Totally Accurate Battle Simulator and a Wargame

         While on Facebook I came across a video game called Totally Accurate Battle Simulator. While not available yet, it is hardly a state of the art video game. In fact, it looks like something from the 90s. If you Youtube  "Totally Accurate Battle Simulator", you can see some videos of the game. It looks like it would be a fun game, although if you are looking for a game to match the title, you will be disappointed. It is very cartoonish and the battles last around a minute. Still, it is a game I would love to play. It reminds me of my "no brain" wargame. This encouraged me to play a game.  I have been working on another set of simple rules, somewhere between "no brain" and Battlelore. I decided to try them out to see how they work.
     It is a simple game; nothing new to it. Both sides start out with equal forces; 2 archer units, 4 spearmen units, 2 cavalry unit, one that can be mounted archers. Infantry move one square (or hex), cavalry 2 squares (or hexes). Each unit has 4 men.  Archers have a range of 2.  A unit throws one dice for each figure in the unit. As they lose men, they lose dice. A "5" causes the attacked unit to retreat. A "6" kills one in the unit.  If an infantry unit forces another unit back when next to that unit, it may advance into the vacated square (or hex). If cavalry forces an adjacent enemy unit to retreat, it can advance into the vacated square (or hex) and continue to attack any adjacent enemy unit. In this game think of cavalry as fast infantry. The first army to lose 50% or their general (this is important, as will be seen), they are defeated.

Arab army in the foreground; Sudanese army at top.

At the top the Arab archers push back a Sudanese unit 2 spaces.

The Sudanese cavalry forces the center back. The Sudanese horse archers move forward, fire their arrows, and fall back.

Closeup of the Sudan horse archers attack.

The Arab horse archers kills one Sudanese, and forces the unit back.

Th Sudanese cavalry forces back the Arab center.

The Arab archers kill two of the Sudanese cavalry.

The Arab archers kill another Sudanese cavalryman. The other Sudanese cavalryman is the Sudanese general.

The Sudanese cavalry pushes back an Arab archer unit. In its' followup attack, it fails to force the  spearmen back.  The Sudanese pushes the Arab cavalry back. The Arab cavalry cannot fall back two spaces, so they lose one man.

The Arab cavalry attack the Sudanese cavalry from behind. With their retreat cut off, they lose two men (the number of 5's rolled by the Arab cavalry).

The Arab archers shoot at the Sudanese general; they miss.

The Sudanese general falls back. At this point I made a mistake. The general  moves back, right in the range of  the Arab cavalry. The Sudanese cavalry in the foreground positions himself so he can hit at multiple targets. Once I move a figure and take my hand off it, I won't move it if I realize I made a mistake as in this case.

The Arab cavalry hits the Sudanese general....

.....and kills him. With the rules as I wrote them, the loss of the general spells defeat for the Sudanese.

The Sudanese only had 11 men left; the Arabs 17.

Johnny's Adventure

    The soldiers arrived in the evening. They bivouac around Johnny's home. His widowed mother provided some of the soldiers with homemade bread. Johnny brought water from the well for their cooking. Johnny then sat around and listened to their stories of campaigns past. As Johnny prepared to go home, one sergeant said to him, " you should join our regiment; we always can use a lad like you for a drummer boy!".

  Johnny begged his mother to be allowed to join the army. She would not hear of it.  Next day, as the army marched off to battle, he decided to run away to join the army.

Johnny watches the army march off.

Johnny packs his bag and runs off to join the army.

The red army advances against the blue army. While looking for some more gnome figures, I came across my semi flats and on an impulse wanted to use them in a game.

The blue army drawn up for battle.

The red army maneuvers a cavalry unit to protect their artillery until it can deploy.

First blood to the red army. They kill 5 blue army men, but only forces one unit back.

The blue army hits back hard. The cavalry protecting the artillery is wiped out, along with 8 infantrymen. Little Johnny can be seen just coming out of the woods  behind some redcoats.

The blue army continue their deadly fire.

Little Johnny finds himself alone facing a unit of blue infantry!

The red army is broken. Little Johnny find that discretion is the better part of valor, and joins the retreat!

The red general stays with the guns to protect the retreat.

The artillery does little against the blue onslaught.

Little Johnny's mother had been worried sick all day after finding little  Johnny gone. She could hear the battle in the distance.    Just as she is getting ready to go looking, she sees him coming down the road.  Neither says anything when they hug. Johnny has seen the soldiers, who the night before were joking with him, fall to the enemy's bullets. Never again does Johnny say he wants to go to be a soldier.

Horde of the Things Armies for Battlelore

  I have been searching for using Hordes of the Things armies with  Battlelore, with little success. However, last week I found this website;  www.rogercooper.com which has some Battlelore variants.  I wanted to try these rules out.  I picked the Garden Gnomes army, although without Magician or Behemoths units, vs. Ants.

Garden Gnomes are protecting their garden pond, the Ants their ant hill.

The ants with brown spots are army ants, which are considered Warbands. The gnomes "shooters" manage to kill a few ants by throwing rocks at them.

Gnome spearmen (armed with fishing poles) come forward to support the rock throwing gnomes.

The ant general sends forward his worker ants to support the army ants.

Disaster for the gnomes! Using Roger Coopers' rules,  a warband moving forward into contact at full strength gets two extra dice.  This is the result of one roll. One spear unit wiped out. In my games if a unit is eliminated or forced to retreat, the winning unit can advance to the vacated hex. Otherwise, the retreating unit can simply move forward to the just vacated hex. For a solo game, this can make for a stagnant game with little movement in the front line.

The ants are starting to infiltrate the gnomes' line.

The Gnomes start forcing some of the ants back. 

One gnome spear unit moves within striking distance of the anthill.  The Hero General ant strikes out against them, the  gnomes suffer the wraith of the enraged general!

One woods gnome unit (far left) is cut off from the rest of the gnome army.

The ant general keeps attacking.

The wood gnome unit that was cut off drives back one ant unit, and quickly moves to join the rest of the army.

The ants drive forward relentlessly. The wood gnomes on the left are once again cut off.  The general ant (the ant that is almost all brown)  had suffered two hits. Using Roger Cooper rules, a Hero can suffer 6 hits. At first I was going to mark the hits with a dice, but somehow having a swarm of ants looks better. 

The wood gnomes slips between two ant units to try to link up with the other gnomes.

On the gnomes' right, the ants drive one rock throwing unit off the field of battle, and the hard luck wood gnomes fall back two hexes.

The gnome general consolidates his line for a last stand.

The ant general summons forward more hordes of worker ants.

The relentless ants kill two more gnomes.

The gnomes, exhausted by continuous battle with no relief, finally give up and fall back.

The pathetic remains of the gnome army.