Morris' Wargaming Escapades

In my opinion, these are the best Horse & Musket rules (of those that I've read!) that appeared originally as magazine articles. I rate them mainly for the originality of the ideas presented and playability.  If you have any another favorite, please tell me in the comments. Simplicity in practice by Neil Thomas (Generic Horse and Musket) — Battlegames #23 Rules for the mid-eigtheenth century by Stephen Simpson (Jacobite Rebellion, French and Indian war, 7YW) — Wargames Illustrated #75, with scenarios in #134 The rules with no name by Brian Ansell (Skirmish ACW, Old West) — Wargames Illustrated #105, with optional rules in #106, #114. Also published in MWAN #82 Aelred Glidden's Napoleonic Rules (Napoleonic) — MWAN #87 with clarifications in MWAN #106 Victoria Cross by Gerard W. Quinn (Colonial) — MWAN #105 Our Brutal Rules by Chris Brown and the Thule Gamers (ACW) — ACW Gamer #5 On to Richmond by Paul Koch (ACW) — The_Courier Vol.3 No.5 with clarifications on...

 1. Command Radius . Ok, it may work if there is only one general (like in DBA), but this business of each commander having his own radius as if it is a shouting contest... Wally Simon debunked it long ago better than I could: "There was only one way Kris could maintain control of his entire division, keeping them all within his magical 3 inch radius, and that was to continually scrunch all six units together in one solid mass, cavalry, infantry and artillery [...] There are many gaming ploys that deal with command response functions, systems that supposedly reproduce the difficulties of commanders keeping their forces under their control, and, in my considered opinion, the 'mysterious aura' ploy is probably the worst of them all"  (PW Review May 1999) Guilty party example: Grande Armée. 2. Rerolls . The kind of rerolls that bother me are not those tied to some mechanic but what I call the insert-coin reroll. You start the battle with X rerolls and you may use them wh...

 Reading one of the wargaming pioneers always gets one thinking. This time the book was Terence Wise's  American Civil War Wargaming  (Airfix, 1977). In the rules in this book smoke is simulated and has effects on line of sight and charges. Wise has quite a convoluted system that links smoke movement to a unit's rate of fire (in a way, smoke has a proprietary unit!). What I found really thought provoking is his "Charging through smoke" section that forces a unit to use this fabulous  charge deviation template: Therefore, the unit can get completely lost, charge the wrong unit, expose a flank, etc. How cool! Is simulating smoke worth the time and hassle? Wouldn't it force the players to establish wind direction, strength and changes like in a naval wargame? However, by not doing it, are we not ignoring an important factor that was often decisive? These are the questions that crowded my head. To see if something (relatively) simple could be done, I drafted this quic...

Today being August 15, the birthday of Napoleon, I decided to replay the first position in the battle of Roliça. The gamebook is Mike Lambo's Battles of Napoleonic Europe , but played in the recent spruced up French version. This time Delaborde outdid history and managed to hold the hill, but he died while directing personally an artillery battery. Wonderful solo game with 20 customs AIs tailored to each scenario.  

A variant for Simplicity in Practice (Battlegames issue 23) for the American Civil War FIRING RANGES   Infantry 15 cm Cavalry 10 cm (mounted or dismounted) Artillery 40 cm     RELUCTANCE TO CLOSE-IN All infantry and cavalry units that wish to charge must take a test (Elites +1). Roll a d6: 1. Unit advances half way to the target of the charge, stops and fires with 2 dice. There is no melee. 2. Unit advances half way to the target of the charge, stops and the target tests to see if they retreat 10cm (50% chance, 16.66% for elites and units in cover). There is no melee regardless of the result. 3-6 Charge normally CAVALRY DUAL ROLE Mounted: They act for all purposes as LC in SiP Dismounted: They act for all purposes as LI in SiP, except they cannot interpenetrate. Movement deduction for mounting/dismounting 5cm. Only one change of status is allowed per turn. They may fire in the turn they dismount but with 2 dice (in successive turns 4 dice). LIGHT COVER (rail fe...

A contested river crossing is one of the hardest situations in warfare. I present scenario 5 from the book One-Hour Wargames , but resolved using another Neil Thomas' ruleset called Simplicity in Practice (SiP). For adaptation notes see my first battlerep with this combo HERE .   The objective of the scenario for BLUE is to consolidate a bridgehead north of the river The composition of the armies is: BLUE: 4 infantry, 1 skirmishers, 1 cavalry RED: 3 infantry, 1 skirmishers, 2 cavalry Blue will arrive along the road and Red piecemeal at three random points: west of the woods, on the road and east of the hill.   At the start BLUE has a single unit north of the river: shadowy voltigeurs  have taken the woods. The first RED units show up west of the woods Since cavalry cannot enter the woods, they take a tortuous route around them. Unseen, the lurking skirmishers take aim BLUE cavalry crosses the bridge benefiting from a road move of 30cm.  In a river crossing, Space i...

I played scenario four from the book One-hour Wargames , but resolved the encounter using another Neil Thomas' ruleset called Simplicity in Practice (SiP) that was published in issue 23 of the magazine Battlegames . The adaptation was straightforward: I used the movement distances as printed in SiP on a 2'x2' mat and using 6cm bases (2 Wofun bases per unit).  I only extended slightly musket range to 15cm because many scenarios are built on the assumption of a longer range. Cavalry acts as HC in SiP.   Situation at the start The objective is to control the hill in 15 turns   The die wills that the two armies have an identical composition: 4 infantry units, 1 cavalry and 1 artillery each. The RED army has 2 isolated units.  Can they hold until the relief column arrives? The BLUE general deploys with infantry and cavalry in front of the hill, supported by artillery The rest of the units will try to interdict the relief column by advancing through the woods area RE...