This is my condo/travel friendly version. The blocks spin to show losses along the edge. For travel it fits in a 20mm thick plastic document carrier. Takes up very little table space, roughly 18x12".
Scenario 2 Arita Castle 1517AD at set-up.
I'm learning GMT's The Battle for Normandy (2nd Edition) and it feels like there's a lot of little exceptions like this:
Stacking limit is six, except for 'some CW (Commonwealth) units' with a stacking value of 4. In which case the unit may stack with an infantry battalion supplied from the same division HQ, for a total of 7 stacking points. While still learning, that feels like an awfully specific exception.
There's even an optional rule directly below that this exception should only come into effect from August.
Coming from the more euro world of boardgames, this is a totally different approach to rules.
My question: do you like or dislike these kinds of exceptions?
My current instinct is they risk a whole lot of headache for not much additional theme. I guess the Commonwealth forces got really good at combined arms? Is that what I'm supposed to take from that?
Or is this something you just get used to, and embrace as part of the format?
Edit: I guess I'm asking if there are simplified or 'core' rules available for this game. I would like to know what is the central stuff I need to keep, and what I can jettison for the sake of getting it on the table.
A Pragmatic War: The War of the Austrian Succession 1741-1748, 2019, Compass Games.
One of four, soon to be five games using the No Peace Without Spain! (NPWS) system, A Pragmatic War might be the easiest entry into the system in terms of rules overhead, though it is out of print at the moment.
The others are:
No Peace Without Honor! (The Franco-Dutch War of 1672-1678)
Nine Years: The War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697)
No Peace Without Spain! (The War of the Spanish Succession 1702-1713)
These last three can be strung into one big campaign game encompassing all of the Wars of Louis XIV, The Sun King.
Forthcoming and currently a preorder:
No Peace For Thirty Years! (The Thirty Years War 1618-1648)
The entire series is card driven (two decks, one for events, one for actions). Turns are annual. The game uses point movement, as you can see above. It does a great job of capturing the somewhat formal nature of war during the height of fortification building (the age of Jomini), with securing and besieging fortresses being a necessary prerequisite to moving forward.
I bought this from a seller on the BGG marketplace to complete the four games in the series. Not sorry I did. It's a good simulation of the war, and a fun game besides.
For those wondering how Caen was taken, here are screenshots of the British Turn 01 moves.
As you can see, the Germans filled Caen with units, but did not pay enough attention to its flanks. They also did not grasp the rule that ZOCs do NOT extend across Major River hex sides. This oversight allowed the Brits to get a big stack next to Caen, plus a Canadian unit behind Caen, thereby cutting supply to the four units in Caen: two units of the 21^(st) Pz, one unit of the 12SS and a Tiger battalion. Come the Attrition phase, all of these units lost 1 Step.
As the German was unable to get them back in supply during Turn 2, they all lost another (and final) Step during that turns Attrition phase. Caen falls without a shot.
Lesson from hindsight? Don’t overfill Caen – one unit in each hex, and use the others to protect its flanks.
This is our first crack at this game, so lots of lessons being learned.
I recently opened an old box game (from the 1980's) that has recently been updated in a magazine game.
The game includes 6 chits (1-6) The game rules say to pull a chit to determine CRT results.
It is an elegant process/solution that I would have never considered.
There are times when I need to be quiet and don't want to roll a dice or maybe I'm on the road and forgot dice.
There are always dice apps but I tend to stay away from electronic devices as much as possible.
Create six pieces of paper and number them one to six. Easy.
Talk about old school!
Hi All. I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole to see what was out there in terms of browser-based hex-and-counter wargames. Here are some I found:
Battle for Moscow (obviously)
Bridgehead: 1944
Assaye 1803
Hohenfriedeberg
Take That Hill!
Art of Battle 2
Waterloo Campaign 1815
Unconditional Surrender! WWII in Europe (via BGA)
Memoir '44 (via BGA)
Hex: 1900-1999 (in Portuguese)
Four Star General
Broken Arrow: Ia Drang
1914: The World Undone (trilogy)
Operation Nightfall
SGW Hexagonal Wargame
Operation Brevity
A number of these games are on itch.io and at different stages of development -- some fully operational and some with just scaffolding. What are your favorites?
Has anyone just taken Google Earth images at whatever your preferred scale is, modify any colors/saturation you want, then drop a hex overlay on it, and send it off for printing at 24"x36" or whatever?
I know they wont be... pretty or as purely utilitarian as classic wargame maps, but as a quick way to get more maps quickly, it would work, right?
The Dark Summer Campaign Game
Turn 2 – Jun III
The weather for this week was Rain. Bugger. The Germans are happy, the Allies less so. Allies are limited to 1 Move + 1 Attack (British) and 2 Moves/Attacks (Americans). The Germans get their usual 2 Moves and 1 Attack, plus three Reaction chits.
The Brits take the initiative, and play a Move chit to properly encircle Caen, and start pushing East. That is followed by a German reaction, then a German Move, then a German Combat. Not what the US wanted at all.
The Germans raced reinforcements north and east to fortify St Lo, Carentan and a line towards the British sector. They also weaseled out of a couple of potential kessels…
The US pushed northwards towards the Cherbourg peninsula; progress is slow but steady.
South of Caen, the German player tries desperately to free two units of the 12 SS Panzer Grenadiers. They attack outwards, while a fairly weak rescue force attacks from the outside. Three attacks all up during the turn – three 1’s rolled. The 12SS is doomed.
In the north east, three regiments of the 49^(th) Div attacks a stack of relatively weak German infantry units. The result is an exchange – the Germans lose 4 Steps, the 49^(th) Div must match it, and is pretty well gutted.
At the end of the turn, German units isolated in Bayeaux, Caen and Isigny-sur-Mer are eliminated in the attrition phase.
Losses for the Turn are (for the Allies) 1 regiment from the 49^(th) Inf DIV. For the Germans, all three KG of 12 SS , 101 SS Panzer Battalion (Tigers), 2 KG of 21^(st) Panzer, 2 KG from Lehr, plus assorted Battalions from the 352^(nd), 711th and 716th Divs.
Brits are quite pleased with their progress, as they can see lots of open space south east of Caen. As the US, I am a bit less happy – fighting through bocage is difficult and costly. I have less opportunity to quickly flank.
Still, the odds for decent weather are good for turn 3. The rain chit is gone, so we only have to worry about pulling the storm chit….
We are still coming to terms with the rules. Supply is far more critical than in games like Normandy 44. In TDS, supply is checked upon movement and combat (both attacker and defender). OOS units attack and defend at half strength. If a unit is out of supply in the Attrition phase, it loses a step. Caen itself was taken through attrition – the Brits never actually attacked the units in it.
A retreating unit cannot go through an enemy ZOC (unless there is a non-retreating friendly in that hex). If it can't retreat, it is eliminated. Ouch. So, we are always looking for encirclement opportunities.
Next week, Turn 3. I might pour a libation for Poseidon in the hope he keeps the storms away…
EDIT: When I wrote this the images were way smaller. I'm sorry that Reddit makes all the images super huge.
EDIT EDIT: I made this into a PDF that is easier to read. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eQ5CYTCj7p8FLkBGRQoB5ZIVTbkQoFD4JEgFiYdJMAQ/edit?usp=sharing
Look, I know I'm not actually a chit or counter or whatever that is, alright? The scary voice in the sky says we will get there soon, but he wants me to explain something.
Okay he says to show you this square thing so you can be a bit patient.... Okay I guess?
Apparently this will make you happy? I don't get it.
Okay, so my name is Pyotr. A lot of things about me are not important, I'm just the poor guy stuck trying to explain something to you.
Some really fancy German guy like 200 years ago or something, said that war is "politics by other means", hence the name of this "system".
I'm told this is a "alternate history / near future" system for "people who like geopolitical Tom Clancy thriller things". The original ruleset is from some company, but it has holes in it and you can't patent rules, and maybe the system will be heavily revised, who knows.
He also tells me you only need to read one page of the original system to play and the original rules are only like 15 pages.
Oh wow, Microsoft paint is really compressing and distorting images today... Nevermind that. All you need to know is that in this "system" the average unit is a platoon and the average hexagon is 125 meters end to end.
The voice in the sky says it's for math reasons and something about "I looked at like 7 systems, just give me a break dude".
Now he is telling me we need to move onto the "counters" or "chits".
Okay so first things first, each chit normally, in the most basic version of the rules, can do like one of three or four things a turn. One of them is move and another is attack
You roll 1d10 to attack.
The firepower stat is added to your 1d10 roll and the enemy piece, subtracts their cohesion from that number.
So for example, on average, about half of 1d10s are 5 or better.
Which is 15 vs 15 or more than 15 vs 15
If you die or exceed the enemy's cohesion, you make them "disrupted".
But I think we should just say they are "suppressed", as that's what a lot of people and systems call it.
Suppressed
Disrupted unit can't move, they shoot with half as many attacks, and if get hit again, they instantly die.
The voice in the sky says that he did a bunch of math on a marker board and found that the introduction units in the original system, demonstrate the math quite well, and meet his expectations for what a "wargaming" "system" should be like.
Funnily enough, my platoon actually has very similar, if not identical stats. So let's use me and the boys.
A manpower is about 10 guys and each manpower gets 1 attack.
So you might notice that the attacks and ranges are at "Medium". For me and the boys, that is about 2 hexagons out or past 200-250 meters.
It's because we use 500 meter weapons, such as the AK-74 (effective range).
You might've noticed, that at Medium Range, if we shoot at clone of ourselves OR a counterpart, and they're not in cover, we Suppress them half the time.
Half the time we do nothing.
And here is the crazy thing
Destroyed Manpower
If anyone exceeded our Cohesion by 6, say they somehow got a 21, we lose 1 manpower, or half of the boys.
But, you can't do that on a 1d10, if you're shooting us, at Medium Range, and a clone.
So as long as we don't get hit twice, we avoid getting too close, and avoid being ambushed, we don't just instantly die.
Compared to Voice's (Designer's) Favorite System
In the designers favorite system, let's call it "47", the math for Suppression is the same, but we can't do anything at all if we're Suppressed the next turn, AND at Medium Range there is a 37.5% chance we lose half the boys instantly.
I'm not a fan.
You might be wondering why the Range and firepower for "Short" isn't labeled.
It's because, you see, each hex is 125 meters end to end and our Short Range is almost exactly 125 meters.
And we're a platoon that is spread out over the middle part of a hexagon.
So the distance between one platoon and another is 50% over 125 meters and 50% under 125 meters, and the designer made a call.
Needless to say, we have +5 to our Firepower if we get closer or charge or shoot while running, the next hex.
But we only move 50 meters a turn, because the original wargame wasn't meant to use hexs. The voice in the sky made it into hexs, because of logistical and ease of play reasons.
A lot of wargames would just put our Medium Range at 75 to 150 meters, but this one system with *checks notes* "Imperial guardsmen" has units move 1/4th the distance they can shoot out to.
And I'm told that system has a lot of melee, perhaps too much.
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Designer here, I wasn't sure how to introduce this system or if I should or if it would be a waste of time, but IDK, I gave it a shot.
Worst case, I make this into a PDF and share it with some friends, IDK.
The parent system provided some numbers and charts, and with that, plus looking at the definitions of unit quality levels in like 5 other wargames, I can stat tons of IRL units or stuff from Command and Conquer, or alt-hist or Near-Future games like that.
I honestly wanted to put that forward, but I was torn, and decided to do this instead.
Hope more people like this than hate this format?
