Orks for Orktober

Having a bit of a break from the WW1 games with one-hour wargaming. I'm really enjoying the rules they work well for the period. After numerous modifications, tweaks and play testing, taking a break from the house rule additions will allow me to view them with a fresh when I return to them in a week or two.

WW1 game in progress using OHW Machine Age rules

So as its October, I'm having a few games using my grid based sci-fi house rules using my Orks. In my first game I had to read the rules a bit to remind myself about the last changes, and in the process spotted quite a few typo's. I'll have to update them with all my scribbles on corrections. Having played quite a few One-Hour Wargames (OHW) I will, as I play, be looking at rule areas I can simplify or streamline.

Space Marines vs. Ork Battle for "Orktober"

WW1 OHW Battle Report

This game was used to try out some of the recent rule additions for the game clock, barrages and tanks. The setting is an assault in 1918 on two German held towns and overlooking hill by British forces. The assaulting side was set three objectives:

1) Capture the two towns in the centre and on their left flank
2) Take on hold the overlooking hill behind the centre town
3) Capture the bridge on the right flank.

A sketch of the battlefield and objective order

The attack was to commence at 5:40am with dawn at 7am, and provide 1 hour 20 minutes of game time where visibility would be 12". The attack would be proceeded with two barrages, one preliminary barrage at zero hour attacking the entrenched units, and the second box barrage behind enemy lines attacking there communication lines. The result of barrage on the communication lines was to delay all reserves by 1 hour and add +1 to the German resupply difficulty calculation.

Aircraft support is increased between 9am and 11am for the British and will appear to strafe and bomb on a 4+ dice roll.

All German reserves would roll to determine which road they would enter the table on (1-3 at point A and 4-6 at point B).

German defence force

On the table: 2 x infantry, 4 x heavy infantry (additional machine guns), 2 x pillboxes, 1 x field artillery, and 1 x field howitzer.

Reserves within 1 hour (plus any delay due to attacks on communication lines): 2 x heavy infantry, 1 x field artillery and 1 x field howitzer.

Reserves within 3 hours (plus any delay due to attacks on communication lines): 1 x heavy tank detachment and 1 x Strumtroppen unit.

British assault force

Wave 1 arriving at zero hour: 2 x heavy infantry, 4 x infantry, 2 x heavy tank detachments, and 1 x medium tank detachment.

Wave 2 arriving at +1 hour: 2 x heavy infantry, 2 x infantry, 1 x field howitzer, and 1 x field artillery.

Wave 3 arriving at +3 hours: 3 x cavalry, 1 x armoured car, 1 x field howitzer, and 1 x field artillery.

A game clock was made to track game time from zero hour at 5:40am

5:40am (Zero Hour) - The assault began with wave 1 British forces being placed on the table and calculating the effects of barrages on the entrenched units and communication lines.

5:40am wave 1 arrives with tank support

6:30am - The British forces advance on objective 1 the two towns in the centre and left flank. One tank detachment was delayed to to mechanical difficulties (they rolled a 5 on the average dice roll for movement).

7:10am - With dawn lifting German artillery placed on the hill behind the centre town were able to add their firepower to the attacks on the advancing British troops.

Wave 1 assaulting the towns with wave 2 just appearing

7:40am -  The assaults were progressing well and weathering the fire from the defences. Tank units were used to clear a path through the barbed wire and overrun the entrenched German infantry. While behind the British second wave arrived to support the attacks on the towns. The German reserves arrived, delayed by 1 hour from the barrage on communication lines, two infantry and a howitzer arrived at point A and one infantry and field artillery arrived to strengthen defences around the bridge.

The Germans counter attacking on the British left flank

8:10am - The left flank town is captured and German defences retire from centre town after an assault. A counter attack is be prepared on the British left wing as German reserve units move up.

British units force the defenders out of the centre town

8:50am - Germans attempted to recapture the centre town where some of the supporting British units are forced to retire with 13+ hits. (A new rule where units in the open with 13+ hits must retire a  an average dice roll each time they have more hits.) Meanwhile, British artillery moved into position to support their troops against any counter attack in the centre.

British forces push on from the centre town towards the bridge

9:20am - Both sides were starting to lose units in the fighting around both towns. The British were starting to put pressure on the Germans in the centre and towards the bridge, while the two heavy tanks moved on the hill, their second objective.

10:00am - As German unit loses were mounting and the bridge looked like being lost, but last minute reserves arrive in the form of an AV7 heavy tank. On the left flank a battalion of SturmTroppen arrived to support the defence of the hill. British casualties were rising with the loss of a heavy tank and infantry units were being forced back due to accumulated hits.

The bridge is secured for the Germans with the arrival of the AV7 tank

10:40am - The last British tank was destroyed attacking the hill, while on German counter attack on the British left flank was in full swing and forcing them to relinquish control of the town.

The British are forced out of the town by a German counter attack

11:00am - The British were able to reoccupy the left flank town while artillery support helped to nullify the German counter attack.

British regain the town and only one unit made it to the hill

11:20am - While a single British unit advanced to the hill it was countered by the arrival of a Sturmtruppen unit. This marked the end of the game with the British achieving their first objective of the two towns, but failing to take the hill and bridge. Both sides were running out of steam with most  remaining units having accumulated too many hits to carry on with the assault or counter attack.

OHW Machine Age House Rules - Adjustments Continue

While I decide how to paint and base my AWI miniatures. I continue to play a game or two of WW1 using a modified set or Machine Age rules from One Hour Wargames. During these games the opportunity to tinker with the rules is hard to resist. One area which was bothering me was the use of aircraft, and how the rule of having three turns of their use lined up with the game clock. Quite possibly you could have aircraft for two and a half hours. So I've amended the rule for aircraft to arrive just for one turn with greater frequency.

A neutral looking plane used a a marker for the aircraft strafing rule

The other rule I amended is about limiting what units can do when they exceed 12 hits. (Note - the house rule has 18 hits before a unit is eliminated.) Having units hold out to the bitter end in the open without giving up ground didn't seem right. So units with more than 13 or more hits cannot assault, and if in the open will automatically retire each time they acquire any more hits. The number of inches they retire is determined by an average dice (2-3-3-4-4-5) role. Units in cover do not need to retire.

Anyway, the rule details are in the downloads - found top right of page.

AWI project with some old Peter Laing miniatures

I finally managed to dig out my old Peter Laing American War of Independence (AWI) miniatures which haven't seen the light of day for some 30 years. I plan to paint them up as my next project. There seems to be a reasonable spread of figures 300-350 on a rough count and 7 guns, although I may be a bit light on for cavalry.

All the AWI figures

Only 12 cavalry figures

7 Artillery pieces plus 5 complete limbers

Only 10% have been painted so along with deciding how I will paint these, I'm now looking around for some free rules to use of tinker with and amend. The choice will influence how the troops are based along with the available figures.

As I work through finding rules and painting, I'll continue with play testing my house rule additions on the One-Hour Wargaming WW1. Next I'll think about a mini-campaign.

WW1 rules updated

Yesterday I was able to update the WW1 house rules based on One Hour Wargames. The link is on the right hand side of the page if interested. I am finding the rules provide an enjoyable game often over within 40 minutes to an hour, given I've doubled the table size and number of troops from the original One Hour Wargaming rules.

My one (minor) frustration is not with the rules themselves, but with a suitable method for tracking hits on units. At the moment I'm using dice positioned behind the unit to track the hits, which can start to look messy as the game progresses and units accumulate hits.

Use of dice to track hits

So I'm going to use unit labels and a units track their hits on paper to see how that goes.

Labeling units

Continuing to refine WW1 rules

Playing a WW1 game using a 6" gridded table meant I had to drop the variable movement and assault rules. As I quite like those aspects of the rules, after the game I decided not to progress further with migrating the rules to a grid system.

Game in progress using a gridded table

Reflecting on this little foray in to WW1 wargaming, the whole thing started backwards for me. Normally the steps are: 1) being inspired after reading a book, 2) looking for suitable miniatures, 3) paining models, and 4) searching or writing rule sets.

This time I started with finding my 30 year old painted Peter Laing WW1 miniatures and an interesting set of rules ("One Hour Wargames"). So finally, after a visit to the local library, I'm now reading more about the period with "The Western Front" by Richard Holmes. I'm halfway through the book and already I will be trying out rule changes with the introduction of a game clock and weather.

Game Clock
The game clock provides a better narrative to the game when planning and writing up the games in battle reports. A planning example could be:

6:30am - Attack starts with a 30 minute barrage and arrival of the assault's first wave.
7:20am - Wave 2 of the assault arrives
9:30am - Cavalry arrive as wave 3.

For the defence, reserves may be 3 hours away, so would arrive 3 hours after receiving orders.

The way the rule works is at the end of both player's turn an average dice (2,3,3,4,4,5) is rolled and the score multiplied by 10 for the minutes to be added to the game clock. If a 4 is rolled, then 40 minutes is added and the clock moves to 7:10am for turn two.

In turn 1 the defenders would have called for reserves, now due to arrive 10:10am. The assaulting waves cannot arrive until the clock is greater or equal to their expected arrival.

Often with reserves variability is created with rules such as, on 4+ dice roll reserves arrive as planned on turn 4. The game clock creates that variability along with a a more interesting narrative.

I know other rules use this approach. I recall one example the free WW2 rules "Tigers at Minsk".
http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/free-wwii-hex-based-rules.html

Weather
At the present I'm using three weather types: rain, fog and mist. The likelihood based on the time of year.

Of the three rain lasts all day, and fog and mist last for 3 hours from sunrise on the game clock.

• Rain effects visibility, movement and supply difficulty
• Fog effects visibility
• Mist effect visibility to a lesser extent.

At present both these rules are scribbles on paper which I need to write up and update my rules.

Grid Based Machine Age (WW1) Wargame Rules

Having played a few games and modified Machine Age rules (OHW - Neil Thomas) I thought I'd try them with a 6" square grid to see how they played. (No surprise given my choice of blog name.) I'm not sure as the the final grid size and don't want to mark up my playing mat until sure, so I used small felt squares to mark out the table. They seem to adhere well to the mat and don't move about.

Using small felt squares to grid up a Citadel wargaming mat

A gridded table - so far no movement of markers

Key rule changes to movement:
1) Infantry, Artillery and Tanks move 1 square
2) Medium Tanks and cavalry move 2 squares
3) Armoured Cars move 3 squares
4) If starting and finishing on a road add 1 square to move.
All Tanks have to roll 3+ to move and likewise for Armoured Cars when not on a road.

Square Occupancy:
Only 1 large (Infantry or Cavalry) unit per square. Other small (Artillery, Tanks, etc) stands can share a square with a friendly unit. Maximum of 2 units occupying a square.

While playing the game I'll be noting other rule modifications or clarifications relating to the use of squares.