Battles of Medieval Britain: A Solitaire Wargame

        While on Youtube, a video popped up of a solitaire wargame by Mike Lambo. It was a set of wargame rules and scenarios for Beaches for the Brave. It turned out Mike Lambo has written 5 books of solitaire wargame rules and scenarios. I watched three of his videos. I ended up ordering two of the books; "Battles of Medieval Britain" and "Ghosts of the Jungle". The first one is self explanatory, the second follows an Australian SAS team though a series of missions in Vietnam.  

         The first part of the book explains the basic rules for using the scenarios. The second part has the scenarios. One page gives the charts for the scenario and the goals of the game. The second is the map for the scenario. The opposition is randomly set up. The player get to deploy his forces as he chooses. To move each unit gets to roll several dice, then based on a chart, can use the options from the chart to move his units. He can use as many dice as he chooses. Although in Battles of Medieval Britain the defensive forces can't move, they can engage any opponents in contact with them. Also, as the game goes on, the defenders get reinforcements, you don't. I have only played one game so far. One reason I chose these books is that I can set up a game without figuring out the battlefield layout and units involved. The game I played was set up and played in a little over half an hour. While on the videos Mr. Lambo used blocks to represent the different units, I broke out some Peter Laing figures to use as markers. The one game I played proved to be engaging and fun. In the end I lost; I hope to give it another go tonight and see if I have better luck.

The first scenario in the book: The Battle of Brunanburh. This is after I moved my first units. As can be seen, the defenders (on top) have a gap in their line. I decided to make for that gap.

One of my units destroy one of the defending units.  My other units weren't getting good movement rolls.

The game after the second move.  Right after this move the defenders got their first reinforcements. Its random dice roll dropped it right in front of my victorious unit, thereby stopping the split of the enemy army.  There are several interesting options; one was that my unit could form a shield wall, that add modifiers to its defense. In fact that's what it did in the next turn, which succeeded in warding off an attack.  In the end I was down to one unit, which in no way could eliminate 8 units in two turns, so had to concede defeat.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in these games to look up Mike Lambo on Youtube to see how the different games are played out.  I paid $14.99 for each book on Amazon and received them in two days.
Hopefully in the coming weeks I can try both rules and decide if I will buy more of his books. I do hope that maybe Mr. Lambo will come up with other periods.