No Brain Wargame no Cure for a Funk

     I have been in a funk for over a month now. Projects started remain unfinished. I wanted to work more on how to use the wooden tiles in my wargames to activate units. However, once again I couldn't decide what figures or period to use. In the end I decided on a No Brain Wargame at its' simplest, two armies armed only with spears on a chessboard. Each army started with 5- 4 man units. There was one tile for each unit, along with the odd tile to stop the turn.  At first the game progressed well. However, as the armies came together, it seemed that one army was getting to move more than the other before the "stop" tile came up. Now one good thing about playing solo games is you can change the rules during the game. I decided to remove the "stop" tile, so every army could move 5 times in a turn.  As the game went on I also decide to let units move more than once per turn, another unit sacrificing its' movement.  It was an ok game. In the no brain game individual figures retreat. On a square game board, the figures become spread out. With a hex board, retreating figures can fall back toward each other and form ad hoc units. I decided to try another game using the rules mentioned above on a hexed field.

     The second game once again was just "ok".  In this game each army got a commander who could add himself to a unit, increasing their strength.  At first this game seemed to be going in a good direction. However, after a while I would put the "general" figure with a unit and then move it three or more times in a turn; other units just sat not moving. The game was finished, but it was a disappointment.

    Post game there are several things for me to think about. First of all, even in a No Brain Wargame there should be at least two different weapons class in each army, be it archers and spearmen or riflemen and artillery. Just having one class of soldiers makes it strictly a game of who gets to roll first slug fest.  Also, if a unit gets to move an additional time in a turn, it should be limited to moving twice in one turn. Another possibly is each unit moves each turn, with a bonus tile for each army giving them an additional move per turn.

   While these games haven't snapped me out of my funk, they have given me some food for thought and have me wanting to play out another game to try the changes mentioned, so they weren't a complete waste of time. The games also got me to dig out my copies of "Practical Wargamer" magazines and I spent an enjoyable evening reading articles instead of sitting in front of my computer.

The two armies after their first moves.  One reason I wanted to play this game was to use the Peter Laing figures on the right; it was the first time I've used them.  The pictures will not be a blow by blow of the battles.  They will show a couple of the problems that arose in the games.

Two blue soldiers are forced to retreat.

The two who just retreated then move to their right to form a three man unit, that then attacks the soldier to their front; with no result.

This picture demonstrates a unit moving twice in a turn. The first attack forces one blue soldier to retreat. The second attack on the blue unit to its' right has no success.

The next two pictures shows a double move by the blue unit. Its' first attack kills one red soldier and forces another to retreat off the board. 

The blue unit then falls back one square and attacks the unit to its' left, killing another red soldier and making the other retreat.

The end of the battle; the blue wins the victory.

the second battle pits the Peter Laing Ottomans vs....

.....the Peter Laing Persians.

In this picture an Ottoman unit with the general, has caused one Persian to retreat. The Persian figure retreating is the general.

The Turks attack the same unit, this time causing two Persians to retreat and killing another. The Turks then advance into the vacated hex.

Risk Figures, Wood Squares, Cigar Boxes, and a Bottle of Wine.

      It's been over a month since my last wargame.  I have also been working overtime so haven't  had time for working on games.  However, it did give me time to think of some new ideas for my solo games.

     In the most recent issue of LONE WARRIOR, one article talks of using meeples to activate units. Meeples are man shaped tokens used for board games. Basically there would be a meeple for each unit.  Instead of the usual ugo-igo,  whatever color meeple was drawn gets to move. There is also an odd colored meeple, which, when drawn, ends the turn. I have used a similar idea with playing cards, but never being good at shuffling cards, this tended to be a disappointment. I couldn't find meeples, but I did find wood square to use instead.  I marked them as infantry, light infantry, cavalry, and artillery. For this wargame, I flipped the squares over and randomly picked 7 units for each army.  After picking each army, once again I mixed the squares up and randomly placed them on the back line of the battlefield. For this game I used the board with no terrain. This also gave me a chance to use my Risk Europe figures.   After turning over the squares and placing the figures on the board, the squares were placed in a deep cigar box with an odd colored square added to indicate the end of the turn.

     Before I go on, a side note. My wife unfortunately smokes. We have been going to a cigar shop to buy her cigarettes. The shop we go to leaves the old cigar boxes in the corner  for customers to take. If you buy something he lets you take them for free. If you just come in for the boxes, he charges $2.00 per box. The money he collects on the boxes he donates to a retired police K9 charity, so I will usually still give him $2.00 a box. I started collecting these with the hope of getting foam rubber and boxing up my semi flat figures.

   Quite simply, I start drawing squares out of the box; whatever color & unit symbol moves. Once the odd color is drawn, the turn ends and the squares go back in the box. Now, it's been a long month for me and the wife worked late last night so I decided to have a couple of glasses of wine. Once the game started, the wine started to flow.  So instead of trying to give a blow by blow, as the game got quite confusing, I will let the photos show the action.

The red army at the top. They had no cavalry, but did have a catapult. The blue army at the bottom.

Another shot looking down the blue line.

After a few squares had been drawn. The squares marked "LT" were archers.

The red army draws an artillery square. The catapult causes one cavalry unit to retreat.

This is at the end of the first move. The yellow square ends the turn.

At this point I started marking moved units with arrows, so I would remember who had moved already.

Blue archers move forward and fire at a red archer unit, forcing them to retreat two hexes. Yellow arrows show retreats.

This is an overview shot at the end of turn 2. The red army didn't get to move many units, and suffered 4 killed.

Another shot of the photo above.

Turn 3. Only one unit moved.

A red unit forces a blue unit to retreat and goes in pursuit. The blue army takes the opportunity to cut this unit off.

End of turn 4. 

Blue army tries to eliminate the trapped red unit, who lose 50%.  The red unit uses its' turn to retreat. I am using BATTLELORE rules. Being a "blue unit" by BATTLELORE rules, it can either move two spaces or move one space and battle. It chooses to use its' complete movement.

An above view of the battlefield. At this point it becomes obvious that the battle is getting quite confusing, especially if you are drinking and gaming!

The blue army becomes obsessed with the trapped infantry unit.

The red army counterattacks.

The red army wipes out a unit of blue archers; the blue cavalry overruns a red archer unit. What's more, it closes in on the red army headquarters. 

Next turn the blue army draws a cavalry square right away. If the red army can drive them out of the camp, the battle will go on.

At this point the blue army has eliminated 4 red units; the red army has suffered over 50% causalities, and so have lost the battle.

I was happy with this system of movement, although a couple of times I forgot to remove a square after the unit was eliminated.  I am thinking of using squares to randomly place terrain on the field, although I haven't quite worked that out. Of course, I could always get more squares, enough for each hex.

Some of the cigar boxes, which I hope will be put to good use protecting more fragile war-game figures.