"1 hour wargames. Best period?" Topic

Another 1HW thread, sorry, but no idea where else they'd go (and I don't want to join a bunch of mailing lists just now).

So of the periods in the book ,which did you think fit best and which did you think were less of a good fit?

I play SYW. It works well enough, but it needs a bit differentiation as it is geared towards the napoleonic era than the century before.

I found it works fine for 18th century. Just ignore the optional rule for squares.

Apart from the WW2 rules which I think need a fair bit of tweaking, from what I have seen it seems to work reasonably well for all the other 8 periods. A pity that the Pike and Shot era are not more geared to the ECW, but I think someone has done an ECW variant?

I've only tried the ACW so far – and it felt a bit stilted. Going to have another go with Ancients.

I've used them for ECW, they made for a fun game. I did add few extra troop types. No added complexity but added variety.

We did medieval, ww1 and ww2. ww2 felt pretty wonky, medieval worked great (but our bases were too small). WW1 worked really well, I thought.

Going to try ACW or FPW tonight.

We've twice done WWI(early East Front) and ECW (English vs Scot). All games were quick, believable and enjoyable. We plan to do the Rifle and Sabre next.

I just realized that I have no idea where my old stash of French and Prussians went.

I guess I will have to make do :(

Have done Ancients, Medievals and Pike & Shot – liked all of them

I have to imagine the best is one other than ACW.

My son and I had a couple of games of Dark Age. Works well enough but the rules are a bit underwhelming. I could see how the 18th century would work a bit better.

We did a quick battle of ancients tonight (just writing "Infantry" on the wood base, since I have almost no figures for that sort of thing).

Worked pretty well, and it did give a sort of "quick view" of an ancients battle.

Ancients, Eighteenth Century, Napoleonic and WW1, all fine (extended WW1 to SCW), WW2 needs a fair bit of work.

Of all of them, Ancients seems the most convincing out of the box.

Although the rules are a bit rough in places, it is the whole package which makes it entertaining. Having such simple rules means you focus on the nuances of the scenarios.

I'd urge New players to move beyond the first few scenarios, some of them require much cunning thought and heart breaking choices.

Ancients seems to be fine and Medievals worked for me too. Have not tried the rest.

Any period in which armies line up in formed close order units and slug it out.I don't see OHW working so well where there is a great deal of tactical flexibility, such as modern warfare, but I don't play such periods anyway so stand to be corrected by those who do!

Our favorite so far is Horse and Musket. We invariably use Seven Years War armies and don't use squares.

We played Dark Age one evening. It short and brutal, seemed right.
Pike and shot wasn't bad at all.
Rifle and Saber was OK too.
American Civil War is OK, not great.
Machine Age (WWI) was OK, didn't really get our interest.
WWII needs a fix. The side with 2 mortars will murder the side that doesn't have 2.

Just checked. It's only a 1 in 6 chance of getting 2 mortars. But when I did, the other side was toast. And I think I could have made better use of them.

Yeah, in our one ww2 scenario, 2 mortars meant a pretty clear victory, even though the enemy was defending a town.

This might not be in keeping with the philosophy of the rules, but is there any differentiation between infantry types? For example, if I was playing ancients, would there be any difference between, say, Gallic foot (light infantry) and Roman legions (heavies)? I take it that there wouldn't be. With that in mind, are the rules only useful for armies that are pretty close to each other in terms of equipment, training, etc.? I'm just curious.

Daryl – By default there's generally not.

Each period gives 4 unit types so for ancients its Infantry, Skirmisher, Archer, Cavalry.

You could easily add that in (and borrow from another period) or just figure it comes out in the wash (maybe 1 unit is 200 romans but 300 barbarians or some such).

That's all I needed to know. Thank you, Weasel! The idea of each unit representing different numbers of fighters (which could translate to figures--just for the right look) is a great one.

Each period has 4 types of units. You need 10 for each side though no more than 6 will appear in any game.
For Horse and musket, you need 4 infantry, 2 artillery, 2 skirmishers and 2 cavalry. A die roll determines what shows up for your game.

ACW = 4 infantry, 2 elite infantry, 2 artillery, 2 cavalry.

WWII = 4 infantry, 2 mortars, 2 AT guns, 2 tanks. You get the picture.

We've used the Horse and Musket rules exclusively for Napoleonics with a few tweaks for elite units, command etc. We will probably use the same set for Malburian and 7YW, again with some tweaks to give some flavour.

Daryl – WRT Romans v Gauls you could pinch ideas from NTs other books and give the Gauls +1 for the first clash then -1 thereafter to show the initial, but unsustainable, ferocity. Remember to +1 again if one of them is carrying a menhir…

Jefthing, that's an excellent tip--a simple way to add more flavour. The point on menhir-wielding warriors is well taken; I take it if there is a druid on the board with a cauldron it should be +2?

Many thanks!