Freewargamesrules

55 Days at Peking Rules

2012-01-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

Here are the rules I used for the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers 55 Turns at Peking.

Rules Download

March Attack - Napoleonic Rules

2012-01-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

Mark Sims from Crusader Publishing has kindly provided me with set of his new Napoleonic Rules for review.

I have in the past played other rulesets from Crusader Publishing, namely Rank and File and Rate of Fire. His previous rules have been fast play rules, nicely presented. I have enjoyed several good games of Rank and File in both the Napoleonic and the American Civil War period. Some of those rules need interpretation and work fine if you have2 like minded individuals who want to play the period. I am aware of rule lawyers who have pulled the rules apart when playing them but that is not in the spirit of the rules as written.

These rules are 78 pages in length and are quite detailed and I thought they were more complicated than I would like, but I was pleasantly mistaken.

The rules are very clearly laid out with a very useful index which really helped on playing the first time. The rules are smattered with Design Notes from the author which gives a good insight to the reader why the mechanisms and decisions made by Mark were made. The rules are very liberally spread with examples of all the core mechanics in the game which really helps with understanding them. These are some of the best examples I have seen in a set of rules.

The rules are designed for games of a Corps a-side. Individual units are represented by 2 bases which represent infantry battalions or cavalry regiments. Although a base size of 40mm is recommended as long as each army is based the same it makes no difference. With units consisting of 2 bases the formations of line, columns and square can easily be represented. A number of units are then formed into a Brigade which in these rules are referred to as a Major Formation (MF).

Each unit then has a starting Combat Value between 1 and 10 depending on the number of men in the unit and their quality. Combat Values denote the strength of the unit (when reduced to 0 the unit is removed) and is used in shooting and melee. A MF has 3 states Steady, Shaken and Spent depending on how many units they have lost from the MF.

The turn sequence is split into 2 phases Strategic and Tactical. Both sides are involved with the Strategic Phase simultaneous and then in turn each side has a tactical phase one after the other.

Strategic Phase
Firstly both sides issue new orders. Once a MF has an order it continues with that order until it is changed. MF have orders of attack, defend, support manoeuvre, bombard, retire, retreat. A CinC has to score 7+ on 2D6 for a new order to succeed with various modifiers. The complexity of the orders is up to the players agreement before the game and the rules state the order writing are guidelines only.

Once MFs have lost 1/3 of their starting units they are subject of Morale tests. Interestingly MF's comprised entirely of cavalry are not subject of morale tests only Infantry or Mixed MFs. Each turn an MF loses a unit after the 1/3 loss and the MF is engaged they must take a morale test. The owner rolls 2D6 adds troop quality and leadership bonuses. This decides whether the MF carries on, retires or becomes broken. Once an MF is broken the other MF's in the Army have to take morale tests.

The next part of the strategic phase is Skirmish Combat. Once infantry or mixed MF's are within engagement distance they conduct skirmish combat. This is the way for skirmishers between the 2 formations to conduct their pre contact skirmishing. Each MF compares their skirmish combat value and subtract the difference. 2D6 are rolled and the effects are applied to the losing unit, this results in hits to the losing formation.

In the next part of the strategic phase both sides attach or detach their leaders to units. This can be handy for morale tests and in melee. It also means they vulnerable to being hit whilst attached to that unit.

In the final part of the strategic phase players roll for initiative. This is a result of 2D6 and bonuses for your Corps commander. The winner decides whether to be the active player or pass it to their opponent.

Tactical Phase
The game then moves to the Tactical phase. Each side will carry out a full tactical phase, followed by the opponent. Then the game returns to the strategic phase.

The tactical phase is broken into 4 parts. Firstly the active side declares any charges, the non active side chooses to react whether it is counter charge for cavalry or form square for infantry. To form a square an infantry has to roll less than their Valeur et Discipline number which is based on their quality. If successful they form square if the fail they stay in their current formation and become disordered. Then all other troops move.

There are 2 types of movement tactical and strategic. A strategic move is further in distance but the moving unit cannot change formation and cannot move closer to any enemy than engagement distance. This allows units to move around the battlefield quicker until they get into combat. Tactical movement occurs if units are within engagement range or if they want to move and change formation.

Next all units from both sides fire, this is simultaneous. The shooting phase is very simple. Each unit has a Combat Value which decreases through the game when a unit is hit. If the firing unit is in line it doubles its CV, other modifiers halve the CV. The firer rolls a D6 adds this to their CV. For each full 6 within the total 1 hit is caused on the enemy for any part or remainder of 6 roll equal or less than that score to cause an additional hit. Each hit removes one from the enemies CV.

Artillery fire works in a similar manner except that the modifiers instead of halving or doubling CV they add to the CV score. Once all firing is complete chargers move into contact and melee is resolved.

Melee is resolved by each side adding the units CV adding modifiers and rolling a D6. The side that loses suffers the result of the difference between the 2 scores. This will result in loss of CV and retirement or breaking of the losing side.

The final part of the tactical phase is the removal of disorder. Disorder can be disorder 1 or disorder 2, this is caused by units being in unfavourable terrain, failing a VeT test or losing a melee. In this part of the phase a disorder 1 is removed and a disorder 2 is reduced to a disorder 1.

At the rear of the rules are all the bonuses for leaders that fought in this period, there are lists for characteristic for the various armies and a 3 page quick reference sheet.

There is also an example of 2 armies from 1815, Prussian and French with a Scenario using these 2 armies in Battle for Plancenoit 1815. Another real bonus is that all the examples in the rules refer to these 2 army lists and the scenario. There is a full run through of this battle to see how the rules work. Finally there are 2 pages of counters.

These rules retail for £6 in PDF format which is an excellent price for such a well produced set of rules. Although at first glance they seem complicated the mechanics are quite simple. In the next article I will give our opinion of them having played the scenario from the rules.

On their website you can view the fastplay sheets, see some sample chapters and the 2 example army lists.

The Courier and MWAN Magazines

2012-01-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

Wargames Vault now has numerous scanned copies of 2 excellent magazines:

The Courier
MWAN

They normally retail for £4.43 but are currently on offer for $1.90 per issue. Each issue usually contains various rule sets.

Light Bikes Rules for Tron

2011-12-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

I was going to write some Light Cycle rules for Tron but found this set for 64 pence on Wargames Vault so for that price I bought them.

Light Bikes

Tron Legacy Bikes

2011-12-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

These Tron Light Cycles are being sold in Poundland for £1 each. So bought myself 9, they are diecast metal.

All I have to do now is write some rules for Light Cycle racing.

Victor Charles Rules

2011-12-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

In the New Year I will be starting a new project where I plan to write a new set of Vietnam War rules. The rules will be written pver a period of time and will be featured on a new blog:

Victor Charles

Visitors to the blog will be able to see these rules develop over several months and maybe even contribute/

PISS - Star Wars

2011-11-27T02:14:00.000-08:00

Paddy and myself have a number of the Star Wars Miniatures Spaceships.

We needed some rules which allowed us to field large numbers of these ships without bogging down keeping track of damage etc etc which other very good rules like Silent Death and Full Thrust do.

So I wrote these set of rules called Pete's Incredibly Simple System (PISS) - Star Wars. They are played on a hex cloth. We use cut down coloured pipe cleaners which we wrap around the base to denote damaged ship (red coloured) and torpedoes fired (blue coloured).

So we remember which ship has moved/fired we place a dice behind it, you can use stone, debris.

These rules are quick and brutal but give a fun game, allowing the players to concentrate on tactics. Taking another ship head on is risk because if you miss or only damage it, they will get an immediate shot back so it encourages side or tailing shots. We also reduced the power of Torpedoes after the first game as they were too powerful.

Download the rules (PDF)

Pony Wars

2011-10-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

A short while ago Si Graham put on a 28mm Pony Wars game using Britannia figures. He had written some rules based on the old Pony Wars ruleset heavily modified to simplify the shooting. Over the course of the weekend we tweaked the rules and had a damn fine game.

Si (aka Little Si) was the umpire, Alan Fleming, Simon Harris (Big Si) and me were the Cavalry.

Alan was in charge of the outpost with orders to hold it until relieved.

Big Si had to send a cavalry patrol out to circumnavigate the table. Here they leave the fort

I had a foot patrol of 10 men who had to try and make it across the table to the main fort.

As you can see the Native Indians soon found my patrol.

With random dice rolls for the Indians you wouldn't think all the Indians would arrive at the same place...there is no such thing as random.

I soon became doubtful I would make it back to the Fort. Big Si meanwhile was ambling around the table outnumbering small groups of Indians and charging them. They natives didn't stand a chance. Alan was also failing to see much action at the outpost.

Things began to look dire for my foot patrol especially when 3 were killed on the first shooting by the Indians.

I fought a bloody battle all the way down the dry river bed.

I was down to 1 man and just managed to scramble back to the fort. By now Big Si was halfway around the table and had just bushwhacked some gun running Mexicans with a little help from a new mounted patrol from me (off to relieve the outpost) and some fine shooting by Alan from the same outpost.

Alan handed the outpost over to me without the lost of any of his troops. I had lost a couple of men riding across the table to it.

I have to report the outpost fell with the loss of all men. So out of my starting 20 troops only 1 survived. Not good odds under my command.

After looting of the outpost there was 1 big battle on the plains.

Alan and Big Si wiped them out with the help of a Gatling gun.

A fun 2 days was had by all and I now wait for my 20mm Pony Wars figures which I have now bought (plastics).

Now the non random dice rolls began happening again. Indians sir..thousands of them all converging on the outpost.

Another couple of patrols left the fort but with each player trying to get as many points each for themselves I soon realised help was not coming.

Ammunition began to run out and there was Indians crawling over the pallisades.

Then hand to hand fighting on the rooftops.

Unfortunately I couldn't hold the outpost and all men were lost.

That means out of 20 men only 1 survived. You wouldn't want to be in my command.

All the photos taken are here.

Zombie Podcast

2011-09-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know I have an unhealthy interest in Zombie related material, my Kindle is just full of zombie novels.

I've now found this zombie podcast. Ideal for playing whilst painting figures....the acting is a bit hammy but then it is a zombie story!

We're Alive

15mm Corridors

2011-08-28T03:20:00.000-07:00

Litko have started doing wooden space hulk corridors in 15mm, ideal for your space games.

Details at:

Litko

I don't need them as I have 3 or 4 sets of the space hulk tiles, goes with my 3 or 4 sets of space Crusades boards....but I'm not a compulsive hoarder

Further Pictures from Peking Game

2011-07-05T09:29:00.001-07:00

Wills Wargaming Blog has lots more photos of the game.

55 Days at Peking - Gauntlet 2011

2011-07-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

A turn by turn After Action Report of the 55 Days at Peking game at Gauntlet 2011
By Pete Jones

“Losing One Legation Is Unfortunate, Losing Two Is Just Careless”

The Legation players were as follows:
United States : Meic (day 1), Jamie (day 2)
Russian : Peter (Day 1), Rich C (day 2)
British : Alan Fleming
German : Garry Hinchcliffe
Japanese : Ian Shaw
French : Richard Baber
Italian : Jamie Crawley
Austro-Hungarian : Richard Crawley (day1), Rich B (day 2)
Umpires: Pete Jones and Will McNally

A report from Peking City by your reporter Pete Jones

1: Following the assassination of the German Minister 2 groups of Boxers appeared in Peking. 1 South of the Fu and 1 South of the Austro-Hungarian Legation. The Coolies refuse to work today for fear of reprisals. Therefore all Legation troops remained within their Legations as they could not build barricades.

2: On the Chinese wall the Germans and Americans received harassing fire to no effect. In the Hanlin 6 Boxers shot at the British Legation and killed 2 Marines, they returned fire and killed ½ the Boxers. The Hospital lost medical supplies so could not discharge any patients. The German Legation was short of food and lost 3 of its men to the Hospital.

3: Things are rapidly going down hill within the City. A new well had to be dug which once again restricted Coolie labour elsewhere in the Legation Quarter. Information was received of an ammunition store west of the French Legation and orders were sent to recover the much needed ammunition. The shooting on the wall continued and armed groups of Boxers now appeared North of the canal and South of the City. 2 Italians ended up in Hospital due to food shortages.

4: Extra water was received in the British Legation this morning but we have no problems here unlike the South of the City. A Boxer mob charged the French Legation but as they came into contact sustained firing wiped the group out. A Boxer group came into contact with the Italian Legation killing 1 Marine and wounding another, but they managed to fight the mob off. The American Legation manhandled their Colt Machine Gun into the street facing north and built a barricade to protect it. Boxer mobs were fought off with combined gunfire from the Russians and Americans.

5: The Japanese sent troops out towards the Fu to help Thornhills Roughs protect the it as the Boxers were now targeting the camp for Women and Children. Shellfire from the Chinese artillery started a fire in the German Legation. The Austro-Hungarian Legation came under Boxer attack and 1 soldier was killed and 1 wounded. A German patrol recovered the ammunition store west of the French Legation as the Boxer mobs approached. The British fire on the Hanlin could not get rid of the Boxer shooters. Fortunately, the Boxers are not very good with the rifles. The Italians send out a couple of troops escorting the Gun Carriage to see if it is any help in the North of the City.

6: A horde of food was found North of the Austro-Hungarian Legation however too many Boxer mobs prevented its retrieval. The Japanese shot many Boxers as the Fu is besieged. Meanwhile in the Austro-Hungarian Legation another melee was fought off at the loss of 2 injured marines. The Russians also had 2 men hospitalised whilst in hand hand to hand with the Boxers. The Hospital was now filling up with wounded which meant a lot less troops are available to fight. The Hospital now catches fire which endangers all within it. This is quickly put out with all Legations supplying water to help.

7: Shellfire starts a fire in the French Legation. Under sustained pressure the Austro-Hungarians partly abandon the South of their compound. The Japanese manage to retake the Fu and combine attacks with the Roughs. Russian troops are dispatched to the American Legation as the fighting becomes fierce. The French attempt to douse the fire but despite all the water the fire spreads. These are desperate times. Looting in Legation Street forces the Germans to send out patrols to protect the civilians.

8: Things are now critical at the American, Italian, French and Austro-Hungarian Legations and at this point the Ministers recall all officers to the British Legation for a conference. Morale drops across the City and this halves the effect of all shooting as the troops who no officers for direction. Whilst the conference is taking place the west wall of the British Legation is mined narrowly missing the Hospital. The Italian Gun carriage reaches the Japanese Legation. The French bring their fire under control preventing the loss of their Legation.

9: Food in the German Legation becomes contaminated and they lose troops to the Hospital. The British lose 1 dead to shooting from the Hanlin which is still occupied. The Italians abandon their Legation under weight of numbers of the Boxers. The Russians and British link up their Legations through the mined wall and build barricades to the North to protect themselves.

10: The Boxers climb over the wall of the Italian Legation and raise the Chinese Imperial Flag. They begin looting and setting the building on fire. The second Legation has fallen. The Italian forward party now occupy the vacated Japanese Legation making this their new base. The Coolies in the US Legation leave in the night fearing the Boxers will breach the wall. The Russians and Americans combine fire and stop the Boxer hordes. The Austro Hungarians recover the much needed food North of their Legation.

11. Reports are received of armed gangs killing civilians in the Mongol Market so the Russians sent a patrol out to help. They lose 2 men killed further down the line as the Boxers are fought off.

Our casualties killed so far are: 3 British, 1 Italian, 2 Russians, 1 Austo-Hungarian and 8 Roughs. In the hospital are 2 Germans, 3 Russians, 1 Japanese, 2 British, 5 Americans. The Hospital has patched up many soldiers already and returned them to the Fight.

12: A new start today perhaps? There is no let up from the Boxers with Shellfire starting a fire in the Japanese Legation which is quickly brought under control. The central stone bridge is damaged by Boxers and Coolie workers are dispatched to repair it. 3 groups of Boxers appear to the East of the Fu. Hand to hand at the US Legation kills 1 and wounds 2 others.

13: Doctors work hard in the Hospital helping to patch up soldiers and sending them to the besieged American Legation who are intense pressure. At both ends of the Chinese wall Boxers mobs appear. The colonial troops are now sandwiched between them. Another American is killed in hand to hand fighting.

14: The West French wall is mined and 1 man is killed in the blast. A gun barrel is found and we name it the International Gun. We gave a gun carriage from the Italians, the Russians provide the ammunition and the Americans have 2 men who are prepared to fire it. Firing at the US end of the wall is ineffective. The British are short of ammo and as 2 groups approach they are helpless. Boxers are at the French barricades and the Japanese barricade by the Fu. They have 1 man killed and 3 wounded as 2 Boxer groups approach.

15: Now the Boxers mine the West wall of the US Legation, fortunately no one is injured. The British receive ammunition just in time. The infiltrators are everywhere. At the German end of the wall sustained firing prevents Boxers reaching their barricade. Hand to hand fighting takes place at the US barricade and 1 American is a casualty. A Boxer mob heads towards the front of the British Legation by the Nordenfeldt gun. The British have 1 killed and 2 wounded but hold the front of their compound. The French lose 4 men outside their barricades but holding their barricade just it is very close.

16: The wooden footbridge which is an escape route for the Japanese from the Fu is damaged and is impassable. Coolies desperately repair it. The Austro-Hungarian officer is hospitalised with heat exhaustion. In the South of the City 4 Boxer mobs approach the Colonial troops. The French lose 2 killed and 1 wounded at the barricades. The Russians take further casualties losing 2 dead and 1 wounded but they hold the North part of the City still.

17: Now the infiltrators mine the Russian West wall, the French fall back to their Legation as the Boxer mobs advance and they have run out of ammunition. Another boxer mob contacts the west wall and a further mob are North of the French Legation they are surrounded on 3 sides with no ammo. The Germans hold the wall whilst a second mob tries to rush their barricade. The Russians drive back all the boxer with 2 well aimed volleys.

18: Disaster for the French they cannot find any ammunition. They fall back from their walls making a second line within their Legation. In addition in the confusion they lose their medical supplies to treat their wounded, disaster is imminent. Another Boxer mob contacts the Russians who have another 1 dead and 1 wounded. The German ramp to the wall is damaged preventing them from sending any reinforcements and more importantly retreating.

19: Ammunition is discovered in the Customs house in Boxer country and the Italians dispatch 2 men 2 recover it. The Japanese in the Fu lose 2 dead and 4 injured as 2 mobs attack them and break into the Fu. In the French embassy as the Boxer climb over the walls the French find ammunition opening fire in volleys killing all the Boxers that enter the Legation a heroic last stand. They survive at the point of defeat.

20: The German ramp is repaired and the soldiers on the wall or no longer cut off. With all the Boxer activity no water can be got from the well in the British Legation. The Hanlin which is still occupied by the Boxers has an ammunition cache but no one can get to it. Its just too dangerous out in the streets. There is hand to hand all over the Legation Quarter and our losses mount 1 dead and 1 wounded French, 1 dead and 2 wounded Germans, 3 dead Americans, 2 wounded British and 1 dead and 1 wounded Russians. The Japanese Legation being held by the Italians falls as the Boxer breach the walls. The Italian officer has now lost 2 Legations resulting in the Response by the Russian Minister of “ Losing One Legation Is Unfortunate, Losing Two Is Just Careless”.

21: Much needed food is found in a Chinese store north of the Russian Legation however due to Boxer activity no patrols can retrieve it. 3 Boxer mobs are attacking the Fu and I don't think it can hold. 2 Italians recover the food west of the Austro-Hungarian Legation but are ambushed by 3 Boxers and wounded. In the Fu there are 9 Roughs left and 4 Japanese and its time to abandon it. They head for the British Legation, strength in numbers. The Americans lose another 4, 1 killed and 3 wounded, we don't know how much longer they can hold. The British throw fire pots over the walls causing a fire outside the camp and it keeps the Boxers away.

22: A Chinese cannon appears at the German end of the wall. The Germans leave their Legation pushing South and taking the fight to the Boxers. The French are short of water but now strong in their embassy. The fire outside the British embassy now prevents the British form firing at the Boxers because of the smoke, this might be an own goal. Fortunately the men firing the cannon on the wall are not very competent and cause no casualties.

23: The Americans site the International gun on the middle bridge across the canal. It has a nice line of sight down Legation Street when suddenly there is a loud explosion. The bridge disappears in a cloud of smoke and the gun falls into the canal, it is lost. Boxers appear North and South of the City in 1 big final push.

24: The British Legation catches fire from Chinese shellfire and whilst fighting the fire the troops on the wall finally kill off the remaining Boxers in the Hanlin who have been there since the start of the siege. Desperate hand to hand are taking place everywhere as the Boxers attempt their final assaults. 1 Russian is killed and 4 wounded, but all the lines hold.

25: The Germans report the Relief Column has entered the City, we are saved.

The total killed after 50 days fighting was : 8 Americans, 7 Russians, 4 French, 1 Austro-Hungarian, 3 Japanese, 1 Italian, 2 Germans and 5 British. Total = 31

Conclusion
In the real Siege 52 soldiers were killed, in our refight it was 62. The location of the Colonial Perimeter was almost identical to the historical ending of the siege. Our siege last 50 days, 5 days shorter than the actual siege.

A big thank you to all players.

Age of Arthur

2011-06-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

I found this 10 part article on the Age of Arthur wargaming by Guy Halsall.

The article first appeared in Wargames illustrated in 1999. A very good read.

Articles

Modern Warfare: infantry attack!

2011-06-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

The following rules were sent to me by Oscar Swan:

Infantry units are split up into 4-6 man fire teams. They stay like this no matter what. They cannot merge into another unit or split up into smaller groups. 1 man in the unit may take a HMG or LMG and another may take a sniper or a rocket launcher. The others can either take an assault rifle, shotgun or a sub-machine-gun. All men are armed with a pistol. You have a total of 10,000 USD to spend on each fire team. Every piece of equipment will cost you money.

Movement
Infantry- 2d6

Some units specialise in surprise attacks such as commandos or paratroopers. At the beginning of the game you must roll a d6. On a 1 the enemy chooses where they appear on the board. On any other roll they appear where you want them to. However the cannot enter on top of a building or in a building.

To enter a building you must stay in base contact with it for 1 turn. During this time you cannot be shot at or shoot at the enemy.
To reach the next floor roll a d6. On a 3 you reached your destination.

You cannot cross water bigger than 6" across.

If you loose 3 of your men then you must take a morale check. Roll a d6 on a 1,2,3 your men flee In panic towards the nearest board edge. Each turn they may roll a d6. On the first time if you roll a 6 the men rallies and turn back to fight. If you don't he carries on fleeing. The second time round you must roll a 5 then 4 and so on.

Shooting
Assault rifle (eg: AK-47) 24" 2s
LMG (eg: M24 SAW) 40" 3s
HMG (eg: browning 70cal) 60" 4s
Pistol (eg: desert eagle) 12" 1s
Sniper Rifle (eg: M40 US) 120" 1s
Shotgun (Eg: spas 12) 15" 3s
Sub machine-gun (Eg: MP5) 18" 2s
Rocket launcher (Eg: RPG-7) 50"*

* instead of shots, it fires a 'rocket' or grenade so a small template is used.

To hit a target in..
The open- 4
behind soft cover- 5 (eg: woods)
behind hard cover- 6 (eg: a wall)

To shoot at a target you MUST be able to see either a part of their body or head NOT legs or arms. Every time you fire you use up ammunition. One you have fired a certain amount of bullets you must reload. To do this you must roll a d6. On a 1 you drop the clip and the bullets spill everywhere. You are now minus 1 clip.
On a 2 you put the mag in the wrong way round and you must spend another turn fixing the problem. On a 3,4,5,6 the reload is successful and you may fire the next turn.
To pin a target you must use the order suppressing fire. This means that the enemy cannot fire back but each man, excluding those armed with sniper rifles and rocket launchers, automatically use up one clip of ammunition due to the sheer amounts of bullets needed to keep the enemy from returning fire.

Each man may throw a grenade once per game. It can either be flash, frag, flare or smoke. Grenades can be thrown up to 15". However the player must guess the range.

Flash grenades stun the enemy causing them to only be able to fire one shot each when returning fire.

Frag grenades kill the enemy with and explosion. Every one fully or partly under the small template are killed.

Flare grenades alert air support where to airstrike. An airstrike travels from where the flare is set off, 12" in a straight line. Explosions are every 2". Any one under the small templates is killed.

Smoke grenades block an enemy's line of sight. When the grenade is set off and the enemy try's to shoot they must roll 1d6. On a 4 the enemy can see through the smoke and can fire as normal, otherwise they may not shoot.

Mines:
At the beginning of the game the defending player may place 10 mines anywhere on the board.
If any soldier walks over one the player that laid the mine rolls a d6. On a 3 it goes off killing anyone under the small template.

Explosive RC cars:
One fire team may be equipped with one. If so they may not use a rocket launcher. To use it, the team has to stay where they are for up to 4 turns. The car may move up to 20" a turn but will automatically blow up after 4 turns of being 'primed'. You can blow it when ever you want. Roll a d6. On a 1 nothing happens. On a 2,3,4,5,6 it blows up and kills any one within the small template.

If you are shot at by an enemy and you can see them you may return fire. However you may only fire half the amount of shots. Eg; my fire team has 1 sub machine-gun, 1 assault rifle, 1 sniper rifle and a LMG. I am fired upon but take no casualties I fire back, though only with 4 shots instead of 8.
When firing back, a rocket launcher may NOT be used.

The countries/ organisations you can be are:
UK
USA
Israel
Russia
The Mujahadeen
Rebels
France
Germany
The Triads
China
North Korea
South Korea
UN
NATO
Terrorists in general
Pakistan

The countries are sorted into western countries, middle eastern countries, Asian countries and other.

The following countries/organisations are;
Western:
UK
USA
Russia
UN
NATO
Germany
France

Middle Eastern:
Israel
Mujahadeen
Pakistan

Asian:
China
North Korea
South Korea
The triads

Other:
Terrorists in general
Rebels
Cuba

To make it fair each side must have the same amount of fire teams on each side.

Weapon costs:

Pistols (every model is armed with one)

Desert Eagle: ammo 7 to a clip(tac) can hold 5 clips
100 USD

Colt custom: ammo 10 tac Can hold 8 clips
75 USD

Beretta 9000: ammo 12 tac can hold 8 clips
90 USD

Browning DBAO: ammo 14 tac can hold 6 clips
100 USD

Assault Rifles:

Ak 47: ammo 30 tac can hold 6 clips
1500 USD

M16: ammo 30 tac can hold 8 clips
1800 USD

L-85 A2: ammo 40 tac can hold 8 clips
2000 USD

SIG 552 commando: ammo 40 tac can hold 10 clips
2000 USD

Ak 74: ammo 30 tac can hold 10 clips
1500 USD

FN FAL: ammo 25 tac can hold 8 clips
1800 USD

Shotguns:

Benelli M1 super 90: Ammo 5 cartridges can hold 30 cartridges
1750 USD

Spas 12: ammo 8 cartridges can hold 32 cartridges
2000 USD

Riot control: ammo 5 cartridges can hold 30 cartridges
1999 USD

Sniper rifles:

Barrett 50 cal : ammo 8 tac can hold 5 clips
3000 USD

US M40: ammo 8 tac can hold 7 clips
3200 USD

Arctic Warfare Sniper: ammo 10 tac can hold 5 clips
3300 USD

Dragonuv: ammo 8 tac can hold 10 clips
3000 USD

HMG:

Browning 50cal: 100 tac can hold 2 clips
4000 USD

Browning 70 cal: 150 tac can hold 2 clips
4500 USD

LMG:

M24A SAW: 100 tac can hold 4 clips
2000 USD

M-60 E3: 90 tac can hold 5 clips
1900 USD

RPK 74: 100 tac can hold 5 clips
1500 USD

Submachine gun:

MP5: 25 tac can hold 8 clips
1200 USD

Colt 635: 25 tac can hold 18 clips
1700 USD

UZI: 30 tac can hold 18 clips
1800 USD

Ak 74 snub nosed: 30 tac can hold 20 clips
1500 USD

Rocket/missile launchers:

RPG 7: can hold 6 rockets
4000 USD

RPG 1: can hold 4 rockets
3000 USD

Javelin ML: can hold 4 rockets
3500 USD

Equipment: (may choose up to 4 items)

Helmet: 50 USD enables a saving throw of 5
Kevlar vest: 100 USD enables a saving throw of 4
(if helmet and Kevlar vest are both used it enables a 3 saving throw)
Assault vest/ webbing: 20 USD enables extra grenade to be thrown
Riot shield: 200 USD ( the man may then only be armed with a pistol) enables 4 saving throw against shots and grenades
Mine sweeper: 500 USD enables you to look at your opponents mine placement at beginning of turn.

The basic cost of recruiting 4 men is 0 USD. To recruit more it will cost you 1000 USD per man.

Ebay Bans Model Hitler figures

2011-06-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

A story in the Telegraph the other day was about a gent who was buying bare metal figures, painting them and selling them on ebay.

One of the figures was of Adolf Hitler. Ebay withdrew his auction a they do not allow Nazi memorabilia. However you can sell an Osama Bin Laden figure !

See the article at the Telegraph

Boxer Rebellion - 55 Turns at Peking

2011-06-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

Well we roped in lots of people from the Club last night to get a final playtest of the SOTCW game 55 Turns at Peking. This will be our game for the Gauntlet Show.

Finally got all the figures based (whose idea was to do this game at 1:1 scale anyway...oh yes it was mine).

Will has provided the pictures:

The table was pretty crowded and Will and I ran the Boxers. Everyone picked up the game very quickly.

The Italians true to form abandoned their Legation heading for protection with the French and Germans. In the background you can see the abandoned Legation:

Meanwhile Ian Shaw held out with the Austro-Hungarians as long as he could but eventually had to follow suit:

Meanwhile north of the canal the Russians and British were on a co-ordinated defence strategy:

In good old movie fashion it was form a circle with the wagons:

We ran about 10 turns in the 3 hours and it all ran very historically. Everyone seemed to enjoy the game and it was a success.

Boxer Rebellion - test game

2011-06-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Will and I are running a Boxer Rebellion game at Gauntlet on 2nd and 3rd July.

We had our first test game on a full sized layout was held at the Deeside Defenders club last Thursday. I foolishly send we would do the legations at 1 to 1 scale and Will volunteered to do the Terrain.

The British Legation is in the foreground.

German, French and Japanese legations.

The playtest went well but we need more ruins.

I've tweaked the rules, changed the resource cards to coloured chips and am add more event cards.

We have our last playtest tomorrow night with about 6 or 7 other guys from the club.

Chronicles of Blood : Solo Wargaming

2011-06-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

I recently downloaded Chronicles of Blood which is a free PDF from Crystal Star Games via RPG Drivethru or Wargames Vault.

It is a Fantasy game and the PDF contains 14 pages. The rules are nice and simple and the mechanics use different types of polyhedral dice for their Fighting, Damage and Morale stats.

The stats are there for the basic types of figures. the intention is to bring out premium content for $1 each (62 pence).

The Company also has a solo RPG Adventure too called Chronicle of Arax which is also recommended.

New Wargames Auction Site

2011-06-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

I have had notification of a new Free UK Auction site for Miniature Wargamers, Collectors and Enthusiasts.

Its called Min-E-Bid.

According to Alix the site owner: "list wanted adds, buy and sell for free" and as he told me in an email "It will help us all get one over on eBay"

So if you can support this site, please head over to Min-E-bid.

History of The Daleks

2011-05-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

I came across this excellent site which is the History of the Daleks from 1963 to 1988.

Dalek 6388.

You can immerse yourself in many hours of facts in the appearances of the Daleks in Doctor Who.

Simply Fantastic.

Outrider

2011-05-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

I've always been a fan of post apocalyptic car combat games, starting off with Death Race 2000 release in 1975 with David Carradine and Sly Stallone.

Another favourite was the original Mad Max starring a very young Mel Gibson.

Back in my youth I enjoyed the old Cars Wars game from Steve Jackson games.

Well there is another new kid on the block with Outrider from Dicefest Games. it normally retails for £6.10 but is currently on sale at £4.88 from Wargames Vault. I bought it last night and it looks a blast.

Outrider is a game of post-apocalyptic vehicular combat that utilizes a unique blend of dice and card mechanics that create a fast-playing, highly detailed and customizable player experience.

Outrider is a 2D print-and-play game designed to quickly turn your pre-apocalyptic kitchen table into a post-apocalyptic warzone. Outrider features easy-to-construct components and is designed to fit standard-sized card sleeves and collectible card tuckboxes. All you need to add is a set of four (4) gaming dice (d6, d8, d10, d12) to hit the road runnin' and gunnin'. Outrider can also be used as the basis for a fully 3D miniatures game by adding 3D terrain and using the largest ready-made range of the most inexpensive miniatures around: 1/64th scale die cast cars!

Fast and Furious
Teachable in ten minutes, the focus of Outrider is to keep things fast and furious. Most games are playable in a hour. Even with six to eight players, the rounds are quick. The movement mechanics are designed to feel more like driving and less like high school geometry.

Players select their vehicles from a set of templates that represent a wide variety of vehicles - each with its own unique characteristics. Players then use dice to customize (and arm) the vehicles. The dice represent the powerplant, weapons, armor and even the driver of the vehicle. Players form Outriding crews to fit the mission, allowing the players to be flexible in their vehicle (and equipment) selections. Some vehciles may be better suited for certain roles but it's always handy to have someone riding shotgun.

Get Behind the Wheel.
Play is centered around a maneuver deck that allows the players to 'program' their action for a turn. Programmable actions include both movement AND attacks - but players need to be careful: Their drivers may not be able to handle EVERYTHING demanded of them, resulting in a possible loss of control.
Gear Up and Roll Out.

The base game includes four variations of the introductory scenario: 'Roadblock.' These scenarios pit teams of Outriders, Texas Rangers and Comanchero Raiders against one another in various situations involving speedtraps, smuggling runs and sting operations. More vehicles, scenarios, terrain, equipment and rules expansion are available in the form of Bolt-Ons, allowing players to customize and scale their Outrider experience for their group or event.

The game is compatible with match box cars but the ones I really fancy are Jada 1/64 Battle Cars, though I can't find a UK distributor yet. Look at this beauty:

Little Wars

2011-05-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you have a kindle you can now download the grandfather of all wargames books for free. I'm talking about H.G. Wells Little Wars.

Little Wars is a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers, written by H. G. Wells in 1913. Its full title is Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books

Download it for free from the Gutenberg Project, versions are also available in html and text.

Mobile Version of Website

2011-04-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

If you visit the freewargamesrules website now via your mobile device you will now get a mobile version of the website.

Website

2011-04-11T11:34:00.000-07:00

There may be interrupted access to this website over the next 48 hours as we switch servers. Your patience is appreciated.

Braid & Cockade

2011-04-07T02:02:00.002-07:00

By Greg Barnsley
C1750-c1850

Turn Sequence
1. Designated defender moves and makes formation changes
2. Designated attacker moves and makes formation changes
3. Simultaneous shooting takes place
4. Attacker declares and tests units that may charge; defender tests units charged.
5. Defender declares and tests units that may charge; attacker tests units charged.
6. Move charging and counter charging units and resolve close combat (Melees).
7. End phase and additional morale tests.

Formations
March Column: 6-4 stands one behind the other 1 x 6-4
Attack Column: 6-4 stands in a block; 2 x 3, 2 x 2+1×1 or 2 x 2
Reinforced line: 6-4 stands in two separate lines 3+3, 3+2 or 2+2
Line: 6-4 stands side by side 6 x 1, 5 x 1 or 4 x 1
Cluster: A unit composed of three stands only 2 + 1
Garrison: 4+ Stands deployed in a built up area or fortification/fort
Square: 6-4 stands in a square arrangement
Artillery deployed: usually shown as gun piece facing enemy side
Artillery limbered: usually shown as gun piece facing away from enemy

Movement
All movement may begin or end in a free turn-about of 180 degrees
All march columns and limbered artillery move 20” on road
All march columns and limbered artillery* move 12” off road.
Deployed artillery** may move 2” on road and on clear/open terrain
Infantry in attack column move 6” & charge 6” in clear/open terrain
Infantry in reinforced line move 4” & charge 4” in all types of viable terrain
Infantry in line move 2” & charge 2” in clear/open terrain
Infantry in square move 4” in clear/open terrain & may not charge
Cavalry in reinforced line move 8” and charge 8” in clear/open terrain
Clusters and garrisons do not move or charge; other than ‘garrison’ formation changing.

Changing formations; this action takes up a full move:-
March columns may move from adjacent to a built up area into a garrison (cavalry dismount).
Garrisoned units can move adjacent to the built up area, occupied, into a march column
Infantry in march column, attack column, reinforced line, line and square may change formation into
a march column, attack column, reinforced line, line or square in open.
Cavalry can change from march column to reinforced line and visa versa in open.
Artillery may change from deployed to limber and visa versa in open
Horse artillery* may move 12” and change from limber to deployed in open.
Horse artillery** may change from deployed to limber and move 12” in open.
Light infantry may deploy in reinforced line on hills and in woods; others in march column or cluster.
Artillery may never be in woods or hills; unless the artillery base is in limber.

Firing
Artillery roll: at close range 6” 3 d6; at effective range 18” 2 d6 and 1 d6 at long range 36”.
Artillery that fire at artillery deployed or in limber roll 1d6 at ranges 3” – 24” and no greater.
Infantry in line formation roll four d6 at 9” range verse targets in open.
Infantry in line formation roll four d6 at 3” range verse targets in woods, garrison or artillery.
Infantry in reinforced lines roll three d6 at 9” range verse targets in open.
Infantry in reinforced line roll three d6 at 3” range verse targets in woods, garrison or artillery.
Infantry in attack columns roll two d6 at 6” range verse targets in open.
Infantry in attack columns roll two d6 at 3” range verse targets in woods, garrison or artillery.
Infantry in march columns roll one d6 at 6” range verse targets in open.
Infantry in march columns roll one d6 at 3” range verse targets in woods, garrison or artillery.
All clusters roll one d6 at 6” range verse targets in open.
All clusters roll one d6 at 3” range verse targets in woods, garrison or artillery.
Squares and Garrisons roll one d6 at range 9” in each of the four directions; front, rear, left and right flanks.

Fire resolution
Each d6 adjusted that realise 7+ removes a targeted stand
Each d6 adjusted that realise 4-6 removes a targeted stand on a further d6 roll of 1 to 3
Each d6 adjusted that realise 1-3 removes a target stand on a further d6 roll of 1
Zero and negative, adjusted, results have no effect

Morale test to charge, or in response to a charged:-
• Cavalry in reinforced line must test to charge: a square – may charge other cavalry, artillery deployed & in limber, infantry in attack & march columns, reinforced lines & lines and all clusters without need to test morale – may not charge units in woods, on hills or who are in garrison.
• Infantry in attack column must test to charge: cavalry (not in cluster) and infantry in attack columns – may charge, artillery deployed & in limber, infantry in march columns, reinforced lines & lines and all clusters without need to test morale – may not charge units in woods, on hills or who are in garrison.
• Infantry in reinforced line must test to charge: a garrison and infantry in reinforced line – may charge, artillery deployed & in limber, infantry in march columns, lines and all clusters without need to test morale – may not charge cavalry (not in cluster), infantry in attack column, units in woods or on hills; unless those testing, to make this charge, are light infantry verse a target unit that is in a wood or on a hill.
• Infantry in line must test to charge infantry in march columns, lines, artillery deployed & in limber, and all clusters – may not charge cavalry (not in cluster), infantry in attack column & in reinforced lines, units in woods or on hills or who are in garrison.
• If the target of a charge is: infantry in square, deployed artillery, cavalry in reinforced line or unit in garrison no test in response is required; all other units and artillery in limber must test morale if charged.

Result of moral test required above;

Roll one d6 and adjust as per those items that apply (see melee plus and minus below):-
4+ no effect, chargers may charge and units being charged may stand to receive or if cavalry counter charge at least 2 inches, and up to half distance between them and the initiating charger if, desired, at the discretion of the charged unit.
3 or less unit testing to charge does not charge, with no other adverse effects; units and stands being charged retire 12” and end in a march column or artillery in limber facing away; unless they were a cluster in which case they count shattered and are removed. If this retirement move would take a unit or stand off table it is removed.

Units that declared a charge, and whose target ran away – retired, only need to advance 2 inches; and may if they wish move, any part of, the rest of their available charge move.

English line & light infantry do not need to test morale to receive a charge by opposing infantry.

Please note: if you are the designated defender you may not declare a charge against an attacking unit that is charging to contact one of your units; how ungentlemanly of you to think you could!

Close combat resolution
March columns, limber, deployed artillery and clusters get one d6 roll
Lines get two d6 rolls
Attack columns and reinforced lines get 3 d6 rolls
Squares and garrisons get four d6 rolls

Roll these dice, add number of bases each side has in melee, and adjust (see melee plus and minus below) to, total rolled. Compare the two side’s results; this normally is unit on unit or unit on artillery base. If the difference is Zero both sides loose a base and immediately fight another round of hand to hand combat. All other results impact on the losing side rolling the final difference in the results, in dice; on each roll of a 1-2 the losing side will remove a base up to the number of bases that that side has in the particular melee. Infantry and cavalry units reduced to 2 or fewer bases are eliminated.

End phase
All cuirassier stands that charged and were involved in hand to hand combat roll a d6, each resulting 3 or less rolled removes a stand; all other heavy cavalry and lancers, in this situation remove a stand on a 2 or less; and all other light cavalry remove a stand on a roll of 1.

All artillery stands that were involved in hand to hand combat roll a d6; if a 6 is rolled they are not removed.

All artillery stands, infantry and cavalry units that were involved in close combat or infantry and cavalry who are in a cluster formation roll a d6 and adjust (see morale plus and minus below).

Result is 7+ recover a stand, previously lost for any reason (NB cavalry and infantry units only).

Result is 4-6 no effect.

Result is 1-3 units will lose an additional stand. Garrisons count this result as no effect.
[Infantry and cavalry units reduced to 2 or fewer bases are eliminated.]

Result is Zero unit will fall back 12”*** and end in a march column or a cluster.
[If this retirement*** move would take a unit or stand off table it is removed.]

Result is negative, -1 or less, the unit is removed as shattered.

Game factors
+1 in shooting:-
target is in march or attack column, cluster, square or artillery in limber;
if light infantry armed with rifles;
if classed as proficient or if firing unit is in garrison.

- 1 in shooting:-
target is a garrison or deployed artillery;
target is light infantry in a wood or on a hill,
if classed as novice or if firing unit moved or changed formation this turn.

+ 4 in melee:-
if cavalry in reinforced line verse infantry not in square or attack column - in open;
if lancers verse any cavalry – in open;
if heavy cavalry verse light cavalry or infantry not in square - in open;
if cuirassiers verse heavy or light cavalry or any infantry not in square - in open;
if cavalry versus light infantry not in square - in open;
if infantry in attack column verse infantry - in open;
if close order infantry verse light infantry - in open;
if opponent is in a cluster.
if classed as superior quality
if uphill or behind cover such as wall, etc (not woods-see below).
if opponent is artillery

-4 in melee:-
if other than light infantry involved in close combat in woods.
if classed as inferior quality.
if in march column and involved in close combat
if opponent is a garrison or cavalry in close combat with a square.
if in a cluster
if poorly armed
if artillery fighting

+ 1 in morale:-
if high quality or in Grand Battery
if in a garrison, attack column, square or deployed artillery stand
if just won close combat / melee this turn

-1 in morale:-
if low quality or other than light infantry in woods or on hills
if in a cluster or artillery in limber
if just lost close combat / melee this turn

Grand Battery
A designated attacking force may mass all available artillery stands into a single large, temporary battery. This battery may not move via limber and must remain joined for the entire game. It gains plus one in morale; may move 2 inches per turn; and acts as a unit if charged – all stand fight in melee with one d6. NB All artillery stands that were involved in hand to hand combat roll a d6; if a 6 is rolled they are not removed. If this grand battery fails a morale test to receive a charge it is shattered and removed.

Command
The commander in chief or an aide-de-camp may form a ‘grand battery’ for a defending force. To do so the general must remain with this ‘grand battery’. If this ‘grand battery’ is involved in close combat the general will add a d6 roll to the melee result of the battery; the general will exhaust their utility value by doing so.

The commander in chief or a divisional commander may join an infantry or cavalry unit, under their command, and accompany it in a charge and resulting close combat; the unit will not need to test morale to charge and the general will add a d6 roll to the melee result of the unit; the general will exhaust their utility value by doing so.

Any general may join a unit in their force that is in ‘march column’ and take command of it; to form an assault column. Assault columns only move to charge 24” into close combat with an enemy garrison or unit/stand of artillery blocking egress of a bridge, ford or causeway.

Assault columns may only be shoot at by units/artillery stands in range before the assault column charges. Assault columns do not need to take a morale test to charge. Combat between assault columns and their target are resolved as per “RISK” combat; this melee is to the end so no retreat. If the attacking force incurs any casualties the first is the general’s stand itself. The general’s command stand’s utility value is exhausted if its stand is a casualty.

A divisional commander or the commander in chief may join a cluster, under their command, that survived the end phase morale test and convert their command stand into a stand belonging to the unit that is in cluster; this unit is now 4 stands in strength so may retire 6” immediately and reform into any available formation. The general’s utility value is exhausted by doing so.

Roll dice to see who is the designated attacker — high roller attacks. Attacker must drive defender off the game table or the defender wins. Attacker gets to choose which side of the table they wish to deploy on. The Defender may deploy up to 15” in from their side edge; and deploys all artillery followed by the attacker doing so and so on for infantry, cavalry and commanders. The attacker may deploy up to 9” in from their side edge.

Space Convoy

2011-04-07T02:02:00.001-07:00

By Greg Barnsley
A futuristic space ship engagement

A space game for two: one player commands the convoy group known as the ‘Freeloaders’ and the other commands the ‘Naztees’ (Nasties).

Object for the Freeloaders is to win by getting ‘Brigghavens’ (AKA transports) off the other side of table edge.

No Brigghavens off Freeloaders lose
1 Brigghaven off - roll 1d6 on a result of 6 Freeloaders win
2 Brigghavens off - roll 1d6 on a result of 4 + Freeloaders win
3 Brigghavens off - roll 1d6 on a result of 2 + Freeloaders win
4 Brigghavens off and Freeloaders win

You will need a table 3’x 6’, and a table cloth marked in rectangles 90mm x 150mm offset (the grid). Plus some suitable models, we use metal pencil sharpeners in the shape of ships and planes.

Randomly placed objects: 1 x Nebular, 2 x Planets and 4 x Ice Comets on table. These objects will have a gravitational pull of between -1 to -3 on the speed roll die of an adjacent vessel;
Ice Comets -1, Planets -2 and a Nebular -3. You will need to make these items.

Only one vessel or object may occupy an area at any time.

Freeloaders force = 1 x Blitzship (battleships), 3 x Slayers (aircraft will do) and 4 x Brigghavens (transports) starting off table east side, one of the short 3’ ends.

Naztees force = 1 x Harsh Crusher (heavy cruiser), 1 x Lite Crusher (light cruiser) and Sub-lite-vessels – Coffins (submarines)

Naztees may deploy Crushers in any area on 1st row west; a short 3’ end.

Coffins may deploy in any row up to row six from west edge upon a d6 deployment roll.

Vessel — Move — Defence — Firepower
Blitzship — 3+ on d6 — 3 x d6 Blue; 2vSubs — 3 x d6 Red & 3 d6 White
Slayer — 3+ on d6 — 1 d6 plus 1 per area from N* — 1 x d6 Red & 1 d6 White
Brigghavens — 3+ on d6 — 2 x d6 Blue [Added]; 1vSubs — None
Coffin — 4+ on d6 — 1 d6 vs. Slayers only — 1 x d6 Red & 2 d6 White
Harsh Crusher — 3+ on d6 — 2 x d6 Blue — 2 x d6 Red & 2 d6 White
Lite Crusher — 2+ on d6 — 2 x d6 Blue — 2 x d6 Red & 1 d6 White

N* = Firing Naztee unit. ONLY SLAYERS can attack COFFINS. Briggs have No fire power.

To move one square on the grid a vessel must roll the required number, or greater, on a d6; and if not achieved it counts as a fail and the initiative goes to other side.

The best Blue Defence d6 is compared to, and if equal to or better than the best Red Firepower d6 then the attack has been defeated; the initiative will go to the other side. The white die will give the range and must be equal to or greater than the number of grid squares to target including grid square occupied by target, however not the grid square occupied by the initiating firing vessel. If the white d6 is insufficient – less than range in grid squares a fail has occurred and initiative goes to the other side; a success requires a red d6 greater than the best blue d6 - or total (see Slayer and Brigghavens above); and requires a white d6 with a sufficient range result.

When a successful hit is achieved consult hit table below:

Hit Table

Roll 1D6 Yellow:

On a 1 — Coffins, Brigghavens, Slayers, Lite / Harsh Crushers and Blitzships destroyed.

On a 2 — Coffins, Brigghavens, Slayers and Lite Crushers destroyed no effect on not listed.

On a 3 — Coffins and Brigghavens are destroyed, with no effect on those not listed.

On a 4 — Vessel is only able to move on a modified roll of 5+.

On a 5 — Reduce protection to max: 1d6, and if hit was on a Coffin or Slayer it is destroyed.

On a 6 — Reduce firepower to none, and if hit was on a Brigghaven it is destroyed.

Same hit results have no further or additional affects other than to frustrate.

A no damage result from Hit Table does not constitute a failure or trigger loss of initiative.

NB the loss of initiative and the resulting switch in sides is Key to the way the game is played.

OPTIONAL:
Removed Naztee units are recycled.
A Naztee commander needs the initiative to recycle one unit, thus completing that initiative.

Modern Skirmish

2011-04-07T02:01:00.001-07:00

By Greg Barnsley
Simple one on one modern combat 1950-2150

Affiliation vs. Antagonist
The antagonist player starts with the initiate, and is followed by the affiliation player. With the initiative a player will first test the morale of the unit they wish to activate. Players may continue to activate the same unit if they so desire.

Morale:

Check by the activating player rolling a die:

Deduct one from the die roll if the unit testing has 4-6 morale minuses.
Deduct two from the die roll if the unit testing has 7-10 morale minuses.
Deduct three from the die roll if the unit testing has 11-12 morale minuses.

If final result is one or more the unit may act as the player desires; the initiating player may fire an individual figure and not loose the inactive; however will still test moral to initiate again following this fire action. A unit that is activated, via the initiative to move, may move any or all individuals in that unit; and by doing so will yield the initiative to the other side.

If final result is zero or less the unit may not be activated. Go to next (other) player’s initiating / activation phase.

A unit will rout when it has acquired 13 or more morale minuses; the unit is then removed from play. Go to next (other) player’s activation / initiating phase.

Morale minuses are acquired by units as set out below; it is best to keep account of these:

Minus 4 - for each individual casualty (KIA) incurred by testing unit.
Minus 2 - for each friendly unit in that has been routed.
Minus 1 - each ammo marker acquired by the unit.
Ammo markers are acquired each time a unit’s figure rolls a double during fire.

Fire:

Individuals that fire roll dice (1D6 coloured and 1D6 white) and utilise differential between the dice, differential must be within limits of the chat below, for the figure firing, related to target’s cover & specific range for a hit to be achieved.

Affiliation Legionaries - Auxiliaries - Antagonist Soldier -Confederate
Open - Cover - Open - Cover - Open - Cover - Open - Cover
60cm 2-5 - 3-5 4-5 - 5-5 3-5 - 4-5 4-5 - 5-5
50cm 1-5 - 2-5 3-5 - 4-5 2-5 - 3-5 3-5 - 4-5
30cm 0-5 - 1-5 2-5 - 3-5 1-5 - 2-5 2-5 - 3-5

The target is KIA if the above differential specification was rolled and the colour die was within the specification of the following chat:
Affiliation Legionaries - Auxiliaries - Antagonist Soldier - Confederate
Open – Cover; Open- Cover; Open – Cover; Open- Cover.
60cm 3-6 4-6 5-6 6-6 4-6 5-6 5-6 6-6
50cm 2-6 3-6 4-6 5-6 3-6 4-6 4-6 5-6
30cm 1-6 2-6 3-6 4-6 2-6 3-6 3-6 4-6

Movement:
Individual figures of activated units may move:-
150mm if begin and end move outside of buildings
100mm to go from inside to outside a building or visa versa
50mm to its change place within a building.

Close combat:
Hand to hand combat is resolved between individual figures. A play must use an initiative action to move into base contact with an enemy individual; this constitutes the total movement available for the unit that is being activated. Each player rolls dice and takes their total differential and compares to their opponent’s total.
Attacker 0 —- 1 —- 2—- 3 —- 4 —- 5
Defender
0 BE - DE - DE - DE - DE - DE
1 BE - BE - DE - DE - DE - DE
2 AE - BE - BE - DE - DE - DE
3 AE - AE - BE - BE - DE - DE
4 AE - AE - AE - BE - BE - DE
5 AE - AE - AE - AE - BE - BE

AE = Attacker Eliminated; BE = Both Eliminated & DE = Defender Eliminated

Winners and 1oser:
1 point is gained for each enemy KIA. The side that won the skirmish and is in control of the field multiplies their score by three. Highest score wins. Skirmish winner wins ties.

Forces:

Affiliation Legionaries: Six men per unit X 2 Units.
Affiliation Auxiliaries: Six men per unit X 1 Unit.
Antagonist Soldier: Nine men per unit X 2 Units.
Antagonist Confederate: Nine men per unit X 1 Unit.

1880 Gun fights

2011-04-07T02:00:00.001-07:00

The “End of Ned”: A 54mm miniatures game of the Glenrowan siege

And

“Shoot out at OK Corral”: A 54mm miniatures game of the Tombstone gunfight
by Greg Barnsley

You will need some 54mm miniature figures to represent the characters and sundry terrain; a flat surface – table to play upon, dice and measuring tape.

Procedure:
Roll a die (d6) & consult activation table below.
On activation figures may either move or shoot.
All movement or shooting begins and ends with a free turn.
Movement = 12” per activation used.
To jump a fence takes a move, from side to the other.
To move position anywhere inside a room, within a building, takes a full move.
To enter or exit a door takes a full move, from one side to the other.

The Kelly Gang:
Ned Kelly in armour - Pistol
Dan Kelly in armour - Rifle
Steve Hart in armour - Rifle
Joe Byrne in armour - Rifle

The Victorian Police:
Superintendent Hare - Rifle
Sub Inspector O’Conner - Rifle
Constable # 1 - Rifle
Constable # 2 - Rifle
Constable #3 - Shot Gun
Constable #4 - Shot Gun
Tracker # 1 - Rifle
Tracker #2 - Rifle

The Earp Mob:
Doc Holliday - Shot Gun
Morgan Earp - Rifle
Virgil Earp - Pistol
Wyatt Earp - Pistol

The Clanton Group:
Billy Claiborne - Pistol
Ike Clanton - Pistol
Will Clanton - Rifle
Frank McLaury - Pistol
Tom McLaury- Rifle

Fire arms base to hit table:
Weapon — Range —- d6 to hit roll, required.

Pistol —– 6 inches —- NT 2 to 6; CT and AT 6 only; PT - N/A

Shotgun — 12 inches —- NT 3 to 6; CT and AT 4 to 6; PT - N/A

Rifle —– 24inches —- NT 4 to 6; CT and AT 5 or 6; PT 6 only

NT = normal target — unarmoured in open
CT = covered target — unarmoured and in cover (NB an unarmoured fig inside a room counts as covered).
AT = armoured target — a Kelly Gang member in armour in open
PT = armoured & cover — a Kelly Gang member in armour and in cover

Normally a figure requires a line of sight to shoot at a target; the exception to this rule is shooting randomly into a building with a rifle in which case a 6 will be a hit, however, a 1 result will hit a random figure on fare side of building.

Each time a figure is hit, mark off its name from columns A, B, C & D (NB start from top left).
A figure loses its initiative if its name is marked off before it activates - on a particular d6 roll. (NB even just before). When a miniature’s last name space is marked of (LAST NAME SPACE*) the figure is removed from play.

Constables and trackers in column D are not marked off when hit. Each time a constable or tracker is hit, on a natural roll of 6 remove figure from play, otherwise redeploy on next activation.

Constables redeploy 6” from Hare, and as far as possible from any Kelly Gang member.
Trackers redeploy 6” from O’Conner, and as far as possible from Kelly Gang member.
Redeployment takes up the redeployed figure’s activation, as if they had just moved.

If Superintendent Hare or Sub Inspector O’Conner figures are removed from play, constables and trackers cannot be redeployed respectively. They are removed from play if hit.

Play ends when one side has no figures left in play.

Activation table for End of Ned:
d6 —- A —-/—- B —-/—- C —-/—- D

1 – Joe & Steve -/- O’Conner –/- Ned -/- All constables & Trackers

2 – Joe & Dan –/- Hare –/- Ned -/- All constables & Trackers

3 – JOE* & Dan -/- O’Conner –/- Ned -/- All constables & Trackers

4 – Steve & Dan –/- Hare –/- Ned -/- All constables & Trackers

5 – Steve & Dan -/- O’CONNER* –/- Ned -/- All constables & Trackers

6 - STEVE * & DAN* –/- HARE* -/- NED* - All constables & Trackers

Shoot out at OK Corral:
Activation table for Shoot out at OK Corral:
d6 –- A —- B —— C ——– D

1 – Wyatt — Frank — Virgil —- Billy

2 – Wyatt — Will — Virgil — Tom

3 – Morgan — Frank — VIRGIL* —- Billy

4 – MORGAN* — Frank — Doc —- TOM*

5 – Wyatt — WILL* — Doc — BILLY*

6 – WYATT* — FRANK* — DOC* —- IKE*

Fields Of Glory - ACW Style Intro

2008-10-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I had a game of American Civil War using 20mm Plastics. Myself and Garry Hinchliffe have played numerous sets of rules over the years from Fire and Fury to Warmaster, Civil War Battles and lots of homegrown rules.

A few weeks ago Garry mentioned he wanted to try the Fields of Glory (FoG). The previous week I had watched a couple of guys in the club play an ancient battle using FoG and liked some of the mechanisms in the game.

I said to Garry why don't we try FoG for ACW. He agreed and I said I'd knock something up over the next week and sent it to him.

My first problem is I don't play Ancients so didn't have a copy of the rules, however, there are a couple of very comprehensive playsheets on the web so off I set.

The complex move test stayed, as did both the cohesion tests and the shooting phase. All that was needed was the said tables to be adapted to ACW warfare and that included ranges, movement distances, modifiers.

A big change was made to the melee phase. Impact was thrown out as I felt it didn't fit into ACW. Instead in the move phase units would declare a charge. The testing unit basically does a morale test and has to pass to initiate the charge. If it fails it does not charge home. Secondly the receiving unit has to conduct a morale test. Ot stand it has to pass. If it does then it conducts a defensive fire (which is shooting at the attacker). The attacker must take any morale tests as it closes if required. Melee is then conducted in the melee phase later.

The main addition to the rules was the use of an activation phase which was based on Civil War Battles. We feel it gives a real good flavour and uncertainty to the period.

So last night we tried the draft rules with 8 units of infantry, 2 units of cavalry and 2 artillery units each. For simplicity each inf unit was armed with rifles and when 1st activated a D6 rolled to decide whether it was Raw (1) average (2-5) or veteran (6). Not surprisingly there was only 1 veteran unit on the table, several raw units and the rest being average. Each inf unit was 6 stands, cavalry units were 4 stands.

Several minor amendments were made to the rules as we played but overall the game worked very well and gave a good flow to the game without to much headache.

I intend to publish the rules over the next week or so for all to enjoy and welcome any feedback.

Steel and Bone, A fantasy Wargaming scenario

2008-09-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

The following rules have been sent to me by Trevor Wiley:

You will need a 1x1 playing surface, free of obstacles.

You will need Six Stands of Elves (1/72 Scale) and Six Stands of Humans (1/72 Scale)

You can start both sides on opposite sides of the table. They may array their figures in any formation, though they cannot pass 2 inches from the edge.

The order of Battle is This:

1. Elves Move
2. Elves Shoot
3. Humans Move
4. Humans Shoot
5. Charge into Melee
6. Melee
7. Back to number one

Both sides may move four inches per turn. All figures move four individually. You cannot share moves.

When shooting, you must be within three inches of the unit you wish to shoot at to shoot.

You then roll a six sided die for each stand attacking. For each roll of a 5 or 6, destroy an enemy stand.

When engaging in melee, you must first charge. If it matters, Elves charge first. You select one enemy stand as your focal point, and then declare a charge. Move four inches, right up next to the enemy unit, and then both of you roll a six sided die. Add these modifiers: +1 if Outnumbering opponent +1 if flanking or on rear. The lowest die roll loses one stand and retreats to edge of space.

Victory Conditions: You must make the enemy team surrender or destroy all their forces.

Use a 1x1 Grass mat, With a road with a fork in it, to play this version:

The only difference is you must hold the fork at the end of the battle.

Website Update

2008-08-30T11:48:00.000-07:00

I have now given the site a facelift. It has a much cleaner look.

Whilst doing this I have also:

Upgraded Guestbook (and transferred the old book)

Changed the forums. They are now hosted by me and not held by a third party. They are also embedded into the site. (I have transferred the old historical boards contents too).

Facelifted Site

Website Woes

2008-08-10T12:46:00.000-07:00

At present 10th August, I have been locked out of my website.

Although I can view it it will not let me update it.

I'm trying to resolve the issue and have a back up plan if it cannot be edited.

Update: The webhost has obviously been the problem as everything is back to normal.

One good thing is I've now updated the Guestbook to a much better one.

The author hard at work

2008-07-14T14:09:00.001-07:00

Here I am moving some of my troops in our SOTCW wargames Andrevian Tales (shortly after the unit was decimated by some good shooting by Will).

Here's the rest of the team on the day from Left to Right:
Will McNally, me, Rob Connelly and Rich Baber.

Finally Rich Crawley (on left) the instigator of the game:

Photos of the actual game can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26252304@N08/

More Fold Flat Terrain

2008-06-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

Went to the Phalanx show in St Helens last Sundaqy. As I was walking around I saw some lovely cardboard scenery for a Modern 1/72 game. I started to chat to the owner and realised it was Brian Handley who designed the fold flat terrain from a previous article.

It was great to see the buildings in the flesh, and whats more the table full of terrain can be folded away in a small storage space. I didn't know but he has since bought out a further 2 packs of terrain (which I went home and immediately bought).

Order it from here.

Tabletop Teasers

2008-06-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

Found this great little site with scenarios.

From the author:
Over a period of years in the late 70's and early 80's, Charles Grant published a series of articles in "Battle", and then "Military Modelling" called the 'Table Top Teasers'.

As time has passed I've picked up various copies, been given some, but have basically collected a number of them together - they're an invaluable source of scenario idea's, so on this page I thought I'd share them with the world.

Website

Fold Flat Terrain

2008-04-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

For along time now I've heard of a "fold flat" card terrain system. I had seen pictures of it but it had never been available and as such it was becoming a bit of an urban myth.

The story went the terrain had been designed by an Engineer, which he kept fold flat in a lever arch file. On game days the Engineer would put on a game open this box, bring out folded flat scenery and erect there and then in front of your eyes.

I wanted this scenery due to storage problems I have at home. Then a couple of days ago I had an email in my Inbox from Brian Hadley via one of the Yahoo groups. He had finally produced a pack.

The pack includes a building, a wall, a ridge and a tank trap. Its a downloadable PDF so you can print off as many of each as you want. The author recommends you print onto coloured card and there are very precise instructions on how to fit it all together and how to fold it flat.

I've already sent an email with my ideas. hedges, fences, bridges and middle east buildings.

The terrain pack is available from Wargaming Online for the very cheap price of $4.00

Civil War Battles

2008-04-15T12:26:00.001-07:00

I'm having a break from painting up modern forces for our Andreivian Game and I purchased Civil War Battles from Peter Pig.

We played the first scenario from the book myself and Will. There are several new mechanisms in there that took us a while to get used to, but after a couple of turns we were flying. The mechanisms we like for example:

- If a unit is low on ammunition the opponent can make him re-roll all the to hit dice. There is a chance he may roll better but if it is already a good roll it gives the opposition a chance.
- Re-rolls for to hit dice with rifled muskets. Raw troops may re-roll 1's, average may re-roll 1 and 2's and you guessed it elite re-roll's 1,2 and 3's.
- Unit frontages affect maximum movement distances
- Action Points are spent per unit after a general has activated them

I have many sets of Peter Pig rules and these are certainly the nicest presented and includes pictures.

We both agreed they gave a very good feel for the period and these will be now my favoured rules for them. I use 20mm plastics which I picked up on ebay a couple of years go based for Fire and Fury. I've even been drawn to paint up some more Union dismounted cavalry and three extra Union batteries which have been gathering dust on a shelf.

Next time I plan to use the full set up rules which generates the scenario and adjusts the forces depending on what decisions both sides make on the Battle sheet.

Gauntlet Game

2008-04-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

My local club is running the Gauntlet event in July. I have volunteered to assist in running a participation game called Battle in the Tuzkhur Valley.

This means I'm busy painting up modern forces for the game. We have created a blog for this game called Andreivian Tales.

Battlefield Heroes

2008-03-04T03:19:00.000-08:00

Battlefield Heroes is a brand new Play 4 Free game from the people that brought you the multi-million selling Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2

It’s a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels — easy to pick up and play, but with deep character development

It will be released for the PC as a free download in Summer 2008

The video is online and it looks like its going to be fun.

http://www.battlefield-heroes.com/video

Wargames Rules Forum

2008-03-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

After many requests I have finally given in and created a forum purely for discussion of Wargames Rules.

You can find the forum here.

Spam Spam Spam

2008-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well the spam problem has been getting worse by the day from the website.

Although I have a spam filter in my email client the number of emails coming from my website Email form were growing. It looks as if someone had written some code to send a dozen emails a day from my website form.

So I've had to upgrade the contact form so that the user has to input a 3 digit security code. Hopefully this will fool the bots. See the new contact form here.

As for Viruses, as I have switched to Linux see previous report this has not been a problem for me.

The other day I had to switch to my Windows partition (still kept it) because my old Creative mp3 player software only works on Windows (XP and below). Although I hadn't used Windows in over 3 weeks I got a virus within 20 minutes of using it!

Division WW2 Game

2008-01-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

WW2 has always been one of the popular periods for me. It started for me as a young kid with the old Airfix plastic figures and vehicles. We used to have large battle on the lounge floor much to the worry of our parents.

Over the years I switched to 6mm and onto a table (I don;t think my body would allow me to game on the floor any longer). Although I've tried a number of rules I have never stuck with the same rules for more than 2 games! I've also leant towards the large scale games with each base representing a battalion.

Recently I decide to try Kremlin Miniatures Hurrah Stalino rules after a recommendation. The rules as they stand are for Russian Front 1942 – 45 but I thought they would work well for N.W. Europe 44-45 by creating some stats for the Americans. The rules use a 3” grid system but I used my 4” Kallistra Hexes.

The battle was the German counter offensive along the Ardennes. The Americans had 2 mechanised infantry divisions spread along the front with an Armoured Battlegroup in reserve off the table (which they had to dice for once the Germans reached a certain point on the table). The German offensive was carried out by 1 Panzer Division, 1 Kamfgruppe, 1 x Infantry Division and 1 x Panzergrenadier Division.

The game lasted about 2 hours and both sides thoroughly enjoyed the game (interestingly there was another 6mm WW2 game on at the club that night using a set of well known rules and after 4 hours they hadn't finished).

In our battle the German offensive began swiftly and were in combat within 3 turns. The Panzer Division leading the Infantry Division on the left flank. However, the Panzer Grenadiers on the right flank became bogged down in the forest soon taking it but making no more headway due to stiff US resistance. They fought off numerous US counter-offensives, holding the edge of the forest. On the left flank the Panzer division pinned down the other US Infantry division until its own Infantry Division caught up with them. Once they arrived, the Panzer Division rushed forward toward the U.S. Supply dump at the rear.

The US reserve battle group entered on the German right flank and the Kamfgruppe took it head on and took heavy losses. It looked like trouble for the Germans.

But this was to change significantly as the German Panzer Division took the supply dump. The German right flank had ground to a halt. The US players lack of supply meant he began suffering badly in all combats. He had to divert his remaining forces to try and relieve the supply sector. Unfortunately he failed against the Panzer Division with the German Infantry who had defeated his now threatening his flank. The US player admitted defeat.

There are some nice touches to the rules. Each hex represents 1.5 to 2km and can accommodate up to 6 units. However, only 3 of them can fight. The rules pay for tank battalions to have infantry support when attacking/defending. If you lose a combat with a tank battalion as a lead unit but you have infantry supporting you can elect to lose an infantry battalion instead of a tank battalion.

Combat is resolved by throwing 2D6 for each side and then adding dice for superior combat factors, supporting units and terrain advantages. The total number of dice are rolled and the winner is the one with the highest dice (not the total dice). Powerful units can be defeated in unfavourable tactical situations and vice versa.

If you lose your supply sector you roll one dice less each time. The US player learnt a crucial lesson here and next time he said he would guard his supply dump next time now he realised the importance of it.

All in all the game moved quickly. Tactical decisions had to be made by both players continually throughout the game but the combat system felt right. It rewarded you for using the right terrain and making good tactical decisions. We will definitely being playing this again and I can see me porting this across to the Sci Fi period.

Bye Bye Windows

2008-01-12T03:20:00.001-08:00

Well I finally made the decision at home to switch from Windows XP on my main machine. As stated on a previous post I had reinstalled my PC with XP in August last year following a trojan. As usual it was beginning to slow down quite drastically with the anti-virus software and anti-spam software. The decision was whether to do a complete re-install or look at the alternatives. Vista refuses to install on my machine, unfortunately, even though I received a free upgrade disk when I purchased the machine 12 months ago.

I have previously looked at Linux as an operating system.Unlike windows when there is one version Linux has different distributions made by different companies. The 2 most known for newbies like me is Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. So this is where I started looking.

Several other reasons persuaded me away from Windows:
1. You don't require a virus scanner - as Linux doesn't have viruses in the wild
2. You never need to defrag as Linux doesn't fragment files
3. Its more secure
4. Its free, the software is free
5. When you update the operating system you can update every program installed with 1 click.

Both come with LiveCDs so you can try the Operating System before you install it. Although PCLinuxOS looked nice I couldn't get my Ethernet card to be recognised but Ubuntu found it immediately. So it looked if the decision had been made.

All the software I use on my XP machine is already Open Source (i.e. free) and mostly is available for Linux anyway. I use Open Office for my Office Suite, Firefox is my browser of choice and Thunderbird is my email client.

Just before the switch over I found a version of Ubuntu called Linux Mint. Which is based on it heavily but comes included with all the MP3 and DVD Codecs out of the box and works straight away.

So how easy was it to set up. Very.

Firstly I backed up all my files from XP onto a USB hard Disk. Then I defragged the PC. Reboot the PC with the Linux Mint CD in the drive. Once thats booted click on Install on the Linux Desktop. Then followed 7 questions as to what language I wanted, what time zone I was based etc. I repartitioned my Hard Disk which was probably the hardest part so that I had 2 new partitions for Linux. I reduced by XP partition size to create it.

When the installation was complete I rebooted and had a menu whether to start Windows or Linux, booted into Linux and done. The beauty of Linux Mint aswell is I can get to by XP hard disk (but not the Linux disk from Windows). I copied my profiles for Thunderbird and Firefox so I didn't lose any emails or settings.

I can do everything I did in Windows on Linux so far and am using Linux 95% of the time. There is an excellent Community Forum that assists with any problems you may come across and they are especially helpfully to newbies like me.I probably won't completely remove XP completely until I haven't used it for 12 months...just to be on the safeside.

I reckon over the next couple of years as Linux goes from strength to strength more people will switch to it as I have done.

Transcendence

2007-10-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

No I haven't found my Karma or gone all hippy on you. This a cool free space trading and fighting game.

As you can see from the screenshot it is nicely rendered. The game play is good to shoot alien ships, dock at space stations, trade, build up your spacecraft.

This is a work in progress and the designer hopes to add detail to it for many years to come.

Find it here: Website

Zombie Board Games

2007-09-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

I've always had a love of Zombie films. It all started when I was 14 and went to see The Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Besides watching Zombie flicks I also like gaming the era. This is a list of my favourite zombie games:

Dawn Of The Dead - original boardgame of the film which was commercial published but now available free on the web here.

Dead Of Night - free web boardgame with outstanding production values and a good game to boot. Available from designers page.

Last Night On Earth - a new commercial boardgame that is getting very good reviews and is on my wish list. From Flying Frog Productions.

Zombie Plague : Free downloadable boardgame from Fortress games. Somewhat reminiscent of the Dawn of the Dead board game, on one team are the humans, while on the other are the zombies.

Mall Of Horror - commercial boardgame by Nexus.Each player controls 3 characters: a blond girl, a big guy and a dude with a gun. They must escape the zombies by locking themselves in the stores.

Blight of the Living Dead - Free miniature game available here. A set of miniature rules for a Fantasy Zombie Slaughter Fest

Dead Walk Again - free miniature rules from here. A set of tabletop rules inspired by the ever-growing number of zombie movies which pitches a small group of heroes against hordes of zombies.

Zombies!!! commercial boardgame by Twilight Creations which has spawned 5 expansions and has great plastic figures.

ZombieTown commercial boardgame by Twilight Creations which is a spin off of Zombies!!!.

Dead & Alive - solitaire free zombie game available from Boardgamegeek.

Send More Brains - an attempt to capture the flavour of zombie movies in a fun, fast-playing miniatures game (FREE). Available here.

And when you have finished all your Zombie gaming I recommend reading World War Z the official history of the Zombie Wars by Max Brooks.

DTP Boardgames

2007-09-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Desktop Published Boardgames are those games designed by people at home on their own PC's. I've quite a taste for boardgames and on the whole I prefer the German type boardgame, however, I'm always on the lookout for good easy to play historical games.

In the last week I've picked up a couple of cheap ones and a couple of free one's worth mentioning.

Prussia Rising £3.00 from wargamesdownloads. A game on the Franco Prussian War of 1870-71, played using a system similar to GDW A House Divided. It is a point to point game, with generic infantry and cavalry units, that may be upgraded during the game. It's not very complex and should be finished in around 2 to 3 hours at most. Playable both solitaire than face to face. The maps are beautifully drawn. The rules are bit foggy and require more clarity but the author is approachable via consimworld.

I Obey £3.00 from wargamesdownloads (sale price). This one is an operational game on Garibaldi campaign over the Alps during the initial and central phases of the Third Italian War of Independence. With a very peculiar chit drawing activation method and a combat system that stresses fatigue over real casualties, I obey is a fascinating study of this neglected campaign.

Postcards from the Revolution Free game from the authors website. This is a little gem a post card that includes the board, counters, rules and historical background of a single battle from the American Revolution.

Hohenfriedeberg free from authors site. This is inspired by the Postcard rules above but now covers the Battle of Hohenfriedeberg" which took place in 1745 during the Second Silesian War between Prussia and Austria.

So that should be enough to start you off...happy gaming.

Battlefield Academy

2007-09-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

The BBC has a nice little game on their site which has kept me amused called Battlefield Academy.

Pit your wits against the remorseless Artificial Intelligence engine of the Battlefield Academy, in four challenging historical missions.

The computer will be your enemy as you seek to gain tactical battlefield experience. You will only graduate when you have won every mission.

To help you succeed, some of the greatest commanders in history will be on hand to give you tactical advice - and the best players will be entered into each mission's High Score Table.

A day of Viruses and Trojans

2007-08-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law called round last night asking if I could sort his Computer out as he had a virus on it. It had hijacked his homepage and his virus scanner would not remove it.

So this morning I downloaded a couple of anti-trojan tools from the net. I tried a couple out then I had the following message "A program has removed a critical file please place Windows XP disc in the drive". Now this caused one major problem my PC came pre-installed with XP and 2 backup DVD's that only take it back to the factory settings.

The PC then completely crashed and would not start. I used a Linux Live CD to boot the computer up and accessed the hard drive. All folders was still intact, however, every single file on the PC had been wiped! Gone! No sign of them!

I've lost loads of rules, wargames articles....my last back up was a month ago. You guessed it I back up every 31 days and the crash occurred after 30 days.

I spent the next 2 hours getting the PC back to bog standard installation with anti virus and essential Internet software.

This afternoon I visited the father-in-laws to rid him of his virus and the Trojan he had installed (and the associated 118 others the original had installed) took me a couple of hours to get rid of. I did find a good piece of software eventually that removed it called SmitFraudFix which is now kept on my USB pendrive for emergencies.

It was the only piece of Freeware that removed the Trojans all the other failed (and I tried about a dozen).

So Murphys 123rd Law came true: "If you backup your data every 31 days you will lose your data on day 30"

Website Stumbles ... But back on line

2007-07-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have noticed that the site has been down for a couple of days. On the 16th I lost all my email account email and couldn’t access the site. I contacted my webhost and they admitted the problem was with them.

On 17th my webhost contacted me to say all had been fixed but still, I and others couldn’t access the site.

After contacted the webhost and a lot of detective work myself I finally resolved the problem. One of the 568 files which was on the server and was only 1kb in size had been corrupted when their server crashed. This totally blocked out the whole site.

As you can imagine it was difficult finding this problem but all is safe and well again now.

France 1940

2007-07-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

A period that I've been meaning to do for a long time now is France 1940. My interest for this part of WW2 started many years ago when I took part in a 10mm participation game at a wargame show.

I don't want to go as big as 15mm or 20mm scale so my options are:

2mm
Irregular
Not a great deal of coverage here. The Germans are well catered for, but only Char 1 and H35 available for the French, the British are worse with only the Matilda II.

3mm
Oddzial Osmy
These are a lovely range of figures and the detail for 3mm is amazing. Both the French and Germans are extremely well catered for. No British yet.

6mm
Heroic and Ros
Good coverage from this mainstay of manufacturers, I have lots of their 1944-45 figures already.

Irregular
Some vehicles missing from the French (R35, H39) and the British (A10, A13 and Matilda I). The sculpts are not as nice as Heroic and Ros.

Scotia Grendel
These are very reasonably priced too again a few missing vehicles for both the French H39) and the British (A10, A13, Matilda II).

10mm
Skytrex Action 200
These figures have been around a long time and some of the moulds show it. But all the vehicles are available.

Pendraken
One of my favourite manufacturers for 10mm, however, they have only recently started WW2. The only French tank they do at the moment is S35 and the only British one for the period is the Matilda 2.

Pithead Miniatures
A relatively new company they have an extensive range of vehicles for this period. They are a little pricier than the other 10mm.

Conclusion
I'm still undecided whether to go for 3mm with 3-5 tanks on a base representing a Platoon or for 10mm. The later figures look better on the table so I'm swaying that way.....

Maybe I should look at rules first?

Conan The Barbarian

2007-07-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

The Gutenberg Project of Australia has released all of Robert E Howards Conan books as free downloads from their site.

I’m slowly ploughing my way through them now. If you want a good e-book reader for your computer I recommend Tom’s eTextReader which makes reading these books on the PC much easier.

Wargaming Delayed

2007-07-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy of late with plenty of chores at home for Mrs Freewargamesrules.

This has stopped me from updating my blog, although I have been able to keep on top of the freewargamesrules website updates.

Hopefully things will be back to normal in the next couple of days!

Hair Curler Armies Moves To USA

2007-06-10T05:08:00.001-07:00

After my previous articles on Hair Curler armies there's a gamer from America who is creating his own ACW armies. He couldn't find hair curlers but managed to find some hair brushes that do just the job.

See how he's getting on at The Distracted Wargaming Blog

World War 1 Aircraft

2007-06-01T07:28:00.000-07:00

I've long been a fan of WW1 dogfight games and have a collection of 1/72 plastic kit aircraft just for the job. The only downside to them is they take up alot of storage space and making stands for them is a bit of a pain.

I was delighted to see that Fantasy Flight have bought out some 1/444 scale aircraft to go with their War of Wings game.

Theirs twelve models released in the first series:
3 x Spad XIII
3 x Sopwith Camel
3 x Albatross D.Va
3 x Fokker DR1

Needless to say purely for reviewing purposes I purchased all 12! They retail at £6.99 each.

They are made of plastic and beautifully painted. They have their own stand complete with forward firing arc. On the stand there is four detachable pegs for depicting the aircraft at different heights. Each place also comes with its own manoeuvre deck.

The models can be used for any game but we had a couple of games last night using the Wings of War rules. Everyone enjoyed themselves and a few more people are now talking about getting the aircraft too now.

See information here.

Ancients

2007-04-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

I've never been a big player of Ancients, I've always considered myself a Horse and Musket person. Many years ago I purchased a couple of Ancient Armies so that I could get a game on club days and usual I had 2 historically opposing ones. In those days we played DBM, I'm not a fan of the rules but it what everyone else was playing.

I've never had an inclination to raise, paint or buy any further ancient armies until I saw the HaT plastic range now available. So my interest in Ancients has risen slightly...but I don't want to play DBM, so what was the alternative?

In my club there has been a re-insurgence in WRG 6th Edition rules in 25mm. It started off with 2 or 3 players and is now up to about half a dozen. The rules are sound, however, there have been a couple of off putting things: (1) The rules are long out of print and are not easy to find second hand (2) Same for the army lists and (3) Three people who play 6th Edition in the club have had serious heart conditions!!

I have purchased the rules from the Evil Empire: Warhammer Ancient Battles and again a few people have been playing these in the club with their existing armies. There are some remnants leftover from Warhammer Fantasy that spoil these rules but I can't deny that the source books are excellent for people new to the period.

Then recently Crusader Miniatures brought out their new historical rules called Crusader which are a very reasonable £7.50 and printed in full colour. They cover the Biblical period through to Medieval and although designed for 28mm they can be used with any scale and any basing system. On reading these rules they look just my type of rules, simple but giving a good flavour of the period. The only downside is as they are a new set there are no army lists yet. (The book does have a Saxon and Norman scenario at the back).

The good news is that it looks as if the Army Lists are going to be free supported by their website and a Yahoo group. But in the meantime I am going to have to try and fudge the army lists for my Roman and Ancient British armies.

Spammers

2007-04-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've really been hit by spammers hard in the past 7 days. Firstly I'm receiving about 50 spam emails a day to my old pete@freewargamesrules.co.uk address. To counter this I have set up a new email address but I don't publish it anywhere. If people want to contact me now at the site they have to fill in a contact form which e-mails me the form without revealing the e-mail address to the user.

This has worked a treat and I get no spams to the new email address. I still have to monitor the old address but I can view them on the server remotely and delete them if I can see they are not wargame related.

The second type of spam I was getting was via my Guestbook some spammer or web-bot was putting in multiple entries per day to some Italian spam site, which meant I had to daily enter the guestbook and remove his/her spams. Now I've had to amend the guestbook so that the user has to enter a 3 digit random code to accept the post. Hopefully this will stop any automated scripts from adding spurious entries to my guestbook. We'll see how this goes on, if this fails I'll have to start logging IP addresses!

I managed to transfer the entries from the old guestbook so they were not lost.

Now Hair Brush Armies

2007-04-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Some of the readers across the Pond have been having trouble finding the types of hair curlers that we do over here. (For information we could get them from Boots The Chemist a large pharmacy chain).

Well I had an email from Will Scarvie of San Diego with his solution:

I'm having no luck finding the right kind of hair curlers to make my armies. But, I did find a number of hair brushes whose teeth work almost as well. The kind I'm using has a rubber insert into the handle, and rows of plastic teeth coming up through the rubber.

Underneath the rubber, these teeth are joined in rows and evenly spaced along the sprue that connects them. Trim to length and I've got lots of infantry. It's not as cheap as the hair curlers probably are/were, but it works and it's WAY cheaper than 6mm lead figures.

The Vista Nightmare

2007-04-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

I purchased a new Computer in November 2006. When I bought it, it had a free upgrade voucher to Vista.

So I paid £14.00 for shipping and handling to get my upgrade DVD pack which included an upgrade by the PC Manufacturer and The Vista Disc.

Now I'm no slouch at installing OS systems and in my time I have installed DOS, Windows 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, XP SP1 and XP SP2. So you would think it would be easy to install Vista...

No. After 12 hours and numerous Blue Screens of Death (BSOD) I am defeated. The problem started with sptd.sys error. After booting up with a Linux CD I checked the web and found this is a problem driver. So I managed to get to a command prompt and rename the file.

I then managed to get to another BSOD with the error of Page Fault In Non Paged Area. I googled this and it is one of 2 possible problems that no one appears to have solved (1) Faulty Memory (2) Video driver problems. Other people with this error can't install Vista either.

So I have now rolled back to Windows XP SP2 and all is fine and dandy again. I just pity the people that spend hundreds of pounds to get the upgrade kit.

My tip of the week is if you want Vista - by a new machine with it on. Otherwise stick to XP as it works!

More Hair Curlers

2007-04-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

I had an email asking me if the colour photos of the armies were mine. Unfortunately they are not however after a bit of searching I have found the artist. He has more armies on his site here.

Hair Curler Armies

2007-04-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

Way back in the depths of time Andy Callan wrote an article about making armies from hair rollers after a discussion by Paddy Griffiths. The original article by Andy can be viewed here: Andy Callan Article

Here are some pictures of such armies:

Picture 1

Picture 2:

Picture 3:

Hex and Grid Games

2007-04-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

I'm quite partial to the Richard Borg games BattleCry, Memoir 44 and Command & Colours. They are ideal for 2 players and our club has actually bought the first 2 and keep them in the gaming cupboard. If you turn up without anything planned you can usually find someone to have one if these games against.

On Boargamegeek in the Battle Cry Page there is a variant set of rules for the game called Advanced Battle Cry Deluxe Edition (find them under Files). These really improve the game and make it more "ACW like". So much so that we play these rules on the tabletop with 20mm plastic figures.

You could use the Kallistra Hexon System but these are quite expensive to make up a board for BC. So I purchased a 4 inch plastic hex template designed for quilt making from http://www.roybland.cjb.net/. With a bit of practice I found the best way to draw the grid is not to fully trace around the template but only to draw the straight sides and then only about 3/4 of their length. This hides any errors as you get near the sides when the grid can start to drift but also looks very good on the tabletop. I then purchased some Kallistra singles and hills to place on top of my drawn grid.

A new group has now opened called Hex/Grid Yahoo Group which is for like minded people to discuss these hex games, convert current rules systems etc. There are a number of hex tabletop rules available free from The Antwerp Fusiliers.

Wikipedia - 6.5 Hours

2007-04-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yes thats how long my entry lasted on Wikipedia. But it wasn't Mr Dunn who removed it it was another editor.

Instead I have a link at the bottom of Wikipeda's List of Miniature Wargames where I have the last whole paragraph!

Wargames Blogs

2007-04-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

Now that I've finally sorted out the site coding I thought I would look at some of the content. My first thought was I needed a list of blogs for wargames.

Thanks to Derek Hodge who let me copy his lists of blogs I now have a healthy selection.

Please feel free to tell me about any other blogs of interest.

Wargames Blogs

Wikipedia

2007-04-05T04:44:00.000-07:00

There is a very large discussion going on at The Miniatures Page (TMP)at the moment which I feel I must comment on. It's regarding Wikipedia and there entry for our hobby at Miniature Wargaming.

If you are familiar with Wikipedia its is an online encyclopaedia which anyone can edit. However, to ensure sensibility editors are used to keep the content relevant. One of these editors responsible for the Miniature Wargaming is a Larry Dunn, and I will come back to him shortly.

It would appear that certain persons have added content to the entry to try and give a broad background to our hobby. One person added the rules I Aint Been Shot Mum (IABSM) by TooFatLardies. Mr Dunn removed this link as he considered it commercial. None of the persons connected with TooFatLardies had submitted it and I'm sure they wouldn't have mind however, other "popular" rulesets were left on. I can see where Larry came from on this one but I think all the other rulesets should have been removed too.

On the other hand he allows a list of manufacturers so isn't this commercialism?

The one I do disagree with him though is that several people have tried to get the The Miniatures Page listed as an organisation because of the forums that people can visit. For some reason Larry won't let this stay on the page.

I think TMP is one of the most important meeting places for people from our hobby and think it should be allowed. (I think part of his problem is because 1. People can pay voluntary subscriptions to keep it running 2. He doesn't think it is notable enough).

Should 1 person be allowed this power over our hobby?

Today at 12.55 pm GMT I've added a link to my website which is completely free, non commercial and popular (thousands of visits per day). We'll see how long it takes to remove my link!

New Look Site Goes Live!

2007-04-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

After a hectic 24 hours I've managed to get the new "turbo" powered site up and running. So time for a little R&R and maybe some painting now.

Website Update 80% Complete

2007-03-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Work continues on the design of the new website. The hard core scripting is more or less finished and I'm at the tedious side of converting the current site data into the new format.

The new format keeps the wiki layout but greatly speeds up access (especially for dial up owners).

You can watch the development here.

The recent completions are:

The Whats New page now an imports my newsfeed. This reduces the duplication of writing the newsfeed and the Whats New section.
Designed the favicon for the final version incorporating the new white dice logo (although not implemented on the beta site yet).
From beta testers it became apparent that users what the same functionality as the present site. So when clicking on a rule name it now opens as a new page in the browser.
The Broken Link footer to each rules has now been reduced to an "!" at the end of the rule description thus reducing the clutter on the page
Likewise I have dropped the format type the rules are in as this has become superfluous to what users require now.
Looked at implementing forums but at present time this has been shelved as other sites like The Miniatures Page suffices for the hobby and is well established.

Still to do:

The RSS newsfeed details will have to be redesigned slightly when the new site is implemented so that the Whats New section reads properly
The Links section needs converting to the new format.
Still have to convert data for the 2 largest sections yet: World War 2 and Sci Fi
Decide on any further features to the site. Should I have a guestbook; bring and buy section; rule writing area. This will probably be left to a later implementation if there is need for it.

Triples 2007 - Report

2007-03-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Triples show and as usual I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I didn't spend as much as expected. The show seemed the same as usual plenty of traders and a disorganised Bring & Buy. Why they don't use a bigger room I'll never understand. I think ebay is killing off the good items at Bring & Buys these days.

On speaking to some traders they seemed to be slightly down on last years takings. A few of them did say that most of their trade is Internet based now so they have cut down on the shows.

My purchases this year were:

2 League of Augsburgs armies in 10mm from Pendraken. Plenty of painting there.
1 6mm ECW dragoon booster pack. I bought the ECW Polemos pack from Peter at Baccus 2 years ago and have painted up one army so far. The only thing the army was lacking was some dragoons.
HaT Napoleonic plastics - Austrian infantry and cavalry to finish of my Austrian army
Stretlets*R plastics - Napoleon's General Staff(2). These are mounted generals for use with my on going plastics project. I figure I can alter these for mounted generals for my Bavarians and Austrians.
Ga Pa rulebook for the Age of Marlborough by Thomas Arnfelt. These seem to be a very popular set of rules for the period. They have a limited army list in the back but cover the period I want.
Disposable Heroes Rules - only bought these because they were half price and might convert them for my planned modern game (US v Insurgents)
Quick Play Napoleonic Rules by Barry Edwards - again they were cheap and a couple of people in the club play them.
Robogear vehicles for the Airfix Robogear game. These were only £2.80 each instead of £7.99. I already have 2 sets of the full Robogear (yes still unpainted)so this was a good purchase adding moer vehicles to both sides.
Mall of Horror boardgame. This was in impulse buy as you can never have enough Zombie games! I play lots of boardgames and a future blog will feature my thought on boardgames.
100 small steel bases. These are to glue on to my 54mm plastic figures bases to give them some weight.
Some "Jaffar" type figures from the Stargate film made by MJ Figures. I already have a resin stargate which I bought off ebay some years ago. I've used it in all sorts of games. You can have whatever you want coming out of the stargate from Aliens, Predators to Daleks.
Battle Master game by MB games. This was a present for my son as I always get him a present while I'm away. He's six and a half now and desperate to wargame. We've already had one game on the lounge floor (not wargames on the floor since I was about 14 and my 42 year old limbs were aching). Worst of all I lost to him, what is it with kids rolling better dice than adults.
Finally bought a pewter dragon for the wife as she collects them. (This will allow me to go again next year).

My next outing will be Beer and Pretzels at Burton-on-Trent. Again it will be a stay over.

Another idea we had at the show was doing a wargame weekend at The Bunker Wargames Holiday Centre. It's £150 for a weekend wargaming with all the figures supplied bed and board. All you have to supply is beer.......very tempting.

Ammunition Supply

2007-03-22T02:46:00.000-07:00

I was recently running a 20mm boxer game at my club. Three players between them ran the legations while I ran all the boxer mobs.

I wanted to simulate the legations thinking about their ammunition or running out of it so I came up with the following idea. I used poker chips and each legation was given 3 red poker chips (fire chips). Each time the legation wanted to fire they handed in one of their fire chips which were placed into a bag. Inside the bag at the start of the game was a number of black chips equal to the green chips on the table.

At the start of each turn each legation returned their black chips into the bag and drew back up to 3 chips again. So if they no fire chips they would draw 3 if they already had two fire chips they could only draw 1 chip.

The system worked well with legations running out of ammunition and unable to fire, or holding fire when they only red chip left to save for emergencies.

Another alternative to make it even harder for the legations would be that each legation can only draw 1 chip per turn. I may try this another time.

The rules I used were my LOTR Strategy Battle Game variant found at the LOTR Variant yahoo group.

Triples Wargames Show

2007-03-21T07:24:00.001-07:00

This Saturday and Sunday is the Triples show in Sheffield. Myself and some friends make the yearly pilgrimage to this show travelling up on Friday morning and returning Sunday afternoon.

The schedule of events on the Friday means arriving midday, playing some board games with a beer or two. Then off to get some lunch and maybe another beer. We return to the hotel mid afternoon to book in, play some more boardgames and maybe another little drink. This carries into evening time when we go out for a Balti return to the hotel suitably refreshed more boardgames and beer......as Homer Simpson says "Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

Essential Items for the show are: purchase list (if left behind this is a disaster); comfy shoes (to walk around each hall several times); bag (to carry all the ill gotten gains in); bottle of water (to re-hydrate oneself); air-freshener (to deal with those people who have body odour problems - especially in the cramped Bring and Buy area).

Prior to returning home ensure you have gifts for the other half and kids so that they allow you to go again next year.

Upon arrival home the main decision to make is:
a) Do you take in all the purchases straight into the house
b) Drop them off at a friends house
c) Take some items in but leave the majority in the car boot to sneak into the house over the next several days

The other main event worthy of a yearly pilgrimage is the Spiele boardgame show, Essen in October. This nicely splits the year into two halves and has greatly improved my packing skills trying to lug back boxes of games in a suitcase.

Website Design

2007-03-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

1st Generation
In 1997 I decided to write a webpage for my local club Wrexham and District Wargames Club. In those days I knew nothing about writing webpages and used a WYSIWYG editor. It was a simple site with a link to a few rules I had written.

2nd Generation
Soon it began to grow and I added further rulesets. I then learnt about frames so my site had the index down the left side and the main page on the right. I know began to learn to edit my site using a text editor so I could code it manually.

3rd Generation
The site was getting a bit too heavy to edit all the html pages. I know had to have different pages for each era. I wanted a database but my ISP did not support it. A solution then was to save the rulesets as a database on my computer using Microsoft Access. I only updated the site once a month as the next process was very laborious. I exported the database into DBF format and used another piece of software to generate the HTML pages from that.

4th Generation
I found a lovely website called Tiddlywiki. This made an entire website into a single HTML page. The site had a fresh new look and the updates were a breeze to do. Now I could do updates on an almost daily basis. However, as the site has continued to grow so has the size of the single webpage. It's now over 600k. This slows it down when people visit it if they don;t have broadband. I recently changed to a webhost that supports version 4.01 of PHP so now the time is ripe to migrate to a PHP server.

5th Generation
Several days of hunting around has taken place trying to find wikis or content management systems that work on PHP 4.1. Most of them require version 5. However, I think I've found what I'm looking for in pmwiki. I uploaded the templates to my site and within 24 hours I have a working beta.

I have done this migration thing twice with big consequences from html to access in the 3rd Generation took a long time and I only had several hundred rules to do then. When I created the 4th Generation site I had 1,000 entries to convert. This time it's even bigger and I daren't count how many entries will need to be converted.

Will the site migrate to the new version? I don't know yet. But take a look at it and tell me what you think, over the next couple of weeks I will convert more content to see if it is viable.

Freewargamesrules 5th Generation Beta.

Napoleonic Rules

2007-03-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Another project I have on the go at the moment is 20mm Napoleonics. I'm in the process of painting up two armies Bavarian and Austrian (Austrians as they're easy to paint and Bavarians as they can fight on both sides).

The problem with this period though is that no-one can agree on a good set of rules to play. My first set of rules were the good old Bruce Quarrie Napoloenic set which originally came out as an Airfix guide published by Patrick Stephens Limited back in 1974 (I have the 1977 edition bought when I was 13). Later on Bruce bought out an updated book, which I also have and have played.

In our local club Deeside Defenders there is no set of Napoloenic rules that dominate. Myself I'm still trying to find a set of playable rules that give a flavour of the period and that are easy to play (I'm getting too old for complicated sets with lots of tables). Also different national characteristics and unit quality is important.

I've narrowed it down to 2 free sets that I will test when the figures are finished:

Huzzah By oozlum games they have a unique mechanic I've not noticed until now. Instead of units firing at the enemy, the enemy takes a threat test when in range of enemy cavalry, infantry and artillery. Depending on the grade of the threatened unit they must make a successful test or if they fail they take staggers (which when accumulated can destroy a unit).

In The Name Of Glory These were recently only available to purchase but David Marks the author has now presented them free of charge. A lot of work has gone into the rules at 98 pages long. He goes into a lot of detail explaining small things which most gamers take for granted. Strip away all the explanations and the rules are quite simple and Stuart Asquith recommends them too. A nice little mechanism here is the command and control system. each army is given activation counters to assign to units of their choice. The number of counters depends on the quality of the general and the army in question.

So those are my two choices I will give a feedback at a later date on the two sets when playtested (and when the two armies are finally painted).

League Of Augsburg

2007-03-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

I've been considering 18th Century gaming for a while now but have been struggling to decide what scale and what period to try out.

There are some lovely ranges and periods out there and the one that was a near miss was The Great Northern War. Stretlets*R have a lovely plastic range.

However, I finally settled on The League of Augsburg (also known as the 9 Year War). I was encouraged by The League of Augusburg website, they also provide a set of Wargames rules called Under The Lilly Banner.

The scale was something that I was unsure of. But I settled on 10mm after seeing some nicely painted 10mm ranges at my club from Pendraken. I've ordered 2 army packs from Dave which I will collect this weekend at Triples.

Being a rules fiddler I found a set of rules from Jackson Gamers which had potential as they are element based called Quick Tricorne which look good. I expanded the command and control system as the way I see it armies were very hard to command or control in this period. Generals didn't have all the staff they had in later years.

I also changed the morale tests from using a single D6 to 2D6. Class A troops have a morale of 10 down to Class D with a 7. Add or subtract modifiers to the morale number. Then roll equal or below the modified morale factor to see if the unit has passed.

News Feeds

2007-03-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of news feeds since discovering them last year. MY own homepage is set to yourminis which lets my see whats going on in the hobby. Also handy for my local weather and news too.

I have been running a news feed to freewargamesrules for about 12 months now and use a piece of freeware software called feedspring to create the xml file that is a newsfeed. It really is simple.

The latest edition to the newsfeed is that users can now ask for the newsfeed to be e-mailed to them directly via another free service called r-mail. Within 2 weeks of setting this up we became one of the top 100 feeds on the service.

Blog Creation

2007-03-19T03:18:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to start my own blog which will be my ramblings on wargames rules and other aspects of our hobby.

This is a chance to get things off my chest and share my thoughts with my website readers.