Last night the Corlears Hook Fencibles played a mini-campaign of the Seven Years War using One Hour Wargames rules. It was the eastern theater, with Prussians vs. Russians.
The first game was scenario 4, "Take the High Ground". In essence Paul kept his troops more concentrated than Bill and won a grinding victory in 50 minutes. Pictures of the game follow.
Paul then stood down because he had to leave early. Bill and I rolled to pick a scenario. It was scenario 12 which we have played many times – not bad, but we wanted another. A second die roll got us scenario 10, "Late Arrivals", which we have not yet played. The Prussians start off with 2 units on the table, 2 more showing up on turn 5 and the last 2 on turn 10. I would look like I was coasting to victory until hubris brought me down. Pictures follow.
At this point my camera battery ran low, further punishment for my hubris. Must get another battery today.
Bill now took on Ken for Game 3. It was scenario 17 "Encounter" which sees both sides start with one unit and roll each turn for a 50% chance of another unit. This was also a new one for us. Bill's Russians showed up more promptly than Ken's Prussians. Near the end of the game Ken moved up the hill (objective of the game) and caught a volley from the combined Russian infantry. Rick and I thought he'd thrown the game away but it was not to be. My battery came back to life in time for one picture from the game end.
Ken headed home, as did Bill after a lengthy discussion about the situation in Britain before the outbreak of WWI. Who says we can't stay on topic?
Rick and I squared off for the last game, scenario 21 "Twin Objectives". This was another we'd not yet played. It was simpler than we'd anticipated. The Prussians just ground my Russians down. Pictures follow.
The effectiveness of cavalry against the town garrison will have me hunting through Neil Thomas' other rules for a hint of how this should be resolved. An easy way would be to house rule that cavalry can't attack towns (which also double for redoubts). But that would ignore Melas taking Marengo at the head of dragoons or French cavalry storming the Great Redoubt. We've been avoiding house rules that go beyond clarifying things like firing into melees, but it looks like time for some work to be done.
One Hour Wargames always gives us a light fun evening. But next week we will give our Waterloo scenario (Bloody Big Battles) a test run. We plan on playing it on June 18th and want to work the bugs out before then.
A couple weeks back we played some games using One Hour Wargames Dark Ages rules, with Normans vs. Saxons. I don't recall exactly what happened but here are pictures of some of the games.
The Dark Ages rules worked better than I'd expected. So far our favorites are Horse and Musket (used for Seven Years War), Dark Ages, ACW, Rifle and Saber (1870, etc.). We played the WWII rules one evening. So far my impression is the side that rolls up 2 mortars will murder the side that doesn't. I understand the mortars also represent off-table artillery, air strikes and such. In a game where each unit rolls a die to see how many hits are scored against enemy units (with 15 routing it), being able to call in the fire of two more units is devastating. Perhaps another evening we'll try it again and see if our first impression was wrong. I also look forward to running a tank with two mortars in support. I would not want to face such a combination.