One-Hour Wargames: Campaign

It's been a while since I posted anything but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy on the wargames front.

Having failed to have any wargames last year (sad, I know) I was determined for that not to happen this year.  Therefore I devised a simple campaign based on the scenarios in Neil Thomas's book One-Hour Wargames.

The idea was to make a straightforward branched campaign where one defined scenario would lead onto the next.  Bearing this in mind the only rules were that:

1. the winner of each game could choose the next scenario from the following round or 'tier'
2. the winner would also get to choose whether to be 'red' or 'blue' next time
3. the winner would get to choose the rules used for the next game
4. the choice of scenario would be limited (to a certain extent) by previous choices

The idea for these rules was to give some sort of structure and to reward whoever won each game.  

The scenarios used were selected by excluding ones we'd already played (see various AARs in this blog) and the ones I frankly didn't fancy, to get a shortlist.  These were then grouped into tiers on the basis of how (I thought) a typical campaign might play out.  There are 15 scenarios in the campaign (out of possible 30) and the position of each scenario in the branches was decided randomly by dicing.

The campaign is a Napoleonic one but that was just because I'd painted a lot of 20mm French (mainly Italeri, see various previous posts) over the last two years and wanted to finally get them on the table.

So far we have played one game (No. 16, Advance Guard), using a modified set of Neil Thomas' OHW (Horse and Musket) rules, and I won.  This is the only 'blunder into contact' type scenario in the campaign and seemed appropriate as a sort of neutral one to get the campaign going.  I will blog the AAR at a later date.

Having won the first game, I now have the choice of No. 14, Static Defence or No. 20, Fighting Retreat.  I haven't decided which one yet but I do know that the rule-set will be vanilla WRG 1685-1845.

The important thing is that whichever scenario is chosen limits the choices in the next tier.  So say I choose No. 14 this time, whoever wins (hopefully me) will get to select either No.18 or No. 13, but if I choose No. 20 next, the choice will be between Nos. 13 and 21, and so on.  So there is scope for a bit of planning and strategising (assuming I keep winning of course).

So, we'll see how this turns out and if it seems to work, I might very well adapt it for other scenario books I have, such as the excellent Scenarios for Wargames by Charles S Grant and/or Stuart Asquith's Scenarios for All Ages, or just make up some of my own.