Planning a mini campaign and AWI battle

While I’m reasonably happy with my SciFi house rules (based on One Hour Wargame format) they are not on a gridded table. So I will be continuing to play with the non-gridded rules while thinking about how to convert them to a 12” grid to fit in with my existing SciFi terrain and table.

A couple of posts back I mentioned I had read “The Solo Wargaming Guide” and now want to set up a mini-campaign. I tried a solo campaign back in May 2015 (see featured post) which was a simple ladder campaign which worked out well. I now want to plan something similar between Space Marines and Imperial Guard vs. Necrons, but I want to add I little bit more variety with the types of battles. The campaign ideas in "Operation B WW2 rules" by Old Trousers (link to blog here) look pretty nifty in the way it uses the one-hour war-game scenarios and will provide the variety I'm looking for. I just need to do a little bit of work creating a campaign narrative to a galaxy in the grim dark future.

When selecting the forces for a campaign battle I be using the following steps.

1. Both sides select 12 units (troops, non-troops and characters)
2. Roll an average dice (2,3,3,4,4,5) and add 5 to determine the number of units to be involved in the battle
3. Based upon the commanders capability (poor, average, good) a number of units can be guaranteed to be part of the battle (poor selects 1, average 2 and good 3). Set the selected units aside.
4. Use a deck of playing cards to determine which of the remaining units are to be used up to the number determined in step 2 (including those units set aside by the commander). If 5 units are to be selected from 8 units, select 5 red and 3 black cards from the deck, shuffle and assign to the 8 units. Those with red get to the battle in time.

Of the remaining units the commander can select 1 to be emergency reserves which can be called upon should to swing the battle in their favour. The use of emergency reserves can only be called upon once during the campaign.

I'll be writing more on this in the coming weeks as I progress.

American War of Independence Game

Yesterday I managed to squeeze in an AWI game. No real planning behind the game, other than the American commander was asked to defend both the town and hill. Two sets of entrenchments were available on the hill to help with the defence.

The British Arrive

The American line was spread too thin with no reserves to support the centre. Not that I spotted this when setting them up. The British attacked the centre of the line and after a few turns and losses on each side, the American forces were split in two, those defending the town and the rest static on the hill. (The rules require units in entrenchments to remain static.) 

British advance on centre of American line

The small wood on the British left flank defended by some light infantry was enough to hold off an attempted flanking attack by American skirmish units supported by cavalry.

British troops breakthrough the centre - splitting the American line

With taking hold of the centre British forces were able to assault the hill from the flank, while bombarding the town with their artillery. The American commander chose to retire at this point to avoid further losses.

Grenadiers supported by light infantry assault the hill defences

The restricted movement of line infantry and command ranges make it essential to give more thought to the initial set up of forces. Something I didn't do when setting up the game. Having had a break from AWI gaming I was able to re-read the rules with a fresh pair of eyes. I noted down a number of typo and grammar errors, but no real rule changes. I have updated the rules with the corrections I spotted and reloaded them (link at top right of blog page).