Sunday, January 13, 2019

O'Gooley's Gun

A One Hour Skirmish Wargame Report

Yesterday I presented my initial impressions of John Lambshead's One Hour Skirmish Wargames. I was so intrigued that I decided to try it out this morning!

Set Up
For my first outing with OHSW, it made sense to start with the first scenario - capture the cannon. The scenario is set during the Napoleonic Wars (the Peninsula to be exact) and focuses on a tussle between a British and French detachment vying to secure an abandoned cannon.

I had a slight problem - no figures, or so I thought. Then I remembered I had a copy of Risk somewhere on my shelves. A little digging unearthed the necessary troops, and fortuitously they were the Napoleonic-themed ones from the 1990s.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am not a fan of card-based systems, and don't even have a pack of cards for experiments. So I decided to convert to dice. For action points and morale, I used a 2D6 roll while combat used 1D6. Additional card draws allowed an additional roll. Instead of a joker ending the turn, a roll of double ones

You will also notice that I grid-ified the rules. I used a 10 x 16" square grid. Distances were cut by 3 (so a 6" infantry move becomes 2 spaces and musket range of 18" becomes 6 spaces). Note that the terrain, other than the road and the cannon, was generated randomly rather than dictated by the scenario.

All-in-all, my changes worked fine. I was especially worried that turns would drag. My change essentially created a fixed probability of a turn ending on a dice roll, whereas with cards, the probability would increase with every successive draw. As fate would have it, this was not a problem today.

Battle Report
Lt Griois of the Chasseurs-a-Cheval has been tasked with recovering a cannon abandoned during the retreat from Lisbon. With him is a detachment of Voltigeurs. As he approaches the gun, he sees that the British have arrived first - regular infantry on his left and riflemen on a small hill and in the wood.

While the Voltigeurs advance, the Lt. sends forth a couple of mounted scouts. Shots ring out and Griois' men suffer casualties.

Game Note - I was able to get in 2 full phases, one for each side, before the first turn ended. One downed Brit recovered but both downed Frenchmen were permanent casualties.

The infantry rush the cannon.

A mad melee ensues around the gun while one of the cavalry takes out a rifleman in the wood.

Griois is shot by a rifleman. He halts while he tends to his wound.

Around this point, 3 turns sped by quickly. Turn 2 ended after a few phases, but both turn 3 and 4 ended on the very first combat of each turn.

His accompanying cavalrymen continue forward, charging up the hill and sabering the hapless riflemen. Meanwhile, Private O'Gooley, that hulking, mad Irishman, rushes from the flank, dodging bullets, and charges the French around the cannon.
O'Gooley is a Bruiser - he gets an extra die in close combat. Clearly it was advantageous to get him into the thick of things.

O'Gooley stabs and smashes the French infantry around the cannon. (O'Gooley managed to kill 2 French infantrymen who had the temerity to attack him)

Recovered from his wound, Griois leads his troopers in a charge on the gun. O'Gooley shows no fear. Instead, he stands his ground, waving his musket threateningly and shouting Gaelic curses at the horsemen.

"Sacre bleu!" exclaims Lt. Griois, "c'est le diable!" The Lt is unnerved by the frothing Irishman. Better to face a furious Marshal Ney than this crazy redcoat! Griois breaks off his charge and rides pell mell to the rear. His troops emulate his actions, and soon the entire French detachment is in full flight.

Turn 5 ended rather abruptly, with the cavalry charge in full swing. The British passed their morale easily but the French failed miserably. Although in hindsight I forgot to apply Griois' leadership bonus. C'est la vie.

The gun, and the victory, go to the British.

Thoughts
  • A fun and quick game. It went for 31 minutes. Partly that was because turns 3 and 4 were absurdly short. Lambshead intended to create a lot of randomness into the game and he seemed to succeed. I think game length may be highly variable.
  • Of course, I certainly messed with probabilities by swapping out cards in favor of dice.
    • I will likely need to reconsider Motivation Levels. For example, the British had a Motivation Level of 3, which allowed them to add 3 to any Morale roll. Given that 2D6 tends to normalize rolls, they are far less likely to fail than with a card draw mechanism. Reducing the Motivation Level may help mitigate this. I am also considering a D12 for Morale and Action Point rolls.
    • I am considering alternate ways of determining the turn end. In this case, it worked out OK (and happened with greater frequency than I expected). I am still concerned, however, that some turns may just go on and on.
  • One thing that felt weird was that figures could move and fire. It did not seem appropriate to the musket period to have a figure rush across the field, firing at the same time. I may add a rule that musket-men can only fire if they don't move.
  • Overall, I am quite satisfied with the rules and am looking forward to trying the next scenario! It's a testament to the rules that I am considering ordering some 10mm figures for some skirmish gaming!

7 comments:

  1. Nice review and AAR. I think your idea of a D12 is a good approximation. 1 less in the range of possibilities but without the deterministicness (is that even a word!?) of cards. I believe it is the second joker from a player's deck that causes the turn to end immediately. Maybe a 1 or a 12 followed by a second 1 or 12 from further actions of a single player would do the trick?

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  2. I read it as the first Joker. In that case, the odds of drawing a Joker (with a fresh deck) is 1/26. I'm thinking that 1/12 x 1/2 (or a roll of a 1 followed by a roll of odds) would be close enough.

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  3. Yeah. I was going to post my correction. ;) I've been reading another game which DOES have the 2nd joker end the turn. I'd stick to the roll of 1 ending the turn.


    Interestingly enough, you don't reshuffle the cards with a joker. That implies that there will be 2 turns per deck...and then part of a 3rd turn. Regardless, all cards get used.

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  4. nice little report.

    quick thought - you can certainly run / move and then stop and shoot a musket. It is the reloading that is a problem! However, this would necessitate keeping track of loaded muskets which may defeat the purpose of quick play. I do not yet have the rules, but from other games I play one can always say that the last thing a musket-toting Soldier can do is fire, then his actions end. That means he is now spending his time loading while other figs activate.

    Hope that is a useful thought!

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  5. You are correct, it is the reloading that's a problem. In OHSW a figure can run and fire every turn, without accounting for reloading. A simple way to address it w/o tracking ammo is to restrict a figure to loading or firing.

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  6. I originally had a reloading rule for muskets but it did create knock ons elsewhere so I took it out. I know players who have put musket reload rules back in and are pleased with the mod. I also should have added grenades....I can be very dumb sometimes.

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  7. I understand; simple is better. I may try a simple move or fire rule fore muskets.

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