then perform a set action. A single figure can use three chits, however, it becomes increasingly restricted in what can be achieved.

The game played very well with the Zhodani achieving a narrow victory and forcing the Imperial squad to retire with heavy casualties.

This was such a simple adaptation it begs itself to any similar squad skirmish and with a few special rules, provide chrome without compromising simplicity.

Star Wars Memoir 44

I've just completed an enjoyable adaptation of the popular board / miniatures game Memoir 44 using my Star Wars Risk figures to play the Pegasus Bridge scenario.

A close fought game in which the Republican assailants had the initial upper hand but were in the end defeated by stiff CIS resistance. It looked really good using my Eastern Front terrain tiles and the winter board.

I'm experiencing a bit of a Borg game phase as I recover from a long term illness. The games are easy to play, are visually excellent with miniatures, highly adaptable to any period and great for solo play.

I've accumulated Memoir 44 and the expansions for the Eastern Front, Mediterranian and Pacific Theaters, Command & Colours, Ancients and Napoleonic and Battle Cry.

My other adaptation on Memoir 44, which I playtested a number of times, was a version of the popular World of Tanks on-line game using the tank miniatures in the boxed set and differentiating Light, Medium, Heavy, TD and SPGs with 9 per side. This worked brilliantly and the games, despite played solo, had me gripped to the very end. 

Star Wars Adaptation

I'm looking at a fun project just now as I roll forward all my development notes and ideas from my old notebooks to a new consolidated notebook. I used to play a bit of the Star Wars Battlefront game and have always been interested in this universe since the first film so a wargaming adaptation was on the cards.

 

I will make use of the WWII rules as the core engine. I've used these for all my army level simulations so far. The tactical level will be set at the company and battalion level. For the squad level which models the game I will use my Skirmish Rules adaptation and develop its own lists based on the faction makeup of available troop types.

 

There are four factions to consider: The Republic, CIS, The Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. It should be interesting designing rules for the various weapons systems and the unique vehicle types and fighting machine that this universe presents.

 

As an aside I got the Star Wars X-Wing miniatures game for Christmas which is great fun to play and provided a catalyst to me getting this wargaming project started.