Fine!

I finished up the game tonight.  I won’t get into the details but here is a picture of the action at the end of turn 7 and then at the end of the game.

Blue advances toward the woods. After a grueling series of close combats, Red’s light infantry is dispatched and Red reaches its exhaustion point.

At the end of the game, Blue had red in a crossfire. Blue was about to seize the back edge of the last crossing. However, Red did still hold on to both sides of the crossing at the end of the game thus causing a draw.

On turn 9, I made a mistake allowing Red to advance another infantry toward the enemy.  This, by rule, is not allowed once your exhaustion point is reached.  the game should have ended with a marginal victory for Blue as they did hold 1 crossing.

Artillery was key.  Blue got a phase every turn where they got to fire and inflict casualties on the enemy without reply.  On two of the turns, both guns missed but otherwise, they scored at least one hit on each of the other 8 turns.

Based on this scenario, I’d say 10 turns for One Hour Wargames game length is about right.

So what did it cost?

Some point out that this is a low cost way to play wargames and is portable to boot!  But what did it really cost me?

Much of the game was made from stuff I found around the house and on the internet.  The “free” stuff includes paper, foam board, artist board and, of course, time.  It isn’t truly free of course but some of it has accumulated at the house from stalled projects and leftovers from who knows  what.  There are some real costs though.  One Hour Wargames costs about $16 and the Portable Wargame costs about $8.  So, the rules are about $25 all told.  Add to that the 6mm houses from Wargame Print.  Those are about $6.50.  There is also Riverside Scenics from Microtactix which got me the bridge and trees.  That set was $9.  The miniatures all came from Junior General and of course are free.  I used GIMP to process all of my miniatures on the computer and have a color printer to print them out.  The cash outlay was about $40 for the whole set or about the cost of a single DBA army in 15mm.  Not bad at all.

A Close-up of the Units for Portable Wargame

Here is a close up shot of the Red units.  The blue units are identical only blue.

Back row: Grenadiers, Infantry, Light Infantry Front row: Artillery, Dragoons, Cavalry Center: General

There is no unit for light infantry or grenadiers in The Portable Wargame.  Dragoons fight like other light cavalry.

Light Infantry: SP 3, Range 2,  -1 in close combat in the open,  Must take the retreat option if available when fighting close combat in the open.

Grenadiers: Behaves like other Infantry units for movement and shooting.  Close combat at +1.

Cavalry get a +1 to hit in close combat.

I seem to be tweaking this game a lot.  The best part is that it is pretty hard to break when modifying the rules.

The game is Afoot!

The action from turn turn 2 through 5.

Turn 2 starts with the Blue artillery scoring hits on the Red cavalry and 1 infantry unit. Blue wins the initiative and charges. Red gives ground, Blue follows up but is then repulsed.  Blue infantry advances to the river. Red holds the cavalry back and the light infantry moves up to attack Blue cavalry and scores a hit driving them back further. Blue infantry advance onto the western bridge.

Turn 3: Artillery fires scoring another hit on the Red cavalry and one on a Red infantry. The infantry can and does retreat. The cavalry has to take the hit. Red wins the initiative. They advance over the bridge with 1 infantry and secure the bridge head on the south side. The close combat is inconclusive though Red takes a hit. Red cavalry attempts to run the Blue cavalry off the board but is repulsed. The light infantry however, scores a hit. Both cavalry now have 2 hits.

Turn 4. Artillery firs again, this time scoring no hits. Red wins initiative They slide 1 infantry to the western edge and shoot scoring 1 hit on a Blue infantry. A second infantry moves to the bridge. Though in range, I decided the Red infantry could not shoot from the bridge because it would be in a column and unable to fire. Blue slides to the west to block the Red advance and is content to shoot at the Red infantry to no effect. Blue cavalry charges the Red cavalry to no effect. The Blue infantry charges the Red cavalry in the flank scoring the needed hit to destroy the cavalry. However, the Blue infantry also takes a hit and opts to retreat.

Turn 5. Blue fires its artillery at a single Red infantry scoring 1 hit. Blue wins the initiative. Blue is content to fire at Red with its infantry. Its scores 1 hit on the Red infantry on the bridge. Blue cavalry is down to one point and does not want to chance getting hit by the Red light infantry. Blue’s infantry charges the Red light infantry and inflicts a hit but is repulsed.  Red fires with 1 infantry and scores a hit on the Blue infantry directly across from the bridge. Blue then charges with the other infantry and ends up taking 1 hit in the inconclusive close combat.

The game really moves along at a good clip.  It is also very well suited for one hour wargames.  The fight hangs in the balance.

One last modification is with regard to exhaustion points.  The rules are somewhat ambiguous but seem to suggest that exhaustion points are assessed as they happen.  I am assessing them only when a unit is defeated.  This will give some incentive for a player to not go all in and needlessly sacrifice its units.   As it stands, Red has an exhaustion level of 8 and Blue 7.  With the loss of the Red cavalry the score is Red 5 and Blue 7.

The Truly Portable Wargame in action

I’ve finished the armies and most of the terrain.  I do still need to make some barricades and perhaps a marker or two for a ford.  Below is the setup and the end of turn 1 for scenario 3, Control the River in One Hour Wargames.  Red has 4 infantry, 1 light infantry and 1 cavalry.  Blue has 3 infantry, 2 artillery and 1 cavalry.

The end of turn 1. Extra terrain bits are shown in the foreground.

For 18th century warfare I’ve made the following modifications.

1. Artillery is can only be used if it has a line of sight.  It also is not as accurate as 19th century artillery.  No rifling and ranging tools are in their infancy during this period.  So artillery get +1 to hit and not the usual +2 for 19th century guns.  If playing WSS or GNW, artillery was towed by civilian teamsters.  So, once the guns are set, they can no longer move though they still can change facing.
2. All infantry have smooth bore muskets.  Range is 2.
3. The rules have a flank penalty of -1 in close combat for the unit being flanked and a bonus of +1 for the unit attacking the flank.  This may seem like a double penalty but both units fight in close combat.  To add a little variety, allow the +1 when close combating the flank as per the rules.  Only give a penalty to a unit fighting an enemy to the rear.  So being flanked is bad but being attacked from the rear is worse.

I converting One Hour Wargames scenarios, I have limited the game length to 10 turns.  This is because of the shorter board.  I’ll adjust upward if the game length is too short.

The Truly Portable Wargame Part 2

I had a long stretch of time and energy last night and was able to complete several more trees and another house.  I also drew up some rivers and roads, including intersections and bends.  I printed out a sheet of each.  I am very happy with the results.

The result of a night’s work with some newly configured infantry regiments including one prototype (right front) for comparison.

The last bit I did last night was to rearrange the infantry command stand.  I found that the flag was flying in the wrong direction.  Wherever the commander stood, there would be an open space over his head.  So I changed it so the flag fly behind him.  I then placed him in the middle of the stand.  The regiment looks much better.  Take a close look at the stand to the right front and compare it to the stand next to it.  You will see what I mean.

Left to do: cavalry, light infantry, artillery, bridge, ford, entrenchment

I have a set of grenadiers already placed together.   As I am drawing, I keep the masters white except for the skin color, common parts (muskets, swords, scabbards, pouches etc) and place them in a group front-back so they can be colored quickly.  I keep one single of each to colorized and then simply copy and paste it into position directly over the white models.

The Truly Portable Wargame

While fighting off the stomach bug and allergies, I’ve not been completely idle.  I have been slowly building up a paper miniatures layout including a board, terrain and miniatures.  Here is a sample of what I have so far.

The figures are from Junior General by C.J. Fiorito. The trees are from Microtactix. The house, several actually, are from WargamePrint and I created the boards and hills.

I used an olive color on the board and then used HSV noise to give it a speckled effect.  I then blurred the image to make it look smooth similar to a game mat.  The background on the figures are done in a similar fashion to those you can get at Paper Terrain.  My only mistake is that I cut into the commander figure a little too far.  I do also still have to texture up some bases.  I should have let the cut run across the top of his head or even kept it level with the bayonets.  I still have roads, river and maybe a bridge or two to make.  I am pretty happy with the results so far.