Morris' Wargaming Escapades

In this variant I wanted to capture three things that in my opinion represent ACW fighting well. There are of course other views, but these are fairly standard: At the onset there was a mish-mash of different weapons that evolved during the war. Later on the rifled musket became dominant. The Union tended to have better muskets. Cavalry could fight dismounted. Charges were less frequent.  Confederate cavalry was better until the balance changed later in the war. Lurkers should be given a more skirmishing role (they can shoot).  I use some deployment rules that avoid the effect of skirmishers “teleporting” behind enemy lines and popping up in a forest or BUA. Ambushes are still possible but risky.  DOWNLOAD HERE 

Today I tested my HoTT Napoleonic variant playing a battle of French Vs British with Wofun 18mm miniatures. I used the Solo Tactical Engine uploaded by David Lemon to the file section of the DBA & HOTT Wargaming FB group. It worked great! Before the battle, poor scouting only revealed to the French the presence of  Highlanders in the village. Napoleon deploys with a strong center of  veterans wearing dustcoasts.   ... and a battery strategically placed on the heights.  Wellington chooses a mixed center, allied infantry stiffened by the thin red line... ...and close artillery support... ...which he directs personally. The battle rages on!! Specially in the center and the French right. On the left, conscript units on both sides just stare at each other, The French veterans advance and do not waver when battered by cannon fire. On the British left, 1st Foot infantry advances with Dragoons in close support. The chaps of the 1st Foot face and repel an ambush from v...

Refight the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt with these lists for French Republican armies, Mamluks and Ottomans. It includes some experimental rules for forming square s that may come in handy against unrelenting waves of Mamluks! A new variant for Hordes of the Things (HOTT).   DOWNLOAD HERE         

This file contains in just a page the armies and rules to refight battles in the Waterloo campaign. Some granularity has been added to shooters and lurkers to replicate Napoleonic tactics, troop grades and even national characteristics. Hopefully this black powder adaptation displays (yet again!) the flexibility and fun of the Hordes of the Things rules. The unit types in this file can be generalized to other napoleonic campaigns and even ACW. DOWNLOAD HERE    

 Since DBA 1.0, the rules include a very cool six nations campaign system with provisions for sieges, alliances, reserves, detachments, hidden placement of field armies, etc. The campaign rules can be downloaded for free from the History of WARGAMES RESEARCH GROUP website. This system also appeared alongside the HOTT fantasy rules. After the following map I will list 3 solo engines that have been published for this campaign system to automatically drive the non-player nations.  * Programmed Leaders for DBA Campaigns: an article by P.J. Raper that was published in Wargames Illustrated 84. It uses personalities to automate the decisions of non-player factions. * Programmed Nations in DBA Campaigns. An adaptation of the preceding article. It can be downloaded from HERE . * Solo DBA Campaigning by Ian Duncan. A different system  that uses a deck of cards to control non-player factions. It's the one I will use for my campaign. It was published in Lone Warrior #110. It may be f...

Small Pine Wood from Battlefield in a Box (BB510). Nice and moveable trees to make room for your troops in big battles or you can use the single bases as cover for skirmishes.

 I got 'Wargaming - An Introduction' last week and I've been blow away by the WWII rules contained in this book. This is the best simple-mediumish complexity rules for the period I've seen.  In just 25 pages you get rules, army lists for major combatants and scenarios. The morale rules are a work of genius and you get armor ratings for all the tanks and even rules for paradrops and bicycle infantry. My CRAZY PROJECT for these holidays is doing a conversion of the rules to play them with ASL maps and counters. PS. A common criticism I've seen online about Heavy Weapons (HMG, mortars and anti-tank weapons) being hard to kill fails to account for the fact that they are destroyed with just one hit, so the big save reflects the need to eliminate all the crew.