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.

Additional House Rules to OHW Machine Age

Over the last few weeks as I've scratch built a few models to add to my WW1 collection and added new house rules to Neil Thomas's (One Hour Wargames) machine age rules. Here is a quick summary of them.

Armoured Cars

Movement: 9" + score of an average dice. If not on the road, roll a normal dice (D6),  a 1 or 2 means  the armoured car cannot move. This reflects their unreliability.
Shooting: D6-2 hits with 6" range.

Heavy Tanks

Movement: 3" + score of an average dice. Before attempting to move roll a D6, if a 1 or 2 rolled, then tank cannot move. This reflects their unreliability.
Shooting: D6+2 hits with 6" range.

Medium Tanks

Movement: identical to heavy tanks.
Shooting : D6 hits with 6" range.

Pioneers

Must be attach to an infantry unit until used. They take 2 moves to set up a pontoon bridge.

Howitzers

Movement: 3" + score of an average dice.
Shooting: 24" range D6-2 hits with no cover saves allowed, to reflect their shell's high trajectories and steep angle of decent.

15mm WW1 Rolls Royce Armoured Car

Having rebased and painted the few remaining unpainted WW1 (Peter Laing) German miniatures over the last couple of weeks, I've been adding one of two scratch built vehicles. I don't spend too much time on them, I mainly aim to get the look without too much accuracy or detail. This week I added a Rolls Royce Armoured car and some pillboxes.

Scratch Built British Armoured Car

The pillboxes got a tryout in a game using scenario 4, take the high ground, from Neil Thomas's book One Hour Wargames.

Pillboxes help defend a hill

British Forces start their advance on the hill

I may add a few new items to my WW1 models for specific games, but the number of units suits my war-game table size (6'x4'). I am also out of Peter Laing British and German models. There are 3 or 4 French infantry units to paint to add some variety and I need a few more terrain pieces may be required, another bridge comes to mind.