Two Sets of Rules, One Scenario.

I have been thinking a lot about 2024 "plans" and one of them is to do a very simple campaign set in the Lost World (formerly Venus, now Antarctica. The land itself really needs its own name used by the residents), featuring only on the fantasy/Ancients armies.

While I figure I will probably use One Hour Wargames (a mix of Ancients, Dark Ages, and Medieval troop types or the Fantasy Variant on Facebook), I do like The Portable Wargame Ancients rules and wanted to give them a go again.

The scenario is "An Unfortunate Oversight" from OHW. 

Both sides deployed by die roll. I would be rooting for the Bokrug Confederacy.

24" square playing area, 4" squares. Classic rulebook in the picture shot. Imagine there is a bridge across the river on the left.

Unfortunately, following the rules-as-written meant that, if I understood them correctly, crossing the ford would take two turns per unit. This created a massive bottleneck in a way the ford does not when using OHW. I mean, sure, it's a bottleneck, but not to the extent that it is in PW. Now, I could have attacked via the bridge (which was drying as I had made an impromptu bridge from popsicle sticks), but that doesn't mean that this isn't a problem.

If I were to use PW for this again, I'd either allow stacking in a space or remove the rule about stopping when crossing a river. The latter is most definitely the less impactful.

As it was, it was extremely difficult to get more than one unit across the river before the previous units had been eliminated. 

Not impossible mind you ...

But nothing was achieved in the event.

At the game's end, the lizards had been soundly defeated and were basically halted south of the river. Fine from a narrative perspective as it may be, it was frustrating to play.

Thankfully it was quick.

So, with glue on the new bridge mostly dry, I moved back to One Hour Wargames.

Playing area is 24" square. The grid is not being used except to denote the boundary of the playing area.

Deployment was similar but not identical - determined again by the roll of the die.

Once again rooting for the lizards, this time I decided to make a diversionary attack via the bridge.
 

That worked to at least tie up both my infantry unit and the Tanitian infantry holding the town.

On the right, unlike in the previous game, my army penetrated deep into the Tanitian territory. Although it had cost me a unit of skirmishers, my cavalry and a unit of infantry threatened the hill. 

I should note, I played my cavalry extremely cautiously. I didn't want them stuck in but rather to deliver the coup de grace. This may in fact be an obvious tactic to most anyone who reads this blog, but was news to me.

Crossing the bridge was NOT going well, but more units crossed via the ford and some effective skirmisher javelins and archers had helped whittle down the defenders.

Eventually the lizards were across on both sides, but lacked anything with any punch - only two archers and a skirmish unit remained, while the Tanitians had two infantry(one near elimination) and a skirmish unit (near elimination).

Momentum (turns) was running out but there was still a slim chance the Gokrug Confederacy could pull off a win.

Unfortunately (poor die rolling on my part), although they had managed to capture the town, the hill was still contested when their momentum ran out and the attack had to be called off.

Of course, being a wargamer, I played one more turn to see what would happen and the result was the lizards lost their skirmishers and were left with two units of archers. I stopped at that point - I was satisfied that the game had played out as it had and it had come to the last few turns.

One last note, I more-and-more like the way units become stuck in hand to hand, at least for Ancients and Medieval.

I know a lot of people don't like it, but I enjoy the way it makes the choice of when to engage meaningful. Admittedly a case could be made for a rout or morale check at least to break off, but since the strength points represent morale as well as casualties, I'm content to accept that everyone routs after 15 damage. Better or worse units can have more or fewer points to start as needed. 

Not pictured, I have also done some experiments with mixing Medieval units and Ancients units and the result has been most satisfactory. Expect to see Solis Nox make an appearance soon despite not having been included in my bins for my experiment.