Morris' Wargaming Escapades

I will list some of my favorites in the fantasy genre and highlight a video from each one. A big caveat is that I prefer miniature agnostic and indie games, so this list must have the disclaimer *excluding Warhammer. I know there are fabulous Warhammer channels out there with high production values and millions of viewers. Good for them! This post complements my recent post about the best produced historical wargaming channels on YouTube . Skirmish Wargames . Wonderful and plentiful selection of indie games recorded with close-ups, voiceovers, fixed cams. Highlight : This Fear and Faith battlerep is hilarious and frightful at the same time. Gray Army Gaming .  High production values and interesting skirmishes. Highlight : I love his videos using the ultrasimple rules One-Hour Skirmish Wargames, such us this fictitious (for the moment) Defending Ice-Island . The Fantasy Skirmisher . Highlight : This  Sellswords & Spellslingers linked campaign is quite an eyeful and showca...

By well produced I mean having some of these elements: fixed or steadied cam, close-ups, dramatics cuts, VFX effects, overlays of rule mechanics, good banter, etc. Of those that I have seen, these are the ones I've enjoyed the most. I will highlight one video from each, If you have other favorites, please feel free to add them in the comments.  Compact Conflicts TV . Highlight: Their two hours  New England Wargame Campaign  is for me an archetype of a well-run campaign. It has land battles, naval battles, intrigue, diplomacy, scouting, role-playing, spies, uniform larping.  The Crusty Colonel's Wargames Show. Highlight: The Battle of Austerlitz  done in 2mm with a homebred variant of 2x2 Napoleonics called Sacre Blue  is a joy to behold and an ode to streamlining. Minis, My Way. Highlight:  Ottoman-Venetian naval battle using Galleys & Galleons. Hard to produce a more gorgeous naval report.  7th Son : Highlight: this   La Haye Saint...

This is the report of the first month of upheavals and the first decisive battle fought in the Peninsula. I'm using these rules: Campaign Rules: Domino Theory Campaign from No End in Sight (Ivan Sorensen). This campaign motor was intended for the Cold War, but it works perfectly for any conflict that has a strong ideological component like the Napoleonic Wars. It works on the basis of two tables. Each turn there are two random rolls, one in the Spread of Ideology table and another in the Spread of Order table . To these rolls a third is added depending on the outcome of that month's main battle. A very clever system by a designer notorious for rules such as Five Parsecs From Home. Tabletop rules: Simplicity in Practice by Neil Thomas (house rule: +2 for each melee factor, not +2 dice) Situation at the onset Simplified map of the Peninsula The numbers in each region represent Alignment. Positive numbers stand for Susceptibility to revolutionary ideals and the negative ones ...

 It has been discussed to exhaustion how these medieval rules were a crucial influence in the genesis of Dungeons & Dragons. This is not the purpose of this post. I will focus on its virtues strictly from a wargaming perspective as a mass battles ruleset.  Chainmail contains a variety of rules. I will only discuss point 1 in the following list: Medieval mass battles rules Siege rules. Man-to-man (skirmish) medieval Jousting rules Fantasy additions to mass battles rules and sieges It is history of gaming how Dave Arneson meshed 3 with 5, added  Hit Points and created the concept of RPGs. There is plenty of books and articles discussing this. On the contrary, I will highlight 3 sub-systems of the mass battles rules that I think deserve more attention. WEATHER  This table in my opinion is pure genius. So simple, dynamic and elegant. It can be overlaid into any ruleset. I would only add perhaps the possibility of mist (reduced visibility) in the cloudy table. O...

I wanted to test a ruleset from the classic magazine The Courier called Showdown (n. 71, 1996). These Old West skirmish rules were designed by Samuel D. Campbell and, in short, they are amazing. More on how they work after the battlerep.   Father Morrison and Miss Brodie, the schoolmaster, flank one of the most 'advanced' pupils, Tress Hollister. They have rushed to the entrance arms in hand. The school is next to the ruins of and old hacienda This evening they sense something ominous out there Three ne'er-do-wells are near the grounds. 'Graybeard', 'Whitebeard' and 'The Deserter' Do they intend to drag the girls back to the darkness of Saloons? In this game I just control Tress Hollister. The other figures, friends and foes, are managed by the rules solo system Miss Brodie, though severely wounded, kills Graybeard. No one messes with her protegees.  Tress is behind cover, but she is rushed by The Deserter He fires point blank and wounds her Father ...

  Divide the terrain (and thus the mechanical opponent army) in 3 sectors (usually this will be right, centre and left). Draw a card for each sector and place them outside the mat, next to the opponent baseline as a reminder and guideline for its actions.      SPADES: Defensive posture, reorganize (fallback even), do not help adjacent sectors. Mnemonic: spades are used to dig-in. HEARTS: Defensive posture and, if needed, help adjacent sectors by transferring units there*. Mnemonic: these comrades-in-arms have a heart of gold. DIAMONDS: Probing posture, measured attack. Help an adjacent sector with attack orders if the attack is already underway there or more favorable than an attack in this sector. Else attack in this sector (precede the attack with attritional actions). Mnemonic: diamonds cut, but with precision. CLUBS: All-out attack in this sector. Mnemonic: use a heavy club to batter the enemy.  Each mechanical opponent turn roll a die: if a 6 is rolled, ch...

 * Get my Napoleon in Egypt Campaign going. I've got the campaign map hanged on the wall (see below) plus enough Wofun miniatures for the French, British, Mamelukes and the two Ottoman factions. What am I waiting for? The Directory is not happy with this delay in launching the expedition. Stop studying the map at the Topographical Bureau and get to sea!! * Paint enough  Black Powder Epic Battles  strips to have at least 9 units for the French and 9 for the British. * Consolidate all my house-rules for Simplicity in Practice in a document (I love this ruleset! Pure alchemy achieved by distillation by Neil Thomas). * Maybe? get into naval wargaming in the Napoleonic Era. I have been looking at old rulesets that appeared in MWAN such as As per Margin  by Aelred Glidden (MWAN 109), and the simple rules in Donald Featherstone's Naval War Games by the likes of Tony Bath. Also very tempted by the idea of converting the SPI boardgame Fighting Sail (1981) to t...

 My Christmas game used Simplicity in practice by Neil Thomas on a 2'x2' mat. Rules mostly as written and two Wofun bases per unit (6 cm wide). A new houserule I used is that if a unit is firing uphill, the target gets to save as if in cover. I got this modifier from an old ACW ruleset called Whipping Bobby Lee (1990), and I think it makes sense given the ballistics of musket and cannon fire. It also encourages taking positions on heights. Nevertheless, it is uncommon to find this modifier in rulesets.

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 See Battlereps HERE Showdown  by Samuel D. Campbell (Skirmish ACW, Old West) — The Courier #71. See Battlerep HERE 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 ...

 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...

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...