Last week we had a go at One Hour Skirmish Wargames by John Lambshead. I had originally planned to play a bigger Darkest Africa game but have misplaced the askari units I needed for my scenario. That will need to wait until another day.
OHSW is written to play fast skirmish battles in the period between the advent of the musket and the Cold War. It also has rules for pulp/sci fi skirmishes. The idea is to provide players with a fast game that can be readily played in an evening, which was what we were after. In addition, you do not need a lot of miniatures - we had eight German marines against around 15 African tribesmen.
The book features a number of ready made scenarios. We adapted the Zulu scenario from the Age of Rifles chapter which includes guidelines for playing 'warrior' units - i.e. the sort of tribal forces faced by imperial powers in the 19th century.
 |
| The marines prepare to defend their camp |
The book certainly does what it says on the tin. We easily played two games, each taking roughly an hour or less, despite being unfamiliar with the rules. The game uses a card-based system for activating troops, with the playing cards (conventional playing cards) dictating how many activation points you have for your side. There are no dice used, and we felt this played a big role in speeding up the game.
We only played the one scenario, which featured an imperial unit defending a fortified position against a native assault, while waiting for reinforcements. The Germans (in this case) had the advantage of cover and defending a ready-made fortification, while the attacking Africans had speed and numbers on their side, plus an advantage in melee. That said, time was not on their side, as cards were also drawn to track the arrival time of the relief column.
 |
| Warriors prepare to storm the barricades |
Both games were drawn, with the tribesmen able to get inside the fort on both occasions, and in the second encounter managed to kill one of the marines. It feels like a tough scenario for the Africans to win outright, unless the Germans decided to leave the fort, which would be foolish in the extreme!
Each player has their own deck of cards, which is used not only for activation purposes, but also dictates the end of the turn, when you test for casualties and morale (to see if your side breaks). In our battle, neither side came close to breaking, but it would be interesting to try one of the other scenarios to see if circumstances change there. For example, the Age of Muskets encounter sees a dispute over an abandoned cannon between British and French patrols in the Napoleonic period.
One thing we did get wrong was reshuffling the decks every time a Joker was pulled. The Joker signals the end of a turn. I'm not sure whether this had a major impact on game play. We shall have to see next time we play.
 |
| Rifle-armed natives lay down covering fire |
We have not played a wargame before in which cards are used exclusively to determine everything from melee combat to shooting to morale to initiative, but it seems to work very well. We both want to return to these rules again in the future. I also like the fact that it looks possible to play up to three scenarios in a single evening, potentially even a mini-campaign of linked battles.
One of my issues at the moment is that time for gaming seems quite constrained, and we rarely get a chance to spend an entire day playing games like we used to in the previous decade. Even our regular RPG sessions are down to around 2.5 hours. Thus I am on the look out for games which can be completed in under four hours, ideally three. There will always be scope for longer wargames now and again, but the regular slots tend to be shorter.
 |
| "Watch out Dieter, he's behind you!" |
OHSW does fit the bill here. You can get some of your figures / terrain on the table quickly and be confident you can probably complete at least two skirmishes in an evening if not more!
The book is cheap, well-written and readily accessible on Amazon. We did end up having to consult Gemini now and again for rules interpretations/clarification, especially around the appearance of Jokers in other situations, but we got there in the end.
Comments
Post a Comment