Morschauser Fantasy Shock

Much of my holiday down time was spent planning/goal setting for the new year - most of it not hobby related. However, on the hobby front I become consumed with the thought of how to make my 54mm fantasy type armies work for me *without* having to buy anything and keeping any painting to an absolute minimum.

What I wanted was something that isn't 1:1 skirmish. I really like my combination of One Hour Wargames periods to make a fantasy set, but of course, I can't just let sleeping dogs lie. 

Many hours of playing around in Google Draw with various basing and organization ideas led to using 6" x 3" sabots, which is suitable for One Hour Wargames. But instead, for reasons that escape me now, I decided to modify Morschauser's Shock era rules to suit my needs.

Something always draws me back to Morschauser. 

The first game went pretty well, but I took no pictures and tweaks were required. For one, I didn't use sabots, but just kind of eyeballed unit frontage.

For the second game, which I played last night, I roughly cut out some 6" x 3" cardboard sabots to get a better idea of unit frontage and added necessary rule tweaks. This time I took pictures!

A Tanitian hero (and her entourage) battles Qamar heavy infantry.

 

Qamar heavy cavalry ride down a unit of Tanitian skirmishers.

The hill would change possession four times. The Tanitian heavy infantry and hero held out for a good while though.

Turn 10. I originally set out 10 turns as the limit - since these aren't OHW rules and I didn't know how long it would go. When turn 10 ended, it didn't seem fair to call it a Tanitian victory given they were being enveloped.

I decided to play on. This is around turn 13 I think? You can imagine how it ends. It did go to turn 15 before Tanitia was driven entirely from the field. Along with another Qamar unit.

I used Morschaser's roster system (instead of tracking with little dice trailing my units like I usually do I made a unit roster sheet. I don't know why it only occurred to me to try this last night and not in the dozens of OHW games I've played), but increased strength points to 6 for basic units.

Rather than rolling 1 die per strength point, I went The Portable Wargame way and rolled 1d6 for the unit regardless (I've done this before when I've modified Morschauser's Modern rules).

I added unit types: mixed skirmishers, heroes, generals,and monsters. 

I added spellcasting as a "tag" to apply to any particular unit that has the ability (my mods push the rules to be very much narrative oriented without concern for any sort of balance - after all, I'm the only one playing, so I am not too upset when I lose, because I also win as long as I have fun and the story is good).

I also modified the melee rules so they are not "to the death" but involve push back results - inspired again by The Portable Wargame and Hordes of the Things (which I have kind of sort of skimmed).

It all worked well and I enjoyed the game quite a bit - like OHW I can play without constant reference to the rules and focus on decision making, but I found there was a good deal more excitement in combat. Not only how much damage will be done but if any at all.

Tweaks were still required though, and I've already updated my modifications with some notes about changes I decided to add during play. I'm looking forward to playing again soon.

Hopefully, these rules will be the basis for a six-sided campaign later in the year (once I knock out three more armies - two of them will be very easy to do though, more on that when I finally get around to posting my plans for the year).