Bloggers And other Reviews of One Hour Skirmish Wargaming

Derek C. has very kindly sent me links to blogs about OHSW.

I relist them here:

Grid Based Wargaming - Some One Hour Skirmish Wargaming

Dale's Wargames - part 1

Dale's Wargames - part 2

Dale's Wargames - follow up with author :)
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Amazon reviews:

5.0 out of 5 starsBrilliant refreshing game system

29 October 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A wargame without dice! That’s going to put a lot of people off, BUT the system using playing cards to generate a means of controlling movement and fire is brilliantly simple. The games are very fast moving, full of action very very entertaining and enjoyable. I have resisted skirmish games for years on the basis of detailed actions and micro management, but this book prompted a rethink and as the author clearly sets out in his design brief it all makes perfect sense. Well worth a try

5.0 out of 5 starsGreat game mechanics and a good read

28 October 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

If like me you like to dabble in 101 different skirmish era's then this is the book for you. I must admit I was a bit disappointed after reading the core mechanics as they seemed just too simplistic and without dice. However I then tried a little game and saw how it all comes together into a full skirmish game, with the slickest system possible. The scenario and era specific rules show the versatility possible and yet everything plays super fast with minimal preparation. Highly recommended!

5.0 out of 5 starsDoes What It Promises

31 December 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

An excellent book that does exactly what it promises. The authors style is funny and relaxed and the diceless system is really interesting - a contender alternative system for my heroclix minis. The layout is very clear and easy to read with lots of practical technical information. The length is just right - anything more would feel a bit much for one hour games.

3.0 out of 5 starsFast and playable but overall a bit disappointing

26 November 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

These rules are quick to learn and they do give a fast and easy game as intended. However, playing still brings up the occasional "how should I do this?" - easy enough to make up something but annoying omissions as the rules are so brief. Although a lot of periods are covered, there's a lack of depth to the rules which make them feel very similar. Scenarios obviously help to add variety, but only a few are included (none generic) and no mechanisms to create more (plenty of empty pages for this ....) These rules would be excellent for short participation games at shows or for introducing new/young players into the hobby. Unfortunately, they do feel a bit bland after a couple of games, with a quite a heavy random element and little depth - probably not suited to heavy use by experienced gamers

1.0 out of 5 starsNot a book but a footnote

6 November 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Even if this book had nothing but one star reviews I would probably buy it because the topic interests me so much. But, having read it, last night, in about half an hour, I had to wonder who on earth it was aimed at. You could find a better and more detailed set of rules in an article in any wargames magazine in any given year. Anyone who owns enough figures and terrain to stage one of these skirmish games must already own at least a dozen sets of rules that are either more realistic or more fun. The book doesn't cover the pre-musket era. This is sheer laziness. The book is only 95 pages and the writing, such as it is, takes up hardly any room on the page. Quite a few pages are blank. There are only five or six scenarios. The author acknowledges that scenarios are the heart and soul of skirmish games and then completely neglects them. He pays tribute to One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas and tries to explain what made that book so good but he completely misses the point. What made that book so good is that it had at least thirty highly charged scenarios that were playable in any era; and very compact but appropriate rules for every era from ancient to the modern day. That book is the distillation of years of experience and you can tell. This 'sequel', in contrast, reads like it was dashed off in an afternoon by someone who had better things to do. I don't doubt the author's pedigree but the book is simply too casual and too thoughtless. I could explain my reservations about the rules but my review is already longer than the book's introduction, which was going in an interesting direction and then just stopped.

Good Reads

Sep 24, 2018Ted Williams rated it it was amazing

Marvellous set of 'toolbox' rules, which seems to cover most of the periods I am interested in dabbling with.
Everything works though a deck of normal playing cards, and whilst the rules are simple, they are comprehensive enough to cover most things you would need in an average game.

The way the rules are structured and how the cards are used also make it easy to add in any extra bits you might feel are essential .

I really, really like these rules, they might not suit the 'rivet-counters' as there are no extensive tables, wacky dice, or enormous army lists to digest, however they do give a crackingly good game

I also understand there is a stinker of a review of Miniature Wargames by a wargamer who is very dischuffed with me. :)

Probably worth a read before you spend your money. Sometimes, you can learn more about a piece of art from those who hate it than from those who love it.....although the latter is good for writer's egos.

Ah well, one can't be all things to all people.
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Good Reads Review

 5.00  ·  Rating details ·  2 ratings  ·  1 review
Many wargamers enjoy the challenge of skirmish games where, instead of the strategy of vast armies portrayed by traditional wargames, the focus is on the tactics of a small unit. However, skirmish rules are often so complex that it can take hours of rolling dice, consulting tables and recording data to recreate what would in reality be a fast and furious firefight lasting just minutes. Now these new rules make it possible to recapture the speed and intensity of these actions where every man, and every second, counts. The basic rules are supported by sections which give special rules and scenarios to capture the flavor of a range of different periods, from Napoleonic to Modern Warfare and beyond with Sci-Fi. From the 95th Rifles scouting for Wellington, Western gunfights and WWI trench raids, through WW2 parachute assaults or Special Forces strikes in Afghanistan, or even Space Marines storming a space station, Squad Firefights elegantly simple system allows you to focus on proper tactical decisions rather than rolling buckets of dice or calculating masses of modifiers.
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I have noticed that if an author does something new and different you get either 5 stars, from people who like novelty, and one star, from people who equate it with heresy. I like to strip down systems to their core and scrape the barnacles off and then see what you have left.

One little note. This system took rather longer than an afternoon to develop - ten years in fact. It is a counter-intuitive fact that a simple game takes longer to develop than a complex one. Complexity hides what doesn't work but every single blemish stands out in a simple system.

"Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le
loisir de la faire plus courte." Blaise Pascal, 1657

I remember Fall of the West provoking the same response.

A happy New Year to all - even those who loathe my books.

John Lambshead

Poseidon's Warriors - Errata

I have just had the  figures for the first month's sales of Poseidon's Warriors and I am delighted to say it has sold pretty well, especially in the United States.

Thanks to everyone who has put their hand in their pocket.

An ambiguity has cropped up which needs elucidating:

Where on the ship data summary a vessel has a save of '0' it does not mean 0+, it means 'no save'.

It's pretty obvious from the context but ....

Entirely my fault, not Osprey's. I had one of those senior moments.

Happy ramming,

John Lambshead

First Review of Tabletop Wargames

The first review of Tabletop Wargames is out on YouTube here, by Ringo Simpkins.

Thank you Mr Simpkins for your prompt comments. You are a Jolly Good Chap fully fitting to join the above line up.

Author Copies Arrived - Tabletop Wargames, A Designers' And Writers' Handbook

Yay the author copies have arrived!

The book goes on sale at the end of the month for the princely sum of £11.99p.

I must say Pen & Sword have done us proud with colour-coded chapters and full colour throughout.

We owe a number of people thanks for the photos. They are credited in the book. This particular one is by Andy Singleton, the professional painter who works under the brand name of Volley Fire.


Review Quotes
"I say, this is a jolly good read. Who wrote it?" Rick Priestley
"Is it time for my medication again, nurse?" John Lambshead

Osprey Poseidon's Warriors - First Review

The first reviews of my new book are up on the web.

Here

and

Here

Many thanks to the gamers who took the trouble to look at the rules.

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Note: I will use this blog to answer rules queries as they come up.

Q: If a ship has 2 or more artillery (platforms), may i roll 1D6 for each in an artillery attack? It´s not clear in the rules.
Michael D.

Yes, each artillery engine on a ship may attack a target. Roll a D6 for each engine.
John Lambshead

Early Author Copy

Guess what just dropped through my door courtesy of those wonderful people at Osprey Wargames.

Available from all good bookshops, wargame shops and Amazon.

Proofs for Tabletop Wargames

Just been through the proofs for Tabletop Wargames. Very clean copy from Pen & Sword so only found a few and they are probably mine!

Daniel Mersey, of Lion Rampant fame did the layout.

It will be fun to see if readers can detect which bits are mine and which are Rick's.

All on track to be out in September this year.

The book is currently on preorder.

Rochester Models, Germany Strikes, Book Signing Wednesday

My new Bolt Action Wargaming Campaign book, Germany Strikes, is now available. It covers the Blitzkrieg era: Poland, Denmark, Norway, Low Countries, and France.

I will be doing a book signing at the Rochester Models Bolt Action club Wednesday 22nd in the evening from about 6pm onwards. There will a display of models and the club will be playing a few games.

Andy Singleton, the professional model painter, whose art has graced the Warlord Games website will also be present to talk about his work.

Rochester Games Models & Railways
21 Corporation Street
Rochester
ME1 1NN

Tel: +44 1634 815699
Email: rochester-games-models@gmx.co.uk

See you there: John Lambshead

My Recent Warlord Project: Pegasus Bridge

Proud to say that the recent rush job I did for Warlord Games was the scenario booklet for this little beauty. Now on Preorder.

The glider rules are great fun.

My Next Book.

Editing my next book. Look for it in late summer or early autumn.

JTS - Wings Over The Reich

Model Zone are selling off these great little prepainted 1:100 kits for £2.99 each and that includes a tube of glue. There are four paint jobs to choose from for each kit.

I have put togther a set of air-skirmish rules to have a game. I have posted them on the side bar as a seperate clickable page. The rules are, as yet, untested so they will probably need tweaking.

JTS RatFight – Core Rules

The first version of the RatFight Rules are up on the sidebar on the topright of the blog.

These are just the first written version of the core rules engine, and does not include army lists. These will come stating with World War II.

I would be grateful for feedback so please feel free to download and make copies of RatFight. Print it out for your own use and that of your friends.

Have fun

John

Combat in Miss Warburton's Thicket

This was a test of the JTS Ratfight system on a board provided by Shaun.

The scenario is as follows. A Nazi reconnaissance plane has been shot down on a recce over Warmington-on-Sea. They crashland behind the town and the crew escape with the camera film showing key defences on the south coast such as the exact location of captain Mainwearing's HQ in the Novelty Rock Emporium, the siting of the Lewis Gun on the End of the Pier, and the garage in which Mr Jones the butcher keeps his van.

The Luftwaffe crew take cover in some agricultural building in Miss Warburton's Thicket (A). They are spotted by a Home Guard watchman at the telephone Kiosk on the crossroads (B) who phone's HQ.

The Regular Army send a Bren gun Carrier and half section along the Warmington Road (C) in case the Home Guard report is accurate. There has to be a first time.

Meanwhile, Captain Mainwearing, Sgt Wilson and Jones' section (the crack mobile unit of the Warmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon) race out from the town to investigate (D).

Unknown to the stalwart defenders of England, a Brandenburger unit has landed by submarine to rescue the airmen and their valuable photos (E).

So battle commenced with myself as the noble English and Shaun as the peridious Hun.



The Regulars (A) pile out of the carrier and chase the aircrew out of the buildings. The airman run towards the Brandenburgers (B). The latter form a skirmish line on the hill (B) and infiltrate the woods on their left flank (C).

They ambush Jones' van. He stalls the engine and can't restart it. The Home Guard pile out in a huddle but an infiltrating Brandenburger throws two grenades - knocking out everyone but Jones, Walker and Sponge. I pulled some dreadful cards!

Jones turns out to be a true old soldier (he fought against the fuzzy-wuzzy and the mad mullah with Kitchener). He snipes back at the Brandenburgers with his lee-Enfield, picking them off, one by one.


The Regulars put in a last charge (A). Their sergeant goes down but they knock down more crewmen including the pilot (C). The Bren Gun Carrier crew hide in the trees (B). Jones forces down more Brandenburgers with his sniping skills (E), including the leader.

By the luck of the cards, the end turn comes up when the next action card is turned. Both Shaun and i have to test morale without leader bonuses and with casualties. I make my random card (a Jack), while Shaun pulls a Deuce.



The surviving aircrew surrender and are led away by Corporal Jones on the end of his trusty bayonet, while Walker has a craft fag (A), watched by the surviving Regulars (B). The surviving Brandenburgers fade back into the woods to rendevouz with their U-Boat (C).

Strange to tell, a sinister nun with three-day old stubble on her chin watches the proceedings (D). Could a rescue attempt to lift the photos be on the cards? You bet.

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I am really pleased with the Ratfight system which injects the right amount of chaos and lack of centralised control that I believe is more realistic. It is extremely simple so you play the game not the rules. It rewards careful thought. The lack of control requires more skill from a player, not less. Things will go wrong. This is poker rather than chess.

I will definitely write these rules up.

John

Ratfight

I have finished my Warlord 'Resistants' section and was keen to get them into battle. I have been working on a new skirmish system, tentatively called Ratfight, that has three qualities: (i) simple, (ii) clean, and (iii) unpredictable.

So here is a Ratfight force of Free French.
1. SAS brick under Sgt 'Chalky' White, armed with sten guns and a Bren.
2. Free French Leaders, Michelle 'I shall say this only once' of the SOE and Rene 'ero of the resistance' Artois (with armband).
3. Les Resistants armed with a variety of British and German weapons.

The scenario is taken from an Osprey book, French Resistance Fighter. A German division is making its way painfully towards Normandy after D-Day. The Resistance is delaying the force with road blocks ever few miles, some defended, forcing the Germans to debus and sweep away resistants from the surrounding woods before removing the block. Note for artistic reasons, the free French fighter is shown defending the roadblock. Actually, he would be in the woods to the side.


So here is the wargaming table at the start of the game. The blocked road is offtable in the foreground and two sections of Germans debuss and enter the trees to search for 'terrorists'. I played the forces of law and order and Shaun played the French terrorists.

Ratfight is a diceless system that uses playing cards. These have the advantage of a large range of outcomes, all of equal probability. Randomly drawn action cards are used to move and fight individual stands, giving a high degree of unpredictability. It is a simple fast, unpredictable system that rewards flexible plans, and players.


This is the game at the finish. Shaun used an agressive strategy of forward defense, stopping the germans from entering the woods. Moral of a force detoriates with casualties and although I was taking higher casualties by being caught in the open, I was inflicting losses. The game continues until a force breaks and withdraws. Shaun knocked down my leader. Should he die, I was very unlikely to survive my next turn's morale check given the number of casualties that I had sustained. However, Shaun failed his morale check that turn (he flipped a two) and withdrew - so I won.

I was pleased with how the system performed. It was fast (one hour game) and felt more 'real' than standard wargame rules applied to small forces, because of the limited control players have over their troops.

Oh, for people interested in such things, the first photo was taken with a twenty second exposure using a stopped down camera in poor light. The second by putting the Nikon on auto and using the internal flash.

Hammers Slammers - The Crucible

My Hammers Slammers rules and source book is released from Pireme this month. This is a reedited hardback wrap up of the first two volumes.

There is a PDF for all the new cards and play sheets here:

http://www.hammers-slammers.com/the_crucible.htm


Heavy Metal.

Slammers Rolling Hot


Molt Guerilas teleport in to ambush a column.



Sunset Watch.

Hammers Slammers

The SF author, David Drake, has been described as the 'father' of military SF. He served in the Blackhorse elite battle cavalry in Vietnam. The Blackhorse were the unit who devised the Thunder Run. Experience of combat has given him an insight into the impact of combat stress on human beings that no other author has ever bettered. His work stands comparison with the great WWI writers.

He is perhaps best known as the writer of the Hammers Slammers series. These are stories based around the colonial warfare campaigns of an elite third millenium mercenary battle cavalry regiment. These campaigns often involve asymetric warfare.

The picture above shows an Old Crow Hammers Slammers Blower Tank in 28ml. It's main weapon is a devastation 20cm powergun.



John Treadaway and I obtained David Drake's permission to produce the first official rulebook and wargaming guide to the Slammers. We went to enormous trouble to recreate the world of the stories, in the rules, in the background and in the models. Pireme published the books and Old Crow & Ground Zero Games designed the models. David kindly checked all the stages to ensure that we had captured his vision.

There were two initial paperback books - The core book, the Hammers Slammers Handbook, and a supplement, Hammers Anvil.

See:

http://www.miniwargames.com/index.php?cPath=21&osCsid=5e957abgucofq86p8ccgsg4km3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hammers-Slammers-Handbook-Technical-Specifications/dp/0954727606/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261245035&sr=1-14

There is an independent review here:
http://www.totalmodels.co.uk/reviews/data/Wargame_Rules/Sci-Fi/pri_hammers/index.shtml

We are in the process of producing a revised version in hardback that will incorporate and update the earlier work.




Hammers Slammers Combat Cars armed with three tribarrel powerguns.



Blower tanks rolling hot.


A firebase.



Slammers 'Hog' - self propelled rocket assisted artillery.


Terran Authority Starmaine infantry and HALO MBT. These are the profesionals that keep order in the colonies. They are tough, highly trained veterans that are superbly armed.




A Texian Mercenary Regiment gunship. These are elite light infantry.




A half track from the Thunderbolt mercenary regiment.


A Wolverine mercenary regiment powergun in an anti-tank role.



A Zaparoyski mercenary regiment Sabre MBT.

For more pictures, modelling guides and free downloads go to the official Hammers Slammers Website here:
http://www.hammers-slammers.com/