Another Half-Hour One Hour Wargame Live Play

"Live Play" the man says in the title to describe a battle fought on the table two weeks ago.  Whatever.  I didn't land on the post-definitional world, the post-definitional world landed on me.

Here's another battle report you can view from the comfort of your own bunker:

In more boring news, I cleaned up the link rot on the left-hand column.  Removed a few busted links and dumped in a few new hot ones. 

Check out 15mm Through Space and Time for some richly painted figures in the One True Scale to Rule Them All.  Or hit Picts From the Front for some world-class kitbashing in 15mm, including mechas made from old plastic sprues.

Towards a Unified Theory of Wargaming Complexity

Put on your thinking man's cap, because today we're talking math.

Earlier this week, Delta Vector (you know Delta, he runs the excellent Delta Vector blog) posted the latest installment of his in-depth analysis of wargame design, this one on the perfect number of units.   The entire series is well worth your time, as he devotes each post to a detailed look at different ways of managing wargames with copious examples from around the genre.  In this installment he comes to the conclusion that the right number of units is between 5 and 12.  

This particular post hit home, because on the exact same day that Delta posted his analysis, your humble blogger posted a summary of One Hour Wargames in which he came to almost the exact same conclusion.  Ain't that a kick in the serendipity pants.

One Hour Wargames: Further Thoughts

With multiple games of Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames under the belt, it's time to take a more solid look at the ruleset and see how it stacks up.

Spoiler alert: Pretty darn good!

What makes for a good tabletop game?  Enough units to have meaningful choices.  Enough variety to make each fight unique.  Enough balance that each game has the potential to come down to the wire with victory often decided in the final turn.  The medieval version of OHW passes all three tests.

The Necromancer War, Chapter 3

When last we left the on-going saga of the Necromancer King's attempt to add the Targar Empire to his domain, Lady Hotfor M'Motherson successfully routed a flanking force of the Necromancer King.  Seeing an opportunity to deliver a smashing blow to the dark lord's forces, she quickly rounded up all the forces within a day's march, and set out to sever the Necromancer forces' supply lines.  Scrambling to plug the gap in his lines, the Necromancer King ordered a small screening force to slow down the Lady's forces...

The d30 for this battle resulted in a 25 - Infiltration.  Only one defending unit starts the game on a hill deep in the Targar side of the board.  Five other units wait just off board, with two entering on Turn 3 and the other 3 on Turn 6.  The Targar's four units all enter on the north in Turn 1, and have to get two units off the board in the south by the end of Turn 15.

Lady M'Motherson quickly ordered her men-at-arms to stall the levy left guarding the hill, while her three units of knights charged...

The First Necromancer War, a 6mm Wargame Campaign

The completion of the latest big box presents a first chance at playing Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames the right way - fully based and painted figures, full color terrain, and every option in the book available to both players.  To kick things off, and help us stay motivated to play more battles, the boy and I decided to play a five fight narrative campaign using a random assortment of scenarios from the rulebook.

To remind those of you following along at home, we have to matched forces built to spec.  In the left corner,wearing the green and purple, and flying banners bearing a flaming eyed goat's head, are the forces of  the vile and demonic Necromancer King.

In the other corner, wearing red and gold and flying banners bearing theme and variation on the dragon head motif, are the knights, nobles, and freemen of the peace loving Targar Kingdom.

Guess which force your humble narrator controls.  Yeah, this is not going to be a terribly fair and biased history of the as-yet-unfolded Necromancer War.

First we diced off to decide who would be the aggressor and who the defender.  He won the toss and elected to invade the Kingdom of the Targars.  So there you have it - pick your forces, roll off for attacker, and you're ready for a campaign.  Easy peasey.

Next Time:  The Necromancer King Attacks!

One Hour Wargame Big Box - Complete!

Three and a half months early, the One Hour Wargame Big Box is complete.  Sort of*.

The Rules as Written call for a maximum of three feet of road way.  One piece of bass wood from the local craft store gives you enough material to make a much more flexible amount of roadway.  I went ahead and built up a fork, crossroad, tight curve, and a couple more random lengths.  You never know - this box might work well with my 10mm fantasy figures for skirmishing as well.

Here's a shot of the road where it meets the river and bridge with the medieval farmhouse for as well.

 

One more close-up.

 

* If you're a wargamer, you know these things are never really done.  At some point I'd like to make some scatter terrain like a circle of standing stones or a wizards tower.  Maybe a few isolated trees and rock outcrops.  And this terrain would work well with a matched pair of dark ages armies, too.  The possibilities are limited, but the hours are not.  So for now...it's time to actually use this stuff.

Five Feet of Rivers

Happy Labor Day.  For my labor of the day, I finished off some river pieces.

A single piece of 3-inch by 24-inch bass wood was enough to make five feet of rivers.  Using the RAW, you'll never need more than 36-inches of river, but with three lengths of unbroken river, on bridge, and two fords, you've got enough pieces to make any of the setups listed in the rulebook.  There was even enough wood left over to add a curve and short make-up length.

That short length is important for my setup because my mat is actually 30-inches wide by 34-inches wide.  So three lengths of 10-inches works great one way, but leaves a small gap when laid out the other way.  That short piece fills it in nicely.

May need to rethink that road piece left of the bridge.  That
bridge is a metal cast bought from Heroics and Ros.

Here's a better shot of one of the fords, with the pond in the back to show the matching water colors. It doesn't show up all that well in the photo, but after sealing these pieces with dullcote, a second coat of gloss finish was applied to the water itself to give it a nice wet shine.

Knights defending a ford.  Because using heavy mounted troops
to defend a static defense line is the mark of a good leader.

  

This is the classic war-game color for streams.  In nature they only look this blue when they reflect a clear blue sky.  On the wargaming table that color makes it clear what the feature represents, and provides a nice stark contrast against the ground surface.  It's only a cliche because it works.  For more in-depth reading, there's a great comparative analysis over on Wargaming With Barks.  Check it out.



Grinding Away at the One Hour Wargame Box

Should have a little something new to show you near the end of this long Labor Day weekend, but here's a couple shots found buried on my cell phone.  To give you a better idea how easy it is to work in 6mm, how about a couple of pre-paint shots of the farmstead?

 

These also give you an idea of the bare metal look of the Heroics and Ros small and large farmhouse.  The stone fence is just a thin sliver of basswood.  Kind of wish I'd put a small wooden gate in the opening to the field wall now that I look at it again.  In 6mm, those little details aren't hard and really help polish off otherwise basic features.

One Hour Wargames: Towns

The built-up areas in Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames towns have varying effects on movement depending on the historic era.  For the medieval era, they don't have any effect at all.  And yet, in the scenarios listed, they often trigger special rules or serve as objective markers.  So from a rules perspective, it makes sense to have a couple stands of "towns".

Also, they just look cool on the table.  Even if the scenario doesn't call for it, they make for more visual appeal, which is such a big part of this hobby - regardless of what they tell you at the 40k tables.

For my Big Box of One Hour wargames, I have elected to represent towns as a farm stand.  Not the kind you pass on the road in the country, but a wargame stand featuring a farm.  The field on the right is simple balsa wood walls and painted sand.  The walls are big enough that a full stand of troops can fit inside them.  The row of crops is early in the season and consists of glued and painted sand that should hold up well with repeated wear and tear.

The buildings are from Heroics and Ros' scenic range.  The small building is listed as SCEN10 (Small Farm House) and the larger one as SCEN12 (Large Farm House).  The balsa wood walls help tie the farm to the field, and the well in the courtyard is a short piece of balsa rod.  The tree is a left over rubber toy from the Tree Toob.  It's going to tower over the rest of the woodland terrain pieces.  We'll call it an ancient oak tree and not sweat the difference.

 

All that's left to complete the set now are some roads and rivers, and then we can actually sit down and start playing.  Eight months in, and we are still ahead of schedule to complete the big box by the end of the year.  Might even be time to start thinking about the Big Box for 2016.

Medieval Knights - The Good Guys Group Shot

That last post was getting a bit image heavy*.  So how about a second post with a nice group shot of all four units of hard charging knights ready for battle?

Now that's what a massed charge should look like.  None of this three-figures-per-stand nonsense you see from guys who game in a scale I can't afford.

* Also, two posts for one real update.  Ain't I a stinker?

Medieval Knights - The Good Guys

This post sure was a long time coming.  Four stands of 6mm medieval knights ready to roll for a game of Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames.  These are all Heroics and Ros figures mounted on basswood bases three inches wide by two inches deep.  These stands each have one bannerman and about 20 other knights in two poses.

 

Yeah, so this fantasy army wears red and yellow colors and flies dragon banners.  Any resemblance to an army from (for lack of a better word) literature is purely coincidental.

Look at that line-up.  Simple all-red horse gear, individual shields, this must be a force cobbled together from different houses within the kingdom.

Advancing line abreast, and with matching horse gear, but individual shields, these men must be retainers of a wealthy nobleman.

This well disciplined unit is charging in classic wedge formation.  Well drilled, and with matching uniforms and shields, it must be an elite guard unit.

Medieval Comparison Shot

One of the little challenges for old men like me who game with little men like these 6mm Heroics and Ros figures is finding a way to make it obvious from a distance which little horde is which.  One of my helpful solutions is to base the individual figures in easily recognizable patterns. They may not be historically accurate, but sometimes history takes a back seat to playability.

In the above shot you can see that the dismounted knights (left), the levies (center), and the archers (right) all stand in different patterns.  Three rows for the swordy dudes, four rows for the sharp sticks, and a checkerboard pattern for the the shooty guys.

Also, the edge of each base is painted a unified red to make it crystal clear which army they belong to.  Initially, with two armies, it shouldn't be necessary, but moving forward, if I can build up enough forces to play with more than two armies, that color code may come in handy.

Last Medieval Footies

Don't think I mentioned yet that this whole army is built from the fine medieval range of Heroics and Ros.  Today's offering is the poorly armed rabble called up from every mudhole village, handed a sharp stick, and pointed at the enemy.  What these levies lack in courage and training and armor and so on almost forever, they make up for in numbers and being too dumb to know when to run away.

More Medieval Troops - Archers to the Fore

The second couple of foot troops for my matched medieval armies is the shooter types.  Almost fifty of the little buggers on each stand makes for a fine visual show.  It might not be enough to blacken the skies, but it looks so much better than an army with a sum total of three archers.

Shifting Gears - Medieval Army Dismounted Knights

With things slowing down at work, there's finally enough time to start showing off the second Medieval army for One Hour Wargames.

First up, the dismounted knights.  Close ranked, heavily armed and armored, well drilled shock troops.

Medieval Update

Completing a full set of terrain and matched armies for use with OHW is the big goal for 2015.  So far the terrain is about half done, and the armies are half done.  This weekend, the second army got bumped up a few slots on the all-too-long to-do list.  Check it:

What you're looking at here is 6 full stands of foot troops, dismounted knights in the upper  left, bowmen in the upper right, and spearmen levy along the bottom.

These strips are all from Heroics & Ros' dark age and medieval line.

For this army the boy has selected red and gold - he wants to see a force dispatched by House Lannister.  Not a big fan of old George Har Har Martin, but I am a big fan of my son, and the colors are distinct from his green and purple Necromancer King army, so...time to get ready to pay all my debts.

Linear Bust

Finally got around to pulling the caulk based streams and rivers out of the box where they have languished the last few months.

They tore.

Big time.

Not quite sure what went wrong.  Either the caulk was too thin, or you're not supposed to try to separate the caulk from the wax paper, or your're not supposed to use wax paper, or you have to pull them before you spray paint them with a base coat, or any number of other possibilities.  At least the bridge was salvageable.

Back to the drawing board.  Maybe just stick with the bass board basing that has worked well in the past.  Those streams and rivers wind up being pretty tall, but there should be a way to work them into the overall visual design of this terrain.  Stay tuned.

Linear Features, Step One

Before we kick off the second matched army for Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames, let's take a look at the roads and rivers.  Staples of wargame terrain, I've decided to give the old "acrylic caulk smeared flat and painted to suit" trick a shot.  After careful study of Neil Thomas' thirty scenarios, I figured that a total of 11 pieces of linear terrain should give me everything needed.  That's five straight roads, a crossroad, five straight river pieces, three with crossings.  To get the measurements right, I just divided my drop cloth length by three.  Then, to make sure that my roads and rivers were the right length, I drew out the pieces inside a flat packing box like so:

The drawn out pieces can even be seen through the was paper taped to the box for easy peeling of the dried caulk.  Smear the caulk, and let sit overnight.  This stage took all of twenty minutes including the hard planning.

Here's a closeup of the bridge river crossing and the two fords.  The bridge is a cast metal piece from Heroics and Ros.  It's scaled as 6mm, but in retrospect, I kind of wish I'd gone with the 15mm piece just to have something a little bigger and more visible.

Then work got crazy, and the box stayed on a shelf in the garage for several weeks...More later when I get a chance to peel the caulk up and find out if this is going to work.

Last Knight, In The Bushes...

It is (almost) done.  The undead army for use with Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames rules now has 10 full painted units and can take the field in any scenario.  The last two units of knights just need a protective coat and they can take to the box until the human army is painted up.  And the roads.  And the rivers.  And the town.  But hey, I'm halfway done and it's only a quarter of the way through the year - I'm way ahead of schedule.

Knight 4 on the left with a dark rider leader, and knight 3 on the right with a
second traitorous human captain.

While bushing up the knight bases, I figured why not do a couple of terrain bases and finish off the rest of the army.  Here's a comparison of the woods with and without bushes.

Before - bland.

After - subtle, but a little more character

Left to right: Bows, levy, and man-at-arms.

Second Knights - Things Get Heavy

This second unit of knights for the Army of the Necromancer King is actually his elite mounted shock troops.  The heaviest horses, the best trained knights, and led by the fearsome Horned General, it will play a role in every battle fought by the evil forces of undeath.

This base was a pain in the neck.  First I forgot to add the general and had to scrape off some base sand to make him fit, and then the base warped so bad it broke (you can see the line just to the left of the general). Once it was done, inspiration struck, and I found myself going back to strip off and reapply the bushes to streamline the game a bit.

You see, tracking hits in One Hour Wargames is kind of a pain.  I've never been a fan of hit markers on the table.  It takes away some of the visual appeal.  For these rules that means using a separate card as shown in yesterday's post.  But tracking by unit means you've got to have a readily visible marker on each base.  Painting a marker directly on the base detracts from the visual appeal.  A big old flag on each stand can work, but makes storage harder.  The solution that hit me while shooting ten year old Aussie kids in the face (read: playing X-Box) was to use the bushes.

In the photo below you can clearly see two dark green bushes to the right of the lightly armored knights (on the left side of the photo).  Likewise, the heavy unit (on the right) has just one dark green  bush on their right.  So my roster will have Knight-1 and Knight-2 listed, with the number of bushes signifying which is which. Easy to see, easy to track, and no need for delicate flags or weird colored bases to separate them.

I like my numbering like I like my wargame rules like I like
my women - elegant, easy, and you only need a few d6's to play them.

As promised earlier in the week, here's a slightly better shot of the first set to be painted.  As you can see, they are not as heavily armored, and don't dress their lines and lances with the same rigor.  The two marker bushes to their left (on the right in the photo) are also more visible.