1:1 Scale Wargaming

If you are familiar with my old blog, you may have read that wargaming is not my favorite hobby. Actually, it is live action roleplaying (LARP) - 1:1 scale wargaming if you will.

My LARP group has been on hiatus for the summer; it is just too hot in Florida to be running around outside for very long. However, today we are starting a new season.

As a preview for this season, here is a picture from last season. I'm in the Roman-looking kit.

Here is the story that accompanies the picture.

Heraclea-ish

Thus begins my Pyrrhus campaign.

The Campaign

I'm just planning to do a 3-game mini campaign based on Pyrrhus's battles in Italy against the Romans. Although I may do a side excursion against the Carthaginians.

I'm calling the battles Heraclea, Asculum, and Beneventum, but the terrain will be random.

The Forces

I based the armies on the DBA v1 lists, dividing the forces in half.

• Pyrrhus: 1 cavalry, 3 heavy infantry (1 is inferior Italian allies), 1 light infantry, and 1 unit of elephants
• The Romans: 1 cavalry, 4 heavy infantry (1 is inferior Italian allies), and 1 light infantry

Set Up

I used my "Big Battles" box, complete with cover.

Big Battles may be a misnomer. My battles occur on a 5 x 7 inch battlefield. I call them big battles because the scenario represents a full-sized battle. Therefore, each base represents thousands of troops.

The omens are not propitious. The dark cat god messes with the tools of fortune.

I'm missing a picture of the initial set up so I will describe it.

• Pyrrhus: Light infantry and elephants on the left. heavy infantry on some hills in the center, and cavalry with Pyrrhus himself on the right.
• Romans: Cavalry on Pyrrhus's left, heavy infantry in the center, and light infantry in a village on the right flank.

The Battle

Pyrrhus plans to wait for the Romans (red) to come to him, but he gets impatient and sends his elephants and cavalry to harass the flanks. The elephants drive off the Roman horse but Pyrrhus's cavalry is disrupted by missile fire from the Roman's light infantry.

The elephants crash into the Roman legionaries. Surprisingly, the legion drives back the elephants with losses.

An unexpected result given that the elephants had an extreme advantage. The cursed dice strike!

Shortly thereafter, the elephants attack the Roman cavalry. This time, the cavalry routs the elephants!

Another extremely unexpected result. Again, the dice gods punish Pyrrhus.

Meanwhile, Pyrrhus pushes forward his heavy infantry, but the Romans drive them back to the hill.

Inflicting severe losses.

The Romans trap and annihilate Pyrrhus's cavalry. Pyrrhus just manages to escape.

I don't have a purple leader counter so I just assumed that Pyrrhus was with the cavalry. When the cavalry died, I used a yellow marker to indicate the infantry unit he joined.

I did not use a Roman leader figure. I assumed that the Roman was an average leader and did not play a significant role.

With pressure from the front and the flanks caving in, Pyrrhus's Italian allies flee.

Realizing the day is lost, Pyrrhus sounds retreat.

A decisive victory for Rome!

Aftermath and Analysis.

This sets up the next battle of the campaign. Because of the decisive nature of Pyrrhus's defeat, I don't think it makes sense for him to advance to Asculum. I think the next battle will be outside Tarentum!

The dice gods really had it out for Pyrrhus. I expected more from the elephants, but they twice lost when they needed a 2+ on a D6 to win the melee. Ouch!

The Pyrrhus Project

Lately, my gaming has focused on naval and air battles. I'm feeling a desire to get back to land. I've been debating a "project" and have decided on the Pyrrhic War.

The Inspiration

It started with Little Wars TV, specifically their replay of Actium. This stirred my interest in ancient battles. I wasn't interested in a Roman civil war, however, so I started looking for another conflict.

Again, Little Wars TV provided the answer. A couple of years ago they did a Pyrrhic War campaign. Greek phalanxes vs. Roman legionaries, what's not to love?!

The Project

"Project" is a bit grandiose for my current wargaming approach. It's not like I have to go research and order figures then paint and base them. My armies are close to being ready to go.

Here are my armies, organized as half-sized DBA forces.

Top (L to R) - Pyrrhus's army: cavalry, 3 heavy infantry, 1 light infantry with Pyrrhus in back

Bottom (L to R) - The Romans: also cavalry, 3 heavy infantry, and 1 light infantry

I need to add a stand of Roman heavy infantry. But something else is missing. What could it be?

Oh yeah, Pyrrhus had elephants. I have to have some, but my generic counters won't do. I'll have to make some special elephant counters. I don't plan to make elephant counters for every army. Instead, I'll just make a few and use them as needed.

The Campaign

I'm going to do a mini-campaign based on Pyrrhus's three major battles against the Romans.

Little Wars TV (again) provides some great resources for a Pyrrhic campaign, including scenarios for the battles. I don't think I'll be using those resources, however. I will create random battlefields and will use the half-size DBA armies I mentioned above.

Next Steps

• Create a red heavy infantry counter. I think I have one printed; I just need to apply it to a base.
• Finish an elephant counter. I only need 1 for Pyrrhus.
• Play the first game.

Aerial Experiments

Here are a couple of games using my MicroBattle air combat rules. I'll post about the rules at a later date

Escort

A fighter escorts a medium bomber on a raid into enemy territory.

The defenders (green) approach in antiquated pursuit planes.

Notes: 

• The attacker is using two mid-century airplanes while the defender has early-century fighters to represent lower quality planes.
• The clouds are just for decoration.

The escort shoots down one fighter but misses two chances to take out the second. The bomber takes some damage but manages to shoot down the last defender. It then drops its bombs on the target.

Success for the attackers!

Battle Over Britain

I decided to do a test run of my air combat rules using a bunch of planes. I set the dogfight during the Battle of Britain.

• The British have 4 Spitfires, one piloted by a novice (represented with the early-century airplane because I ran out of prepared mid-century fighters)
• The Germans have 4 Me 109s and 2 Me 110s (I'm using my gray bomber counters to represent the 110s). One 109 (#4) is a novice.

The Germans (right) approach the coast!

A 110 goes down!

A lot of damage done before the next plane goes down. It's the Spitfire novice.

The 109 novice does down.

At this point, I tested morale of the Germans. They continued to fight, but the handwriting was on the wall. The Spitfires took out the remaining attackers without further loss.

A resounding victory for the British. 

It was also a victory for my approach.

• The rules worked well despite the larger than usual number of planes.
• My generic plane counters worked fine as well. It is nice being able to throw together a scenario on the fly without worrying about having the correct figures.

My Approach

I have developed a distinct approach to wargaming. Essentially, I switched from miniature wargaming to homebrew board wargames.

Boxed Sets

I am able to store all my gaming supplies in a few small boxes. Right now, I have these:

• a 6 x 8 x 2 inch box for land and naval battles. It includes dice, terrain, markers, and boards (green plains, brown desert, and blue sea boards)
• a 6 x 9 x 2 inch box with all my armies and fleets.
• a 6 x 8 x 1 inch box for air combat. It includes all items needed.

I have some more stuff, including racing chariots, meeples, and terrain for skirmishes, spread out across a number of other boxes. I just haven't got around to organizing them.

I recently created covers for my land and air boxes. I just need to print them out and slap them on.

The Battlefield

Right now, I'm using 5 x 7 inch boards for my battlefields. Essentially, I am designing and playing microgames.

Here are my 3 battlefields, sea, grass, and desert (sitting on an orange-ish place mat).

I went small because of space considerations. I usually only have a small portion of a coffee table available for games. My table can fit up to an 8.5 x 11 inch (A4 sized) board but I went smaller to fit the board easily into the boxes. A shift to an 8 x 10 inch battlefield is not out of the realm of possibility someday.

Terrain

I still use 3D terrain. I originally created the terrain pieces for 2mm miniature gaming.

Some of my terrain pieces.

I still use them because they look nice to me and they stand out more than 2D terrain. When my counters were on top of the 2D terrain, I found that the counters obscured the terrain. I don't have that problem with the 3D terrain.

The town on the hill (above) is an experiment with 2.5D terrain, such as these examples from Bob Cordery. They will give more space for counters than 3D terrain.

Counters

The inspiration for this new blog. Instead of miniatures, I am now gaming with flat, top-down counters.

My initial foray into counters looked like this.

However, I decided I wanted a more grand tactical and generic look.

In these new counters, I eschewed the detail of the first batch because it all got lost when I shrunk down the scale to fit more troops on a base. It also makes it much easier to change the uniform colors. I just select the "figures" in PowerPoint, click on format, and change the color. Painting should be so easy!

Another aspect of my approach is that I use generic figures. That means a stand can fill in for troops from any era that used formed blocks. For example, those red troops (sans cannon of course) could be Romans or Redcoats. This saves on space because I don't have to create armies for multiple eras. I do have armies in an array of colors, however. I find it easier to visualize if the colors are generally correct. So my Austrians wear white, Russians green, etc.

My generic armies for massed battles,

A couple of modern armies. They include infantry in skirmish order and armored vehicles.

Ships - both individual and based as squadrons. The ships are also generic and can fill in for navies from ancient times to today.

As I allude to above, I create the counters in PowerPoint. I then print them up on an adhesive address label - the big one with just one per sheet. I cut the counters out with scissors and then stick them to custom bases from Litko. For massed battles, I order 1 x 1/2 inch bases in brown plastic. They are 3mm thick, which makes it easier for me to pick them up.

The Rules

Technically, I could play just about any miniatures rules set with my set up, but I have created my own rules. I call them MicroBattle because I'm essentially playing a microgame.

MicroBattle is a gridded system, and is similar in many respects to Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame. MB's key feature is that I don't use long lists of modifiers to dice rolls. Instead, I just eyeball the situation and decide who has the advantage, then apply a single modifier based on this advantage. It greater speeds up play. It may not work for competitive gaming, but for solo it's perfect. My opponent tends to agree with my assessments!

Conclusion

Well, that's an overview of my current approach to wargaming. It probably is not for everyone, but it works for me.

Now that's enough wargame philosophy. Time to get back to battle! Stay tuned for a post this weekend about a couple of quick air combat games.

We Don't Need No Stinking Minis!

 

We don't need no stinking minis!

Welcome to my new blog dedicated to miniature wargaming without miniatures.

A Little History

I began my first blog, Warwell's Wargames, in 2013. At the time, I wanted to get back into miniature gaming after a hiatus where I primarily played video games (World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls mostly). I used the blog to record my journey.

Well, I went through a lot of back-and-forth regarding miniatures. Back in 2013, I wanted to emulate Bob Cordery's portable wargames. I ordered some 15mm miniatures, aaaand never finished painting them.

I tried a number of different sizes - 10mm, 6mm, 2mm, and 3mm. But I never settled on anything. 10mm and 6mm did not give the big battle look. I had trouble distinguishing troop types with the 2mm. The 3mm were a good compromise, but I just never was able to complete all the factions I wanted.

Mini-less Experiments

Over the years, I experimented with block armies instead of miniatures.

What's what? You got me.

They never took hold of me. The big issue I had was distinguishing troop types.

Things changed in 2023. I was planning a Disney trip and wanted to take a game with me. I put together some counters that looked like this.

I liked them so much that I continued to use them. That's when epiphany struck.

The Epiphany

I realized that I hate miniatures.

Oh, I like to look at them. They are pretty after all. But I hate the whole process of preparing them and then storing them. I hate having to clean up the blocks, prime them, paint them, and base them. I hate having to store them carefully so they don't get broken. I hate that they take up more space than my counters. Hate, hate hate.

If I hate them so much, why bother? My gaming is solo, so my opponent is not going to complain.

The Future

Recently, I was disparaged online for my counters. As a result, I am somewhat cutting ties with my gaming past and going all in on counters. To emphasize this change, I decided to start a new blog dedicated to using counters and other alternatives for miniature gaming.

So here we go. Are you ready to dive into war without miniatures?