Wargame Waffle: Rules

Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts

17 December 2025

A Note on ScalesIntroduction

The purpose of this post is to provide some brief words on 4 different scales that wargames rules should address. The intention is to provide background information to be referenced by future posts. Version 2 of Chain Of Command (COC2) is referenced to illustrate the scales. The scales are addressed alphabetically, below.

Ground Scale

Ground scale is the ratio of distance on the table to the real world. The ground scale for COC2 is 1:120 so 1" on the table represents 120" = 10' in the real world; hence, 12" on the table represents 120' = 40 yards in the real world. Clearly, the distance across the table a unit may move is determine by the speed the unit was capable of and the ground and time scales.

Ground scale is also used to derive the range of weapons (eg, arrows, muskets and machine guns) used in distant combat.

At The Sharp End (ATSE) is a set of rules (from TooFatLardies - the publisher of COC2) for campaigns of COC games; a campaign is a series of games in which the result of early games influences the start conditions for later games; for example, a character killed early in the campaign is unavailable to take further action in the campaign and may or may not be replaced by a different character.

ATSE confirms the ground scale to be 12" represents 40 Yards and states this is defined in COC (which I've not read) but I've found no reference to ground scale in COC2.

Model Scale

Historical Tabletop Wargames (HTW) are played with scale models of real world objects. Model scale is the ratio of the size of the model to the real world size of the item it represents. The model scale of 1:100 indicates that 1 centimetre of a model represents 1 metre (100 centimetres) in the real world. A model scale of 1:100 equates to a figure that is nominally 15mm tall when standing, which is sometimes referred to as a scale of 15mm - note that the distance from sole of boot to eye is 15mm for a 15mm figure - not sole of boot to top of head - please don't ask me why.

For World War 2 (WW2), this is approximately consistent with the mean height of soldiers. At 1:100, 15mm represents 1.5 metres = 4' 11". This Wikipedia article includes the comment 'an average height of 1.65 to 1.70 meters was aimed for' by the German army early in WW2. Those extra couple of mm of model, from eye to top of head, make up the difference. Compared with heights of Europeans today, the mean height of a soldier in WW2 was short; heights of 5'6" to 5'8" are quoted in several places in t'interwebrary.

Generally, models (eg, vehicles, buildings, plants, walls, width of rivers and roads, etc) should be built at the model scale so that the models look 'right' when placed in close proximity on the table.

Differences between Ground and Model scales are normal within HTW. COC2 played with 1:100 models and a ground scale of 1:120 represent a relatively close match between these scales.

Organisation Scale

Some HTW rules are intended for actions between very large forces; for example, many rules for the English Civil War/ British Civil Wars have an organisational scale of 1:20 so a company of nominally 100 men, typically commanded by a captain, would be represented by 5 infantry figures.

COC2 is a skirmish level game. The core of each force is a platoon, typically of 30 to 40 men; hence, the organisational scale is 1:1 - one model represents one real person/ vehicle.

Time Scale

As previously noted, time scale works in conjunction with ground scale and speed to derive distances that models may be moved. In common with some other 'modern' rules for HTW, COC2 has a variable time scale. Based on a mean move distance of 7" for infantry moving at Normal speed (roll 2d6), and assuming the guys are jogging over a relatively short distance at circa 6 miles per hour, the duration of a Phase in COC2 is in the order of 8 seconds.

In addition to the distance moved, the time scale influences the amount of metal that can be fired (distant combat) or thrust (close combat) at a target each Phase of the game; hence, the potential amount of damage that can be caused.

Correction

This article was originally posted on 17Dec25 with the erroneous value of 24 seconds for an indicative duration of a Phase of COC. The correction to circa 8 seconds was made on 18Dec25.

08 August 2025

In Search of Rules for WW2Introduction

In here, I explained why in 2025, I got back into WW2 war-games.

The first task was to decide the rule set Alex and I wanted to play - see here for a recommended process to approach an historical period. To this end, I conducted much research in t'interwebrary about popular rule-sets.

Observations

What follows is my interpretation of the articles and YouTube videos available in July and August 2025.

They are offered here in case others might benefit from the research.

Observations are presented by organisational level and rule-set; each rule-set is identified together with its author(s) and year of initial release.

Please let me know if there are glaring errors in any this work.

Now I'm more familiar with Chain Of Command 2, improvements to the detail of some of what was observed in Jul25 became apparent (in Nov25) but the general gist of the observations was the same so no time was consumed to polish them.

Platoon Level

Chain Of Command

TooFatLardies – 2013

Patrol phase – determines where infantry units may start the game; a good feature.
Roll typically 5 x d6 Command Dice (CD) to determine which type of units may activate.
Chain Of Command Dice (COCD) used to record COC Points (COCP) gained from CD; COCP enable additional interventions/ actions.
Each turn is played in phases; throws on CD determine end of turn, which results in ‘administrative’ actions.
There are random events tables.
Units are represented by bases with individual figures so more play-time spent moving units than with rules that have bases that represents groups of troops; however, platoon level means there aren’t a large quantity of bases on the table.
Actions for combat units may be move or fire.
Movement distance for all units determined by di(c)e roll(s) with adjustment for terrain and crossing obstacles. Tactical, normal and ‘at the double’ use different quantity of dice and each has different benefits and constraints.
Commanders can order overwatch and covering fire, mitigate shock and order fire from ‘specialist’ weapons.
Distant Combat: quantity of d6 varies by weapons shooting; roll to hit depends on range and quality of target. Hit effect table considers cover. Target may be shocked or killed.
Close Assault: quantity of d6 to roll = quantity of figures; 1/3 probability of shock/ kill; looser may be forced to withdraw.
National characteristics can tweak rules.

Company Level

Crossfire

Arty Conliffe - 1996

Player with the initiative keeps playing until initiative lost by: sustaining damage from combat; failing an attempt to inflict damage on the enemy; or failing an attempt to rally. Effectively, both players are active throughout the game.
Actions may be move, combat or rally.
No measurement for movement or firing.
Movement between terrain features so lots of features required.
Enemy can opportunity fire if active player moves into field of view.
Distant Combat: Rifle squad throws 3 die to shoot (MG = 4 die); 5&6 to hit; quantity of hits determines pin, suppress or eliminate.
Close Combat: die roll with modifiers to eliminate enemy units.
Roll to rally
No national features; eg, all MG are the same.

Fireball Forward

Mark Fastoso and Jonathan Miller - 2012

Units (typically platoon) made up of elements (typically squads).
Units often in concealment and placed on table only when they fire or are ‘spotted’ so initially, lots of documented hidden movement. Once spotted, all elements bar sniper, remain on-table for the rest of the game.
Side and quantity of units to be activated determined by draws from deck of playing cards. Payer selects unit(s) and sequence for activation. Some scenarios employ ‘initiative chips’ that allow additional activations.
For each unit, player chooses first element, which may move, spot, fire and/ or rally (depending on whether the element is individual, Recon, infantry or vehicle) in sequence selected by the player. This is repeated for all elements in the first unit. The player then repeats process for subsequent units in the previously decided sequence.
The opposing player repeats the process, which is repeated until all elements have been activated once in the current turn.
Movement is across any distance within a radius from the current position; constrained by the quantity of ‘terrain crossings’. Enemy may initiate Opportunity Fire (OF) if movement within LOS but may conduct OF only once per target unit per turn. At end of move, element can nominate one terrain feature within 3” and LOS; enemy must reveal any units concealed by that feature.
Distant Combat:

Fire against nearest element within LOS.
Against infantry, 3 different dice - the quantity of each depends upon unit firing – white hit d6, coloured hit d6, and 20-sided range die. White dice with DRMs for terrain and potentially range of target; coloured dice hit on natural 6; and range die increases the standard effective range of the element so can prevent all hits if target beyond range.
Morale check required for each hit: one failure and element is ‘broken’ so may make a route movement; >1 and element eliminated. Target suppressed if passes morale check when it was fired at during enemy’s activation (not from OF); consequently, target unable to initiate OF until next activated.
When hit armour, check penetration and roll to block penetration. Morale checks may be required.
Artillery is off-board.

Close combat: single d6 per side with DRMs; only loser receives hits.
Rally is the only permitted action for a ‘broken’ element but other actions may be conducted if element does rally. Six on D6 required unless in base contact with leader, in which case compare against leader moral.
Spot action: 5 or 6 on d6 enables nomination of one terrain feature in LOS and any elements there are placed on the table.
Generally, units are generic rather than different features for different nations (may be different ranges – don’t know). One exception is Russian activation. Also specific rules for Japanese.

Flames of War

Battlefront Miniatures - 2002

Arguably, slightly bigger than company level – aircraft and artillery may support. Appears to be primarily an armour game. Ground scale is significantly different to the figure scale.
Measure for movement and combat.
Command Radius (CR); penalty for shooting if outside CR.
Distant Combat:

Check range, check Line Of Sight (LOS), check concealment. Quantity of dice to roll is a function of weapon to fire and the amount of movement undertaken.
Roll to hit is a function of target with DRMs.
Hits are assigned to other targets in the unit (within 6” of hit target), even if they weren’t shot at.
Roll to save based on offensive capability of weapon and armour of target; then roll Firepower Test to establish level of any damage. (Lots of dice rolls).
Infantry can become pinned.
Artillery is on-table; template used for fall of shot. Aircraft bomb in similar way to artillery fire.

Close Combat (Assault): ? - prior to completion of this summary, I’d decided I’d not enjoy FOW so ceased research.

Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI)

Peter Pig – 2000; latest version was 2025.

Grid based.
Each ‘square’ of the grid rolls for quantity of Action Points (AP) with potential for re-rolls based on distance from Company Commander. Every element within the square may consume the same quantity of AP.
Actions may be move, combat or rally.
Movement costs AP – quantity of AP varies by terrain being vacated and entered.
Distant combat (DC) costs 1 AP with a max of 3 DC per turn – 6 to hit on d6; quantity of d6 determined by type of weapon and modification factors. Saving throw – modified by terrain. Enemy survivors may return fire.
Eliminated unit replaced by ‘body’ marker. Two such markers for a platoon represents 1 ‘problem’ (loss of officer also 1 problem). When there are 2 problems, moral check required that can result in removal of a base. Cost 2 AP to remove a body marker.
Close Combat (Assault) costs 4 AP – 3 die per unit with modifications.

Battalion Level

O Group – (might be company level)

Reisswitz Press (sister of TooFatLardies) – 2020

Looks like something to evolve into once platoon and company level have been mastered.
Storm of Steel has some useful introductory videos:

Rapid Fire

Colin Rumford and Richard Marsh – early 21^st century

Abstraction of unit size so something platoon size represents a company; not appealing.

“Play using the standard Rapid Fire 1:15 figure and 1:5 vehicle ratios for brigade-level engagements, or use for 1:1 skirmishes or even 1:45/1:15 divisional level battles…”.

BattleGroup

The Plastic Soldier Company – 2012?

Has keen followers.
Claims to handle from platoon level to at least Battalion level.
Unsure that Reserve Move is realistic; a reserve move marker can be placed, then played at any time; in the enemies bound, a unit can reserve move after all enemy have fired, then it can move again on its own turn; this doesn’t appear realistic.

Conclusions

We decided that we'd start with relatively small organisations so specifically sought a platoon level game, with the intention to scale up force sizes and choose different rules as our confidence grew and we 'were promoted'. We opted for Chain of Command and awaited release of version 2 in the Autumn of 2025.

06 February 2021

Review: Rules 'Panzer Marsch!' - Graham Birkley and Steve Dunn for the North Hull Wargames Club

Summary

Below, is a personal summary of Panzer Marsch!, which was gained by reading the rules:

Great for actions from high-level skirmish to fairly large battles - recommendations in the rules imply up to circa 200 AFVs per side in 1:300; although, this quantity could require maintenance of lots of records.
Whilst not stated, the intended duration of each bound appears to be several minutes.
Measurement for movement uses a unit called M, which may be defined by the players - great idea to simplify movement.
Effects of small-arms determined with templates - rapid assessment of casualties.
'Large-arms' fire uses 5 range-sticks of different length, each divided into 6 'bands' - great idea.
Well thought out (developed over 20 years of play); probably easy to learn so that only the 4 sides of play sheets (aide memoirs) should be required for a game.
Beautifully presented.
Appears to have been lots of research to generate the many army lists that can still be purchased separately.

Waffle

Note

Several reviews of Panzer Marsch! are available from Boardgamegeek.com; consequently, this review is intended to be the highlights from my perspective, rather than fully comprehensive.

Why I bought Panzer Marsch!

Circa 2010, when I dug out the Heroics and Ros 1:300 figures I'd purchased and painted 30+ years earlier, I realised the mix of figures was historically inaccurate. Through research on t'interwebrary, I became aware of and purchased some of the many army lists published by the North Hull Wargames Club (NHWC) that formed an important part of their Panzer Marsch! wargames rules.

Illustrative use of range sticks

After the inspiration to re-visit WWII desert that, 3 months ago, I received from Peter from his Grid Based Wargaming blog, further research on t'interwebrary indicated Panzer Marsch! employed some great techniques; I was particularly attracted to the use of range-sticks. A couple of weeks ago, a very reasonably priced, used copy came up on eBay; it was purchased.

Size of typical force

The rules recommend various force sizes based on a points system; for example, 20-25mm troops to be 700 points for skirmishes and 1,500 - 2,000 for battles. A typical British force from 1944 worth 1,500 points consists of:

Force HQ
One infantry company of:

Company HQ
Three infantry platoons of:

Platoon HQ
Three sections

Four medium lorries to carry one infantry platoon
One infantry support platoon of:

Platoon HQ
One Medium Machine Gun section
One Mortar section
One Anti-tank Gun section

Armour

HQ - one armoured car and 3 Honey light tanks
Two troops of:

One Sherman Firefly tank
Three Sherman 75 tanks

This is a force of circa 150 infantry figures, 2 anti-tank guns and 20 vehicles. This appears to be quite a lot of individual figures to move about a battlefield and units for which to maintain records.

Army lists

Half of one of the many available army lists

The permitted constituents of a force, their organisation and point values, are available in army lists. There are scores of army lists produced by NHWC to support Panzer Marsch!; they are still available via t'interwebrary. Also, the army lists are very useful in their own right, which is why I bought some circa one decade ago.

Activities addressed by Panzer Marsch!

Panzer Marsch! includes techniques to represent all types of military technology employed in the period. In addition to the standard fodder for rules, such as movement and 'normal' combat, Panzer Marsch! addresses: orders and how to change them over the radio-net; target identification; artillery and mortars; snipers; cavalry; engineer weapons and fieldworks; air superiority, ground-to-air, air-to-ground, paratroops and gliders; morale; and amphibious operations.

The rules really are very comprehensive yet appear as though they'd be easy to use after a little practice. There are minor variations recommended for 1:300 scale.

Timescale

Whilst not stated, the intended duration of each bound appears to be several minutes. Primarily, this has been determined by what is achievable on the radio-net in one bound.

Benefits of M

Movement and visibility ranges are measured in units of M; recommended to be 3" for 1:300 and 6" for other scales; however, players agree M prior to the start of a battle; although, the length of M clearly has to bear some relationship to the dimensions of the range-sticks, which are between 1 and 10 standard Ms in length. A firing vehicle may be visible up to 10M and an early WWII light tank may move up to circa 5M.

Attractive to me is the simplification of M compared to more complex rules with subtilely different movement distances for each vehicle. The use of M has some of the benefits of hexes, which are discussed here.

Benefits of templates and range-sticks

For similar reasons, the use of templates and range-sticks also appeals. Dimensions are provided in Panzer Marsch! for templates for: shot guns; flamethrowers; heavy machine guns; artillery; and to determine whether a hit is on side or rear armour.

As indicated in a previous illustration, range-sticks are a convenient way to determine the effectiveness of anti-armour and anti-aircraft weapons. There are 5 range-sticks, each subdivided into 6 'bands' of equal length; range-sticks are between 6 and 60 inches long (3 and 30 inches for 1:300). What range-stick to use and the armour penetration capability at each band is detailed in the army lists for each anti-tank weapon.

Benefits of play sheets

Half of one or the four play sheets

The 50+ page Panzer Marsch! rule book exists to explain the rules and provide illustrative examples for clarification. The rules appear straight-forward and are summarised on 4 glossy sides of A4 play sheets.

Experienced players will require only the play sheets for battle and not the entire rule book. This is a great way to present an easily playable, table-top friendly set of rules.

Style of presentation

Panzer Marsch! is well presented. It is clearly laid out and printed in a glossy format so crumbs of battle-rations can be brushed off without leaving a mark. The photos of some of the battles from NHWC show scenery with the high quality of a model-railway - most impressive.

05 February 2021

Are Triangles a Better 'Divisor' of a Battlefield than Hexes?

Phil's Diagram of Triangular Tiling

Yesterday, I read this post by Phil and the subsequent discussion; they prompted some thoughts. Phil reported on further developments here.

Triangles might work well if stands are placed on the points rather than in each triangle. Each point can be perceived as the centre of one hex and the point of 6 hexes and each hex overlaps 6 other hexes as illustrated in the next diagram.

Each hex overlaps 6 other hexes

A distance of 2 points for movement and distant-combat is equivalent to 1 hex so conversion of rules intended for hexes may be straight-forward.

Reasons why I like hexes are explained here. I've yet to work-out whether points of triangles and hexes that overlap are a useful construct and hope one day to make the time to experiment with it.

One such experiment might involve a unit of 3 stands. For example, the unit could comfortably wheel around one hex as illustrated here.

A unit of three stands wheels to the right

29 January 2021

A Terrain Selection Technique Applied to the Western Desert

A few months ago, Peter's rules, descriptions of campaign moves and after action reports posted at Grid Based Wargaming, inspired me to dig out some old WWII Western Desert 1:300 Heroics and Ros models. Peter had developed rules for battle from 'Tank on Tank' from Lock 'n Load Publishing.

Peter also developed rules for selection of terrain for each battle. Selection was influenced by the location of the battle on the campaign map.

In simplified summary, Peter shuffles 18 cards and deals 9 on a 3 by 3 grid. Each card represents one of 8 different terrain types. Rules determine battle objectives, which are terrain features.

The technique works well but during games where it had been used, I encountered an issue previously experienced with English Civil War (ECW) battles also fought on battlefields with relatively few hexes; namely, the edge of a battlefield can appear to be an artificial barrier. This can be a particular issue when an objective is close to the edge of a battlefield. Generally, to regard the the side of the battlefield to be adjacent to an abyss is inappropriate. For ECW, a river works as a good boundary but a river on both sides of a battlefield would be unlikely for every battle.

One solution I'm about to trial uses the same 18 cards as Peter to determine terrain in an inner grid of 9. Peter's technique is used to determine:

The side of the battlefield occupied by each force
Defender and attacker adjustments to the terrain
Battle objectives
Initial deployment of units

Quantities of each type of terrain
card for inner and outer grid

This is supplemented by another set of 32 cards with 4 different terrain types. This deck is shuffled and cards are dealt to determine terrain immediately around the inner grid of 9 - this results in a 5 x 5 grid of terrain features.

The quantities of terrain cards in each deck is shown in the adjacent table. The deck for the outer grid excludes potential objective cards and a road card because only one road is permitted on the battlefield.

An example of Peter's table-top
terrain for the Western Desert

Whilst Peter battles across impressive 'cloth' table top terrain (see the adjacent picture, which was pinched from here), I aspire to a 3-dimensional modular terrain system with a look similar to that pictured below; however, with the experience documented here, I intend to use simplified 2-dimensional terrain for now; namely, interchangeable map modules.

Illustrative look for aspirational terrain

First use of terrain cards with outer surround

An 'open' terrain module

Each terrain card represents a module of hexes. The reason I like hexes is explained here.

Each hex has the dimensions listed below; these are a comfortable fit with units mounted on stands of 30mm square:

Length of face - 31mm
Distance between opposite faces - 52mm
Distance between opposite angles - 62mm

All modules, bar the 'open' module, contain terrain features. Terrain modules are 4 hexes wide by 3 hexes deep; they measure approx 7 1/8" (182mm) wide by 6 1/8" (157mm) deep so a 5 x 5 grid is slightly less than 3' x 3' (1m x 1m) so occupies a reasonably small part of a table-top.

Shown below is the battlefield generated by the set of cards pictured above. Note that whilst the escarpment runs the width of the battlefield, each module has a pass so that there isn't only one pass to form a bottleneck between levels (such as Halfaya Pass).

Interim terrain modules that represent the battlefield
generated by the cards shown above

Seven types of interim terrain module - absent is 'road with village'

My gut feeling is that the quantities of cards should be tweaked. I suspect that the ratio of 'open' cards to the total quantity should be greater and the ratio of soft sand and wadi should be reduced but I intend to play a few battles with the current ratios to gain experience.

28 January 2021

Page for Rules for WWII in the Western Desert

Today, I started to populate this page to contain rules for combat in the Western Desert (Libya and Egypt) from 1940 to 1941 during World War 2. Its still work-in-progress but "the journey of one thousand miles begins with one step". The page can be accessed from the header section of Wargame Waffle.

The page can be accessed from the header section of Wargame Waffle

12 January 2021

How Best to get into a New Period for Wargames (or What Comes First, the Chicken or the Egg?)

Introduction

One attraction of the hobby of Historical Tabletop Wargames (HTW), is the variety of associated facets. Over the years, I've had several false-starts back into HTW, that were probably due to the incorrect sequence of adoption of the facets.

This post is intended to help wargamers benefit from my experiences and eliminate false-starts. This post discusses: four facets of the hobby; a recommended sequence to pick up these facets as interest in a period develops; and experiences that have led to the recommendation.

Facets

The four featured facets are listed below in the sequence recommended for their adoption; although, note that some overlap is essential:

History - factual and fictional material
Rules
Modelling - figures
Modelling - terrain

DiscussionHistory

Books on the history of the western desert during WWII

For some wargamers, the history associated with a period is what really fires their imagination and motivates them to battle. History provides context and explains why an army completely composed of elite units with the latest equipment would be unusual.

History also influences: the types of units to be fielded and their characteristics; the appropriate range of ratios of quantities of unit types; what the units should look like; methods of communication; the terrain and weather with which the troops had to contend; and the rules likely to be appropriate.

Mistake: In circa 2005, I developed an interest in the Napoleonic era, found some simple rules I liked, purchased a 15mm French army, then started to read up on the history. From the history, I learned that the rules were far too generic and ignored the differences in tactics; hence, were unrepresentative of the time. This knowledge meant I'd be unable to enjoy a game with the rules so I lost interest in the period.

Lesson: Have a reasonable knowledge of the period you wish to wargame before you invest too heavily.

Rules

A visual representation of yin-yang

The rules are key to the enjoyment of a game. As with most things in life, to find rules that wargamers enjoy they must understand themselves and be able to identify the yin-yang of each set of rules they may wish to use.

What do you want your games to represent? As a commander, what type of challenge do you want to solve; maybe: how does my section clear this building when we've only limited ammunition and without being picked off by the sniper; or how can I secure this supply route without taking too many companies from defence of the front-line?

Rules appropriate for skirmish, where the wargamer effectively takes the role of an officer of rank from Corporal to junior Officer, are likely to be relatively detailed, with one minute or less represented by one game turn and probably significantly less than 100 troops represented on the battlefield.

Contrast this with a brigade or divisional level action, where the wargamer's role is that of a general. Rules need to be much less detailed; we're interested in the big picture with potentially thousands of troops represented (although, unlikely to be present) on the battlefield; one game turn represents perhaps as much as one hour or more.

Skirmish rules would be completely inappropriate for divisional level action. The wargamer would probably be bogged-down with records and distracted from the thought processes necessary to enjoy the action. Likewise, a skirmish action would almost certainly be impossible with rules intended for high-level formations.

Additionally, mechanisms used in rules to represent outcomes are an important characteristic. Do you prefer: for measurement - tape-measure or hexes; for combat resolution - long lists of parameters that may influence the outcome or leave it all to chance (or somewhere between the extremes); etc.

A small selection of rules for wargames

Clearly, rules for HTW must: be representative of their historical period; provide wargamers with the stimulation they seek; avoid too much detail so that they remain a pleasure to use.

Rules determine how troops are represented on the battlefield and the appearance of those troops and the battlefield; hence, influence the modelling facets of the hobby.

Mistake: In 2017, I started to wargame the 1642-1651 English Civil War (or whatever it's called when you read this). I read up on the history and found a few rules for the conflict but none of them felt quite right. Over a period of about 3 years, I tinkered with rules but found that I was going round in circles; one version would have too many bases to move, another would fail to represent the different ratios of Pike to Shot in units; I felt more comfortable with hexes (see this post) but most available rules used physical measurement devices; etc, etc. I've yet to find/ develop rules I'm completely happy with for this period but currently believe Snaphance may bear fruit.

Lesson: Understand what type of challenge you seek from your battles; hence, the granularity required of the rules. Be clear about the mechanisms you enjoy and those you don't.

Modelling

A village in Normandy *

For many wargamers, one of the pleasures of the hobby is the visual impact of figures on a miniature battlefield and the creative modelling work to achieve it. Also, there's a plethora of new and used (well painted) figures and terrain for wargames available on the internet so you can save time and money by buying them.

Figures

A unit of Pike and Shotte

Wargames rules can be clear on the appearance of troops and their equipment and how they are presented with regard to Ground Scale and the size of stands for troops. Consequently, much time spent on modelling troops before rules are reasonably firm can be time wasted. The 15mm Pike and Shotte that are pictured, were purchase as used (and painted); I rebased them for the rules I used at the time but the jury is out on whether they'll be rebased.

Note that whilst getting to grips with and/ or developing rules, you need something to play with so use simple figures or attach only one figure to a stand ultimately intended for many figures and don't bother to make the stand look too pretty.

* This image was stolen from 'Panzer Marsch!' WWII wargames rules by Graham Birkley and Steve Dunn. At the time of typing, Graham sold wargame scenery commercially. To my eye, this is model-railway quality and a pleasure to behold.

Terrain

Similarly, wargames rules can be clear on the quantity and size of terrain items so creation of that amazing hill may be premature if you construct it before you've firmed-up on the rules you intend to play with.

Mistake: In the noughties, my interest in the western desert during WWII was rekindled. I purchased the Wargames Research Group rules for the period, then started to build a modular terrain system based on these rules. The terrain was never finished and only part of it was used in anger and then on only one occasion!

Three scratch built tank transporters in cover with a Dorcester in a wadi as their loads trundle toward a fold

Lesson: Concentrate on playing so you can get the rules right and enjoy the game. If need be, play these early games with crude representations of figures and terrain. As rules firm up, enhance your pleasure with improved aesthetics when you have the time, money and inclination. If you're happy with cardboard counters such as seen in boardgames, then why change to figures and terrain?

07 January 2021

In Support of Hexes

Introduction

This post primarily provides observations in favour of battles fought on fields marked by hexagons and other shapes; eg, squares. My experience is with hexagons but similar arguments are likely to apply to demarcation with non-hexagonal shapes - other shapes are available.

A Hexagon

Definitions

A symmetrical hexagon has 6 sides of equal length with an included angle of 120 degrees between adjacent sides. Effectively, a symmetrical hexagon is 6 equilateral triangles, each located with a point at one place, which is the centre of the hexagon.

Within a wargamers' lexicon, a hexagon is often referred to as a 'hex'; hence, 'hexes' for multiple hexagons.

Observations

A hex on a battlefield may be thought of as the bulk of a circle, with some overlap with adjacent circles; hence, hexes provide a neat way to represent the vagaries of battlefield geography.
Hexes ease measurement of distance for movement and for range for distant-combat (shot); hence, shorter game times and no arguments between players about distance.
Without demarcation by hexes, some wargamers:

May be 'stressed' by a feeling that measurement should be precise so as not to cheat either side: the mover from moving too little; and the opponent because the move has been excessive. Similar feelings associated with the precision of ranges for distant-combat weapons can also prevail. (From where I sit on the OCD spectrum, these observations are certainly true for me!)
May consistently push their luck and measure too far; this can spoil the pleasure of the game for other wargamers.

Hexes are a better representation of the generality of the battlefield; eg, in reality, a unit is more likely to exert control over a copse than on one corner of it - hexes provide a neat way to visualise Zones of Control (ZOC), which are discussed later.
Unrealism of precise movement - in practice, the distance moved during a period of time by a unit is likely to vary due to parameters such as: command indecision/ change of mind; poor communication; going that is worse/ better than expected; and the condition of the unit. Use of hexes puts a unit in a fairly precise area without excessive precision - in engineering terms, hexes provide positional a range tolerance.

Hexes and Rules

Facing

Some rules state that at the end of a move, a unit must face an edge and others that a unit must face an angle. Both approaches have their merits.

Consumption of Movement Points

Often, each unit is assigned a quantity of Movement Points (MP) per game turn, to be consumed by movement across the boundary between 2 hexes; eg, movement from one clear hex to another consumes 1MP, whereas movement across a boundary with a hex that represents broken ground consumes 2MP.

Example Zone Of Control

Zone of Control

Some rules define the ZOC of a unit to be the 6 hexes adjacent to the hex occupied by the unit. Some rules state that once a unit enters the ZOC of another unit, then both units can move only in reaction to combat and not voluntarily under the control of its command chain; ie, the wargamer.

Conclusion

There are several benefits to the use of hexes to demarcate battlefields. Primarily, hexes can add realism, speed up game-play and add to the pleasure of the experience.

If you have any thoughts on the matter, then please comment below.