Morris' Wargaming Escapades

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 ...

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...

 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 like most. It was published in Lone Warrior #110. It may be found with some ...

  Quite an event in solo wargaming: the recent release of the 2nd version of Adjutant Introuvable (AI).  Even after a cursory glance, there's no denying this is one of the most carefully considered and thought-out solo systems around.  LINK