John’s Wargame Page

I purchased One Hour Wargames when it was first published. My initial assessment of the rules were that they were too simple for my taste. The 30 scenarios still made the gameworth while to me. My son and I played a game which pitted Vikings vs Saxons. His thought (he was 8 years old at the time) was that you kind of got stuck in and that was largely that. Not much room for maneuver. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is how warfare was between two shieldwalls.

There were two problems I had with the game. First, was that the hitpoint number is too big and is not easily tracked without either a bunch of hit markers or a roster. The second was that there was no morale system that allowed for a temporary or permanent failure in morale of a unit.

Since then, I came up with the 3 hit system. This was largely an epiphany I had while playing a board game on the Great North War. Its CRT was super simple and had results for both fighting in terrain and fighting in the open. The CRT’s I used are roughly balanced to the original game. A unit will typically last 3-5 turns.

The morale system is something I came up with based on the philosophy of Don Featherstone. When a unit has a morale failure, the subsequent move should bt that unit’s move for the turn. Placing the check right before the unit moves is something I copied from Fire and Fury and On to Richmond, both American Civil War games. There was, of course, some tweaking to keep the system from making OHW too volitile.

Other aspects about OHW deals with how certain functions of the game are accomplished, all in a very simple way. You turn by pivoting about the center of a unit. No wheeling. No special rules. No nonsense. You normally get to pivot at the beginning of your turn and at the end. So, you can accomplish a backward move easily.

Shooting is accomplished as they did back in the day without any obscure rules for interrupting moves and defensive fire. Shooting ranges are generically 12″. The fastest unit can move 12″. So it stands to reason that there will be a defensive shot because even at 12″, a unit will spend one turn in shooting range. Also, units may shoot or move but not both. So a unit could not move into range of cavalry, for example, without exposing itself to a charge and not getting a shot off.

Finally, the game is simple enough to mod without ruining the game’s balance. Simple rules and tweaks do work in an interesting way. Additions, such as morale, magic, monsters and flying can enhance the game for various time periods and generes without unbalancing the game. I’ve done my fair share of tweaks to the game which you can find in the OHW subpage. The tab is at the top of this page. Have a look and you will see what i mean.

I’ve added rules and army lists for later Dark Ages from Penda through Harold Godwinson. With these you can fight battles in England. I’ve decided to make rules sets more focused on the period. These sets will include relevant army lists and only the special rules pertinent to the time period being played. You can find them on the OHW subpage.

I’ve created a stripped down OHW 3-hit rules set. The rules give you the basics of how the game plays but leaves out any period specific rules, including damage and special unit rules. The idea is to have the base set and then, in the army lists, all of the uits will be outlined and the random unit composition tables will be available on one page. This way, the rule summary can be on one side while the army list for a specific army can be on the other side. You can find the rules here.

If you do download them and give them a read, please let me know if I left anything period specific or if something is not clear.

One of the knocks on OHW is the simplicity and that units are all the same. With a small amount of design work, you can make a variety of units. It’s even possible to attach a special rule to some without breaking the system. Here is a breakdown of what all the attributes are.

A unit can move 6″, 9″ or 12″

A units can fight at 0″, 12″ or 48″

Shooting damage is D6-2, D6 or D6+2

Melee damage is D6-2, D6 or D6+2

Units can be armored or unarmored

Infantry can occupy villages

Skirmishers can occupy villages or woods

Ammunition rule from ECW rules set can work in this period as well. A 1-2 on a D6 means the unit is out of ammo. You can set the number to what you want though if ammo is severely restricted.

You can attach arbitrary rules to a unit if they don’t quite fit the mold. Here is an example:

Elephant: Move 9″, Melee D6+2, 10 hits (instead of 15) Cavalry may not charge elephants and must break off on their turn when an elephant melees cavalry. If an elephant is destroyed, any unit (friend of foe) takes D6 damage from the ensuing elephant rampage.

Here is another:

Chariots: Move 9″, Shoot D6-2, 12″ range, 10 hits Unit may move and shoot but may not charge. If meleed, it will break off on it’s turn. It has a 360 degree shooting arc.

How about a more basic example:

Peltasts: Move 9″, Shoot D6-2, 12″ range Melee D6, 15 hits Unit is subject to ammunition supply rule. On a 3 or less, the unit is out of ammo for the rest of the game.

So, with this listing of OHW attribute and some imagination, you can come up with some interesting units. Until next time, good gaming!

I’ve been pondering this for a while now. Ancient armies, as written in OHW, don’t really fit the model. The author has formed archers. Those archers, in the specified time period (300BC-100AD) really only existed in any number in the Persian army. Another example is the Gallic army. They were a warband based army with little in the way of body armor. If we assign a random army table to each army, rather than a generic one, then we can largely fix these issues.

Lets take the Persians first. Instead of giving them a large amount of heavy infantry, we could swap infantry for archers. This way, the Persian army would have up to 4 archers and up to 2 heavy infantry. That works for the early Persian army which existed in c490AD. Later Persian armies were more cavalry heavy. Instead, you might swap the cavalry for infantry. Now you can fight Alexander the Great or any Roman army in the 2nd through 5th century AD.

The Gallic army is a bit different. They are simply warband heavy. They did not have much in the way of archers. So, use the warband troops from the Dark Ages and replace archers with warbands. The gallic army can now have up to 5 warband infantry.

We can continue with the Roman army. Again, during the time period, not a lot of archers but having allies was a feature of this army. It is really a regional thing. If they are fighting in the north, warband would replace archers. If they are fighting in the south, it could be peltasts or unarmored heavy infantry. There is no peltast unit. I’d suggest something like a 9″ move, D6 melee and D6-2 shooting with the ammunition rule from the ECW game. Since the number of shots is extremely limited, make the die roll of 3 or less means that the unit’s ammo is exhausted.

The rules I posted today had a few experimental items in them. The chief one was the concept of “close range”. I’ve taken it out for muskets. They now shoot with a D6 at out to 12″. Artillery still has a 6″ close range though I think maybe 12″ would be better or maybe I should just remove it once and for all. The new version can be found on the OHW subpage above or right here.

Quick note: If you play solo, I do not recommend using the deck of cards suggested in the book. That will introduce way too much volatility to the game when coupled with my command and morale rules.