One Hour Wargames : Ancients

I had never played One Hour Wargames's Ancient rules. Last night I decided to change that. 

Using my Tanitians and Bokrug Confederacy figures, and for now, ignoring cavalry, I generated two forces:

• Tanitia (orange and black) - 4 infantry units, 1 archer unit, 1 skirmisher unit
• Bokrug Confederacy (lizards) - 3 infantry units, 1 archer unit, 2 skirmisher units

Not a big difference there in composition, but I wanted to play the rules straight before I modify them with elephants and dinosaurs just yet.

Cavalry probably won't be added for Tanitia until 2024 as that's part of my planned army expansion - either using HaT Spanish Cavalry or LOD Amazons (the set comes with two figures on horseback). For Bokrug Confederacy, it occurred to me that smaller raptors would be sufficient and we have tons of those between my son and myself. I might even try to put some Wargames Atlantic lizard warriors on their backs as riders.

In any case, I digress ...

The scenario was #4 - "Take the High Ground"

Two units of Bokrug infantry hold the hill. They will be quite hard to remove - they halve any damage received due to armor, and halve again due to their hilltop position.

The Tantian archers pepper the units on the hill - the Bokrug units don't get their hilltop advantage for archery fire - while their infantry assaults the hill and skirmishers advance through the woods to engage the advancing Bokrug skirmishers.

The Bokrug archers stay out of melee, but everyone else is locked in it or on their way to it.

With one unit of infantry fallen and the other with 9 points of damage, things don't look good on the hill for the Bokrug Confederacy,

Yet somehow they hold out! But for how long?

Not that much longer as it turned out. This is around turn 11 or 12.

The Bokrug skirmishers launched several ineffective volleys of javelins. The archers were far more accurate with their attacks, but time was against them.

After 15 turns (One Hour Wargames standard game length) the Tanitians are the sole occupants of the hilltop. The Bokrug units, seeing victory slip away, melted into the jungle to await the next time they are called to duty.

A OHW game that went the full 15 turns! It's a rare occurrence indeed. It did get me wondering if that turn limit works better with the older pre-gun powder eras. Something that future games may shed more light on.

Units are on 3" x 2" steel-on-MDF trays. I'm not a fan of the green for these figures but I don't have enough steel to have one side sand and the other side green. Santa may resolve that issue! I'd also like to be able to put 8-10 units on the table not just 6 - so again, more steel! Santa is going to need a reinforced bag this year!

The playing area was 24" square - 3/4 the size of the standard OHW table. Ranges were adjusted in proportion. This makes the 3" base equivalent to a 4.5" wide base on a 36" table.