Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames - Refighting the Scenarios

Over the last two years I have re-fought all the scenarios, 30 in total, contained in Neil Thomas' gem of a book, One Hour Wargames. Why a gem? Because Thomas has an absolute knack for simplifying but retaining the essence within wargaming, whether that be within rules or within scenarios. That isn't to say that he has necessarily divined the secret elixir of how warfare works, or the best way to represent it; rather, he divines what makes the most common wargames work and distills that.  I am going to try and learn from this scenario design and both for my original scenarios and my conversions of existing scenarios (mainly from magazines), I will try and use similar types of scenario outlines, mapping and terrain features, since they make it easy for both myself and anyone else using them to get a reasonably flavourful game, reminiscent of the source material, quickly to the table.

As well as the scenarios being great - I had played a smattering of them previously - they show, I think, an almost perfect minima of what a scenario needs to succeed. So a key part of the project was to use a very minimal collection of figures and terrain. I fitted everything into four quite small plastic boxes: one for each army, one for all the trees, and a final box for the other terrain. If I had been *really* optimizing, I might have got it down to three (both armies to fit in one box) or two (a further minimization of terrain) but I was putting in terrain for other games in the same box. 

Another part of the project was to keep costs down. I think the overall cost for all the figures you would need for this is c.£65 (at December 2023 Baccus 6mm prices). Obviously value is in the eye of the beholder but that seems to me like a pretty reasonable price.  Most of the terrain is home made or bought quite cheaply, so that wouldn't push the overall cost up too much either.  At the beginning of the project I made a list of all of the terrain I would need, and there was enough to give variety but little enough that it could all be prepared relatively easily: there are a relatively small number of hill, wood, marsh, urban and water shapes used. This also explains why I kept with the quite minimalist terrain given in the scenarios. I still wanted the games to look respectably nice, but didn't want to increase the time/effort/money costs too much by using real resources on the spectacle, past a certain minimum.  I think this would be true for all periods until the more tactical side of C20 warfare, in which case you will probably need to add a lot of scatter terrain into the mix, to break up lines-of-sight and killing zones and so on. So with very little being spent on rulesets or the scenario book either, there would definitely be no need to push past £90-100 all in.

I used two rulesets during the course of the project: Neil Thomas' Simplicity in Practice and Glenn Pearce's Polemos: Ruse de Guerre. Both gave really good games, although I enjoyed the RdG games a little more, on balance. They are a lovely streamlined set, and the mechanics of bidding for action points give lots of solo-friendly problems to solve. SiPby contrast needs, IMHO, a little work to make it work  so to speak, and doesn't have the same solo friendly qualities (as a minimum, use one of the modifications available to help sort out the melee rules). That said, for the beginner, they are probably a little more intuitive and they are great fun.

Those readers who have followed most or all of the battle reports will have picked up on certain themes that have re-occurred about the scenarios.

1.  I think that, on balance, the BLUE forces have slightly tougher assignments over the spread of the scenarios than RED forces.

2.  Scenarios which have implied 'time' factors are the ones most subject to a change of dynamics as a result of the use of different rulesets. If we think of a force consisting of x attacking a force consisting of y, a ruleset will have both a range of outcomes, a median outcome and a modal outcome, although no person alive, including the scenario and rules designers, may actually know what these are. If scenario events are expressed in terms of 'turns' then they must have a feeling for how long movement across the board takes and how long combats tend to take. The first is a relatively simple conversion - although indirectly we should probably think of command rules as additional 'movement constraint rules' and their effect is anything but simple to calculate; but the second is much harder to intuitively judge, without a lot of experience of the rules which are explicitly or implicitly in the scenario designers mind. Where this will be revealed is in how attrition-based the rules are, and how bloody the rules are. Attrition-based rules can, in theory, allow combat outcomes as quickly as shock-based rules (by setting the attrition levels high enough per turn); in practice though, attrition based rules tend to generate slower combat outcomes in game turns than those which are shock-based. As Neil Thomas' rules are heavily attrition-based, this is obviously an important factor. The rules in OHW are actually on the quicker side - as are Simplicity in Practice which I used for the first half of the game in this series - since the ability to deal attrition isn't diluted by losses; in some of Neil Thomas' rules this isn't the case, and attrition slows down as everyone takes losses. This can lead to surprisingly long games, given the simplicity of the mechanics and the small number of units compared to other games.

3.  One rough rule-of-thumb is to consider the 'actual strength points' in game terms. Rules which count individual soldiers as casualties effectively have '600' or so strength points per unit; figure-based units tend to have 10-50 strength points; Neil Thomas' rules often have units with effective strengths of between 8 and 16 strength points; Ruse de Guerre effectively has 2. Some of this strength can be rallied back of course, but even so - it points to a much quicker, more decisive game; whereas rules that have effectively 600 strength points per unit will still probably have mechanics which allow attrition at the rate of 1 of those per turn.  All of these differences have radically different implications for how many game turns combats will, or at least might, take.

4.  Allied to this is how easy it is for units to reduce the number of strength points of an enemy unit (in whatever form); rules which make it hard to remove strength points will be longer, rules which make it easy to reduce strength points will be easier. Simplicity in Practice makes it relatively easy to reduce enemy strength points, Ruse de Guerre makes it very easy.  This is basically asking how effective 'firepower' is in a given game. It is interesting to me to note that two sets which use individual losses, the Bruce Quarrie rules and the Carnage & Glory rules, are both noted as having particularly deadly artillery.

5. Also strongly related are indirect ways of reducing strength points, the most obvious way being through morale checks. The Polemos rules usually make reducing a significant percentage of an army's strength through failed morale checks relatively straightforward; and it allows for double and triple effects (i.e. to reduce strength at the unit level, formation level and army level). I believe that, although a bit quirky from time-to-time, the Polemos rules have the right here, bringing in both game uncertainty and more realism.

6. I don't think that the factors identified in 3 or 4 or 5 are easily calculable in terms of how much more or less time given changes will take, at least from human estimation alone. That they are fairly critical is obvious, however.

In theory, a scenario could express these things in terms of real times and distances. However, since so few rules really try and do a good job of trying activity to time in an historically accurate manner, this technique also has severe issues (rules would often suggest that 2 minutes of tactical activity represented 15 times as much in terms of campaign-level activity; this indicates to me there is still much work to do in solving this problem, i.e. making scenarios rules-agnostic, and vice-versa).

Anyway, those are my thoughts about it at this time.  I have really enjoyed playing through them and doing this project and as a simple but great way of doing wargaming, they seem to have succeeded very well. Many thanks to all of those who have read these posts, and even more so to those who have taken the time to comment: would love to read any more thoughts any readers may have, or any questions on any aspect of it.

Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames Scenario 30

And - it had to happen - the last scenario in Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames book: Scenario 30, aka 'Last Stand'. 

 

 

 

This specific scenario doesn't have a particular historical reference given, the sources of inspiration mentioned are two CS Grant scenarios (one with Stuart Asquith). In essence, the attacking force has to wipe out the defending force. The attackers can be replenished as many times as needed but they only have 15 turns to do it. Again, I am using the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre rules:

 

 

The Forces:

The British: 2 infantry bases, 1 artillery base (all Elite +1 to all firing and combat rolls)

The Franco-Spanish: 6 infantry bases, 1 artillery base, 2 dragoon bases

 

The British unit on the hill is in strong defensive redoubt.  This can only fit inside one unit.

The Set-Up:

The British are spread between hill, wood and town - concentration is vital, but leaving huge gaps is probably worse...

The Battle:

A French infantry brigade crosses the river - the defending British infantry are more confident in holding the woods than defending the river line

Meanwhile, the Spanish infantry brigade attacks the town, whilst the French Dragoons are in central reserve

Surprisingly, the British are coming off words as the French infantry advance towards the woods

The Spanish infantry similarly get the better of the British gunners in the town

The way is clear for the Spanish

Despite their losses, the British hold on in the woods: the French deploy, in order to bring their guns into play.  The Dragoons follow up.

The big Spanish brigade needs a couple of turns to reform in order to get into marching order

One of those strange situations: in the close-range musketry battle, both sides break each other simultaneously!

The British flee through the woods; meanwhile the rout of the lead French infantry battalion causes mass disorder in the French Left!

This leads to mass panic, as the French infantry, dragoons and gunners all flee back across the bridge!!!!!

The wider view: although the debacle on the French Left is hilarious/annoying, there is only a single British unit left in the fight...

Reserve French formations arrive and advance on the Left; the Spanish infantry makes steady progress on the Right

The Franco-Spanish prepare a three-pronges assault on the final redoubt

The assault goes in

After brief but futile resistance, the last British unit breaks

Victory to the Franco-Spanish

A wider shot.

Game Notes:

A nice game to round it all off. There was a quirk in this halfway through: the Franco-Spanish army morale actually collapsed after the collapse of the two French brigades on the Left. The scenario rules allowed all these to be replaced, but the question was whether to:

a. Count this as an actual British victory.

b. Ignore Franco-Spanish army morale.

c. Rule that the whole Franco-Spanish army needed to be replaced.

I chose 'b' as closest to the broad intent of the scenario author, but all three options are viable, I think.

Overall, I think because of the linear-scaling firepower within the rules identified in earlier battles, this one is going to be an even bigger struggle for the defenders than perhaps the author intended; it might therefore be worthwhile considering 'a' an option in the future, in order to enforce an appropriate level of difficulty and caution on the attacker. 

 

I hope those readers who have been following some or all of the series have enjoyed it. I hope to wrap it all up with some closing thoughts on scenarios, rules, terrain and so on tomorrow.

Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings by Leven, bridges by Timecast (I think)

Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames Scenario 29

Scenario 29 in Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames, entitled straightforwardly enough as 'Shambolic Command', is based upon a battle which I have re-fought quite a few times (e.g. here): Medina de Rio Seco, one of the early Peninsular War battles. The 'shambolic command' referred to is that of De La Cuesta, often considered one of the most incompetent commanders of the entire Napoleonic Wars. In typical Thomas style, this is a brutally simplified but still recognizable version of the battle.

 

 

 

As usual, I used Polemos: Ruse de Guerre for this refight. Changing things up slightly though, instead of 'Jacobite Wars'-themed forces, I used a Franco-Spanish force instead.

 

 

The Forces:

Franco-Spanish: 5 bases of Infantry, 2 bases of Artillery, 2 bases of Cavalry

British: 3 bases of Infantry, 1 base of Dragoons, 2 bases of Cavalry

 

The object of the battle is to control the high ground at the end of the game. The Franco-Spanish may only activate two units in any one turn (although for my purposes, any units with a target could fire; reform moves could also be done by forces of any size, although only two of the units could actually move in a single turn during the reforming - this will all make sense if you are using a Polemos set!).

 

The Set-Up:

View from the Franco-Spanish baseline: the main force occupies the high ground, a reinforcement of 2 infantry units and the artillery is moving up.

A closer look at the troops on the hill

and from the front

and the reinforcements: the French Regiments du Roi and de le Reine, along with the guns

The Battle:

The British strategy is fairly direct, attacking straight away with Horse and Foot, whilst the Dragoons guard the flank

Another view, because why not?

The first British attack meets with pretty much universal defeat; the infantry attack is stopped by firepower, with one of the regiments routed; the cavalry is seen off by half its number; the only bright spot is that the French gunners have been driven off by close range musketry

Meanwhile, the French infantry march forwards to assist

The British infantry and cavalry reform, ready for another go, although the musketry exchange still continues

The British are once again pushed down the slope - however, the continuous musketry has eventually taken its toll on the right-hand Spanish infantry battalion (centre)

Which breaks and runs...

The British cavalry put in yet another charge, whilst the Spanish infantry counter-attack down the slopes against the disordered British infantry

Both attacks fail; the British cavalry are bundled down the hill again, whilst the Spanish infantry recoils back up the slopes

Then a devastating volley rings out, as the leading Spanish battalion crumples under the weight of British musketry...

...which breaks and runs, disordering its supporting battalion...

...which in turn runs, as the Spanish infantry remnants recoil en masse...just as the French infantry is arriving to start intervening in the action!

However, the collapse of the Spanish infantry leads to a general rout of the Franco-Spanish...

 

Game Notes: 

Another good fun game, although it all ended rather abruptly when the Spanish infantry brigade collapsed.  The British tactics might seem a bit crude, but given the command constraints on the Franco-Spanish side, it felt like the best way to overmatch the Franco-Spanish by giving them too much to deal with. In retrospect, I should have allowed the Franco-Spanish to move 3 units per turn, to scale up in accordance with the slightly increased numbers of units used in my games.  Otherwise, the Spanish troops fought well, although they were unlucky to lose their artillery support very early, and for their victories over the British cavalry to be so indecisive. The attack of the Spanish infantry was a risk well worth taking despite its ultimate lack of success, it was much better odds than waiting for the British to reform and volley-and-attack again. I don't think there is much else to mention that I haven't already dealt with...a good, fun game, and quite recognizable as a bit like Medina de Rio Seco, despite its much simplified form! I suppose I might note that this battle really shows the difference when using the more firepower-focused Ruse de Guerre rules compared to the much more shock-focused Polemos: General de Division Napoleonic set.

Figures by Baccus 6mm

Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames Scenario 28

Scenario 28 in Neil Thomas' book One Hour Wargames, and next up in my series of refights, is called 'Botched Relief' and is loosely based on the Mexican-American War battle of El Molino del Rey. This is the first of a pair of scenarios in which Neil Thomas explores mechanisms to reflect poor/weird command actions during the actual battle...

 

 

Again, I was using the Polemos Ruse de Guerre rules. The aim of both sides is to control the town at the end of the game.

The Forces:

The Hanoverians: 2 bases of Infantry, 1 base of Artillery (the town garrison); 4 bases of Infantry, 2 bases of Cavalry (the main body)

The Franco-Jacobites: 3 bases of Infantry, 1 base of Dragoons, 2 bases of Cavalry

Only a single British unit from the main body can take an action in any given turn(!).

The Set-Up:

Two Scottish battalions and an artillery battery protect the town.

The main body occupies the higher ground

Two infantry battalions on the near part of the hills...

And two more, plus two Cavalry regiments, on the further part

The Battle:

The Franco-Jacobite commander left his Dragoons and Cavalry to protect the flank, whilst the Irish brigade attacked the town.  The British infantry's volley has disordered the French Dragoons, and they are now closing with the bayonet (bottom)

Despite their casualties and disorder, the French Dragoons drive off the attacking redcoats!

The British manage to reform and charge in again...

Meanwhile, there is a ferocious exchange of fire at the edge of the town.

Over on the flanks, this time the French Dragoons cannot hold, and break...

...and run!

Whilst Leven's Regiment has been forced to evacuate the town and reform (top), Berwick's Regiment has been forced back by the combination of bombardment, ball and bayonet... (bottom-left)

Seizing the initiative, the Scottish infantry attacks before the Irish regiments can either take the town, or reform - although accurate musketry from Berwick's Regiment has decimated the British gun crews; then Fergusson's Regiment delivers a crashing volley before charging in with the bayonet...

...and Berwick's regiment duly routs; fighting continues at the edge of the town

The Irish infantry still cannot get into the town, while the Jacobite Horse is subject to a galling musketry from Fergusson's Regiment (bottom)

A wider shot

Fergusson's Regiment, supremely confident, advances to try and push away the disordered Jacobite Life Guards

But the manly bearing and accurate carbine fire of the Jacobite riders pushes Fergusson's regiment back. However, Fergusson's volleys then break the Life Guards!!

Taking a calculated risk, noting the increasing casualties and disorder amongst Leven's Regiment in the town, the Hanoverian general leads Fergusson's Regiment into an attack on the flank of the Irish infantry!

It works! The Irish Regiments are thrown into total disorder...

And one regiment breaks!

The remaining Franco-Jacobite units flee the field...

 

Game Notes:

Another very exciting game. It was close, but the Hanoverian Army just had that bit of luck when it needed it, and the performance of its infantry in this game was outstanding. The Franco-Jacobite tempo rolling was simply awful too: it found itself pretty much stuck every time a fleeting opportunity to attack the British when they were off balance, so casualties and disorders could never be turned into routs, and thus potential army morale breaks. The only other thing to note is that the relatively generous movement rates in Polemos Ruse de Guerre allowed the units on the hills to threaten meaningfully the flank of the Franco-Jacobites without ever moving, so although only one British unit actually left the hills to fight, the threat of a British regiment, especially a British cavalry regiment, charging a carelessly explosed flank at any time very much affected the Franco-Jacobite deployment

 

Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings by Leven.