Last Thursday we tried out Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames, using our Seven Years War figures. Rick used his Austrians and Tom my Prussians. I umpired the first game and selected scenario 12 (of 30 possible), wherein the Austrians guard a bridge over a river when the Prussians discover a ford beyond the Austrian left.
Tom scrambled to get over the ford.
But Rick managed to get enough troops onto his left to blunt the attack. In time he came out on top of a lengthy firefight.
The game took about 11 or 12 turns and perhaps 40 minutes. We broke for dinner. I didn't take any more pictures as I played in the other two games.
I then found my hit markers so we didn't need to mark hits with dice. Tom selected scenario 8, where both sides get reinforced after the game starts, with the Austrians defending. My die roll got me the version of the Prussian army with 3 infantry, 1 artillery and 2 skirmisher units. Skirmishers aren't the strongest unit in the game thought they like rough terrain. There was a woods near the objective hill so I sent the first skirmisher there, where it got shot up by several Austrian units. I pulled it back. My right hook was blunted by the Austrians so I tried a frontal attack on the hill. I had three units, from left to right shot up skirmishers, a fresh line unit and a fresh skirmisher unit. The shot up skirmishers came up against a nearly fresh Austrian infantry unit, my infantry came up against cavalry – rather powerful these are – and my other skirmisher faced Austrian infantry. The shot up skirmishers collapsed, as did my infantry after a second cavalry charge. I threw in the towel. Again it ended before 15 turns were up, at perhaps 45 minutes.
Rick declined to play again, and retired with his laurels from two victories. He picked scenario 11 for us, loosely based on Quatre Bras, except the defending side doesn't get to outnumber the attacker by the end of the game. Tom won the roll for attacker. He rolled the same Prussian mix, 3 infantry, 1 artillery and 2 skirmishers. This normally anemic force made the wood on my left untenable. I had two infantry on the table to start, with another infantry and my cavalry showing up on turn 3 and my remaining infantry and artillery on turn 9. Tom chased me across the field, dealing out hits. He moved his one badly shot up infantry back into reserve. His skirmishers came out of the woods but my cavalry chased them back into the woods, chewing one outfit up pretty badly. They turned and shot up the cavalry, who fell back out of range. The skirmishers tip-toed out of the woods but thought better of it and returned. In the meantime Tom's infantry, backed up by artillery, seized the crossroads, the victory objective. When my final reinforcements appeared on my right flank, I launched the cavalry in a desperate bid to retake the crossroads. They rode down one infantry unit, but the shot up one behind it poured in a volley that dispersed the cavalry. My newly arrived infantry routed the shot up Prussian skirmishers in the wood and advanced towards the crossroads. I figured if all of his units rolled cold dice I just might get back to the crossroads. First his artillery fired and missed. Then his remaining skirmishers fired and missed. Last, his relatively fresh infantry unit rolled a 6 and put my infantry out of their misery. I threw in the towel on the 15th turn, just shy of an hour into the game.
The rules are truly simple, the main trick is to get 2 units firing at 1. It moves quickly and is a chance to get figures on the table. The battles look OK. Basically each unit rolls a die and counts the score as that many hits on the enemy. Some units add 2 to the score, some subtract 2 and others count the raw score. Not everyone's cup of tea but we like the horse and musket version. Some time we'll try out the WWII and perhaps the WWI version.
paints brigs for the British fleet.
