Microgaming part I

Recently I've dug up my collection of old Metagaming Microgames, which started with Ogre in the early days of my gaming hobby in the end of the 1970s. I've got quite a lot of these games, so I will not try and list everything in this one post and some of the less played games I need to spend time studying and replayging to remember what they were like.

Ogre is the most played as it is easy to play to a conclusion in 30 minutes for experienced players. This means my copy must have been played with probably several thousand times over the 30 odd years that I have owned it. Of course Steve Jackson has kept it in print and produced large numbers of variations upon it, but ultimately it still goes back to that simple little game that it all started with. This is the reprint copy I bought a few years ago as I still need to find my original one. 

I even picked up this book with articles from the Space Gamer and other magazines included in it, showing I really was keen on this. 

GEV is a stand alone game in the Ogre setting, but has both sides usually with a mixture of armour and infantry and a wider range of scenarios playable. This means that it does stand up to repeated frequent play better than Ogre, particularly if additional scenarios from the various places are used as well as the basic ones included in the game. 

Another game I really liked was Sticks and Stones - a game about the dawn of warfare in the Stone Age with a solo mammoth hunt scenario I played quite a few times.

New Books - Gridded Naval Wargames and !Arriba Espana!

 A couple more wargaming books from Bob Cordery.

Gridded Naval Wargames

One for me to pursue ACW naval battles with, though I am also really interested in the unusual designs of the pre-dreadnaught era with the casement batteries and particularly the naval actions of the 1879 War of the Pacific. 

There are 6 sets of rules included in the book including 4 battle reports and a guide to making ACW ironclads using wood. There are also suggestions for expanding the rules for combined arms actions and including aircraft.

!Arriba Espana! including the Portable Spanish Civil Wargame

I already had the Arriba Espana rules from their original publication, but the modifications to the portable wargame which I now favour for this period were a good reason to get this. Hopefully this will get me going on putting my SCW collection to use. 

Testing the ACW version of the Portable Napoleonic Wargame

A playtest of my latest version of the Portable Napoleonic Wargame for the American Civil War, Brigade level rules.

I used Scenario 25 from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames though I adapted it by having both sides with the same size forces rather than the smaller blue army though I adjusted the balance by the Confederate infantry all having smoothbores rather than rifles. The scenario is inspired by the First Battle of Kernstown, so is quite appropriate for the ACW. The Confederate objective is to exit 2 units off the north road edge opposite from the side they have entered.

I also used the card based activation using turns as I think that I needed a stricter turn sequence for the victory conditions with the Confederates having initiative on the first turn.All the generals and unit names are fictitious, though the infantry and cavalry could well equate to real units.

Due to losing some of my notes this has been much delayed and has fairly brief descriptions of the mid game turns. 

Orders of Battle

Union 

• Brigadier General Clifford Mountain (average) 6AP
• Battery D, 1st Ohio Light Artillery (10 pound Parrot rifles) 2AP
• 51 NY Cavalry 3 AP
• 111th, 112 Ohio Infantry 4AP each
• 35th West Virginia Infantry 4AP 
• 89th Ohio (Bradley's Zouaves) 4AP 

Total of 27 AP Exhaustion point 9 AP

Confederate

• Brigadier General Graxton Cragg (average) 6 AP
• Roanoke Light Artillery (12 pound Napoleon smoothbores) 2 AP
• 18th Virginia Cavalry 3AP
• 28th, 32nd Virginia Infantry 4AP each
• 77th, 112th Arkansas Infantry 4AP each
• 56th Louisiana Infantry 4AP 

Total of 30 AP Exhaustion point 10AP

All units were rated as Average.

American Civil War books for Wargamers. Part 1 Uniforms and Tactics

American Civil War wargaming - a short list of recommended books. This is my personal set of recommendations for gaming in the ACW though there is a vast literature available particularly from university presses in the US.

Uniforms:

The following two Ospreys cover most of the basic uniforms of the forces involved, though not the more specialised volunteer units like the Zouves, Chasseurs, etc that were common in the earlier period and add a lot to the appeal of the ACW. There are the obvious limitations of the Men at Arms format and these can be supplemented by many other books on specific units or types of unit.

American Civil War Armies (I): Confederate Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry.

American Civil War Armies (II) Union Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery

American Civil War Armies (III) Specialist Troops

For more inspirational uniform books Don Troiani's books are hard to beat and the main one for the ACW is  Don Troiani's Regiments and Uniforms of the Civil War.There are a number of other books illustrated by Don Troiani on more specialised subjects such as Cavalry and Artillery, Infantry, or Militia and Volunteers.


Tactics:

Paddy Griffith Battle Tactics of the Civil War (Yale Nota Bene) Controversial but a useful examination of the tactics used in the war and a challenge to the rifle myth. I think it is not completely accurate in calling the ACW the last Napoleonic war, as Nosworthy helps makes clear. 

Brent Nosworthy The Bloody Crucible of Courage: Fighting Methods and Combat Experience of the Civil War builds on the work that Paddy Griffiths did in Battle Tactics with actual statistical analysis of the ranges that combat occurred at. This helped prove that the ACW was usually fought at closer ranges than were claimed by many historians.

In part 2 I'll talk about campaign and unit histories and personal memoirs.