I’ve updated all of the rules variants to reflect minor changes and certain omissions from the original rules by Mr. Thomas.
Units only take a morale penalty of -1 upon receiving their second hit.
You can now shoot into melee if it is a new melee…as in, it is the defending unit was not in melee contact at the beginning of the turn and the shooting unit has a clear line of fire/sight to some part of the defending unit.
There are now line of sight/fire rules including shooting from a higher elevation.
All of the rules so far can be found on the OHW tab above or right here.
A week and a half ago, I managed to get a game in using the One Hour Wargames rules and my own 3-hit modification. I randomly determined a scenario, which came up The Three Lines. This is a defensive scenario which has Red with an army of 4 units defending a bridge followed by a game between 2 woods and finally a hill. Blue has 6 units that enter the game on Turn 1.
Red Army consisted of 2 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 gun battery.
Blue army consisted of 3 infantry, 2 cavalry and 1 skirmisher.
Red setup with an infantry forward guarding the bridge, the other infantry unit and the cavalry unit guarding the gap and finally the artillery occupying the hill.
Blue moved up initially with all 3 infantry units moving online across the river. The Red infantry and artillery managed to score hits on two separate units. Blue did pass the subsequent morale checks on their turn and returned fire scoring only 1 hit. However, red was equally unlucky and failed a morale check, forcing the lone red unit back a half move.
Blue crosses the river
Blue took advantage and pushed units across the bridge. Red wasn’t having any of it and managed another hit. Soon the first Blue infantry took its 3rd hit and was removed from play, only to be reinforced by Blue’s last infantry. Eventually, Red’s 1st infantry was destroyed but they seem to have over performed causing a fair bit of damage.
Red gets pressed back
The light infantry managed to get across the river but was hit by artillery fire and had to retreat to the river bank. It would rally and occupy the left section of woods delivering fire on the Red infantry unit covering the gap. Blue’s main line did advance but a 2nd Blue infantry unit was destroyed int he process. This left 2 cavalry and 1 infantry unit to do the heavy lifting.
Not looking great for Blue
The 3rd blue infantry traded blows with the last Red infantry unit but eventually quit the field first. The red infantry w soon finished off by a Blue cavalry unit. The Blue and red cavalry units clashed back and forth. One of the Blue cavalry units was destroyed before the red cavalry unit quit the field. This left the artillery in possession of the hill and the 1 cavalry attacking from the front while the light infantry positioned itself on the flank.
Blue manages to turn things around. The battle hangs in the balance.
At this point, it was the end of turn 13. With only 2 turns left, it did not look like Blue could prevail. It was a narrow victory for Red.
Blue falls short.
So, there are two things I assumed but did not actually realize are not in the rules. First, there are no line of sight rules. The way they are written, these rules allow units to shoot through other units. I decided that this was not a possibility. I measure from the center of the shooter to any part of the target. If no unit or terrain intervenes, this is clear line of sight. For shooting over units or terrain, the obstacle must be closer to the shooter than the target or the line of sight is blocked.
Shooting into melee was the second thing that is not covered. I thought it would not be allowed. Again, the rules are silent on this. However, this meant that Blue’s light infantry and cavalry could not gang up on the artillery which seems counter intuitive. My solution is that so long as this is a new melee (first round of contact) and there is a clear line of sight, the unit can shoot. It is important in the horse and musket period as cavalry retreats if it cannot break the target unit. It is important in the ancient and medieval eras as well because units get stuck in. Archers can get 1 shot off during a charge but will tend to stand around until the melee is resolved.
It was a fun game that went right down to the wire. The scenario ends itself to solo play as most of the Red units could not move until Blue approached within 4″.
So that is all for today. Until next time, good gaming!
Rivers by Eric Hotz
Game Mat by Battle Systems
Trees by JTT
Hill by Battlefield Terrain Concepts (BTC)
Figures are mostly Minifigs 2nd gen that I started painting when I was 13 years old. There are also a few Napoleonettes and Falcon Figures.
After pouring through a derth of information on the great battle that made England, I’ve come up with this simple scenario for the Battle of Brunanburh. The battle should be double in size, pitting a Scots-Welsh-Norse army against a double sized Anglo-Saxon army.
The battlefield should probably be a board 5-6 feet in length by 3 feet in depth. The ground is relatively flat with maybe a woods on one flank and a water feature on the other. Which flank is which should be left up to the players. As for the location? We just don’t know. It does seem that terrain was not an issue because even the poem in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle does not really mention anything. One thing we can say with at least some certainty is that the armies probably came by boat. Constantine and Olaf escaped by boat. Assuming the welsh contingent was from Strathclyde, that king would be Owain I. No mention of what happened to him.
There will be two armies per side. The Norse army is a land army. Roll once on the 6 unit land army table. This is Olaf’s army. For the Scots-Welsh army roll once for a 6 unit army on the Welsh-Scots table. Norse setup on the left and the Scots-Welsh setup on the right. For the Anglo Saxon army, roll twice on the Anglo-Saxon table. These are controled by Aelthelstand and Edmund. Edmund’s army will setup on the left and Aethelstan’s army will setup on the right, facing the Norse. It is likely that Aethelstan raised a norse contingent, perhaps from York. Replace one Great Fyrd unit with a Norse Bondi unit from the norse land army list.
Each army has a general. Constantine and Olaf control the Coalition armies. Aethelstan and Edmund control the Anglo-Saxons. With the exception of Aethelstan, they may only exert influence over their respective commands. Aethelstan may exert influence over units from either Saxon command.
Armies should setup within 12″ of the respective base edges and no closer that 6″ from either flank edge. The battle is fought until one side has been routed from the field. An army is routed wihen half of its units have been destroyed. This is a per-army basis. So if Olaf’s army takes 50% casualties, his army is routed and that leaves only Owain/Constantine to fight on.
I’ve been rebasing and painting over the past couple of months. I have the troops for this fight and hopefully will fight it out soon.
If you want to fight this out as a standard game, the coalition get a 3 unit Scots-Welsh army and the Norse contingent gets a 3 unit Norse land army. The Aglo-Saxons get a single 6 unit army and will still replace a great fyrd unit with a Norse land army unit, this time a Norse Dreng. Each army will have 1 general.
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 posted the fully editable template rules file in the OHW subpage. The file is a DOCX file and has a blank army page so you can create your own rules. You can find them here.
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.
Posted by John 
John's Wargame Page 