Free Wargames Rules

A few of you may know that I'm currently putting together a fast play set of WWII rules which will appear here on the blog at some point in the future. I'm all for people sharing rule ideas and I really enjoy reading other gamers rule sets.
The guy over at The Tabletop Gamer blog has just put up a couple of sets of his own rules (Modern Naval ans WWII Air Warfare) and they're well worth a look so go check them out! ....... http://freerules.blogspot.co.uk/

Play testing and More Play Testing!

Besides trying to get more stuff painted and built I've been busy running a few mini games up in the den in which I've been testing out and expanding my home-brew rule set.  It's great fun trying to write your own rules as obviously they can be manipulated until you get the type of game that 'you' want. It can also be quite frustrating.......... especially when you don't take notes and that great idea you had an hour ago just disappears into oblivion. The other bugbear is including a rule that seems to make perfect sense in one situation only to turn out to be completely irrelevant in another!

Anyhow, here's a few pictures of the game I'm currently farting about with.........

Behind the German line.

British infantry leading the way forward. You'll see that one rifle team is currently carrying two 'hits' this will affect it's combat efficiency unless their Commander can rally them 'off' before the team needs to activate again.

PzIII's await their infantry support before moving into the attack!

German infantry teams advance with armoured support

British infantry defending the hedgerows. Here we see a HMG team, a LMG team (centre) , an Officer Figure and a rifle team. The dice indicates that the Rifle team has received a hit. In these rules it's always a good idea to keep close to a Command figure as he can 'rally off' hits.

A British Light Mortar team and a Rifle team with supporting Churchill move into the fields. Another planned rule I'm playing with is the idea that infantry teams act as the eyes and ears of the Armour especially against enemy infantry. This keeps the two arms in close support and stops AFV's running riot or blasting infantry from long range.

Any comments welcomed as usual gentlemen (and ladies of course Tasmin!)

Holiday Reading

After a horrendous 9 hour drive through rain, floods and traffic jams, my wife and I finally arrived home from our holiday in South Wales over the weekend.

Even though we expected the break to be a complete washout we were pleasantly surprised with the weather during our stay and only had one really bad day during our week away. The holiday was just what we needed and we both enjoyed a relaxing time in a beautiful part of the country.

Just before I left for our holiday a took delivery of an ebay gem........

The book that started it all!

I can't tell you exactly how strange it felt to flip through this books' pages again and the memories that this particular book bought back for me.
I was 10 years old again. It was a hot Summers' day in 1974 and I remember seeing this title jump out at me from the shelf of my local library in Meir, Stoke-on-Trent.
I had always loved models, kits and of course figures but upon opening this very book I realised for the very first time that what I was interested in was 'justified' (for want of a better word), by the very fact that 'adults' also found my pastime interesting enough to write about it!
I must have had this book out on loan from the library continually over the next few years and it inspired me greatly.
It seems very strange looking though it now. I remember thinking how complicated it all sounded with talk of 'morale' and 'melee' ....... words I didn't even know the meaning of at that tender age!
I (and I'm sure many, many more gamers) owe Mr Featherstone a huge thank you for introducing me to this fantastic hobby which we all love.

My second holiday read was this one......

I've had this one lying around for ages but have only just got around to reading it. If you're interested (as I am) in the Normandy Campaign then I can't recommend this book highly enough. Even though it explains the landings in a straight forward, factual manner (with a good selection of maps etc) the book is also made up of mini-snippets of personal accounts from the brave men who fought there. These accounts are really quite moving and even at times amusing and it really captures the mood of the forces involved in the campaign.
A very, very good read and highly recommended..

Well that's the holiday over with for this year (though we are hoping to get away for another week if funds allow!) and time to get back to the wargames table. Still busy figure painting / basing at the moment and I also have plans to get some more scenery projects on the go so stay tuned.

Steve

Rapid Fire .... An apology

Now I'm the first to admit that in the past I've made it known that I am not a great fan of the Rapid Fire rule set.

My own views on this system have been based on the few games I have played and it seemed that in these games armour appeared King of the table and infantry seemed to be more of an afterthought than a main arm. The rules themselves, or should I say the mechanics of the rules, I always thought were my type of system, fun, simple to grasp and easy to play and it has always griped me why I found such a hugely popular rules set so annoying!

So, over the past few days I have been reading up on the rules again and after visiting various websites I decided to download the Rapid Fire for Rookies free play sheet and give them another go.

Although I'm still a way off being where I want to be as far as my figures / models and scenery collection go I was still able to muster enough goodies to put on a small game to try the rules out once more. Here's a few pics I took at the beginning of the game  .........

Both sides advance onto the table

The Churchill and Panzer trade shots at long range with no effect!

The Panzer III takes up position supporting a HMG crew in the centre of the line.

The Churchill and the HQ start their advance.

I haven't done a blow by blow account of the game but my verdict? ............. I loved it.

So, in answer to the charges of not giving a rule set a proper chance, and being too quick to judge? ........ Guilty on both counts. The free version of the rules I used are of course a slimmed down version of the full set but after this enjoyable game I'm very keen to expand my forces and my knowledge of the Rapid Fire rules. I'm looking forward to more RF games very soon!

Rapid Fire For Rookies is available from the Valiants website HERE (Bottom of the page)

More thoughts on 'simple' rules.

German Infantry squad with LMG support team

I've been playing around with differing rule sets just lately in an attempt to tailor a complete set of fast play rules. The bulk of this upcoming set will be mainly derived from one of my favourite systems 'Rate of Fire'.
These rules are for me one of the best easy play sets on the market but like most gamers there's parts of the rules that don't quite hit the mark for me the first of which is the variation of movement distances according to the moving units order.

RoF is also a simple IGOUGO system, something else I'm not particularly fond of preferring instead to activate individual units in a random (possibly card driven?) manner.

In my past few test games I've followed the random activation route and in my opinion it adds a different dimension to the game.

The other big change I made was the scrapping of the orders section. In RoF each unit can be assigned one of several orders for their upcoming move In my trial games I've simply assigned a Move (or remain stationary of course) or Fire option. Again, this seems to work well with advancing squads having to make a choice of pressing on and taking ground, firing at a visible target or possibly firing in support of another unit in the hope of causing suppression (more on this later too!) of enemy units.

So far the simple set I've put together is working really well and I'm really enjoying the testing of different ideas etc. There's still more to do including the question of AFV's in the close combat situation that these games represent. This should be a challenge as I really don't want tanks etc to rule (and possibly ruin) the game. One initial idea was to make it virtually impossible for a buttoned up vehicle to acquire a foot unit target unless it is closely supported by a friendly infantry unit..... anyway, more thoughts on that later.

More to come so stay tuned!

Steve