Trevor came round on Friday for a game. At one time we used to do this weekly, but it's been a long time since we could manage that. As usual the evening was a mixture of actual gaming and chatter about what we've been reading and buying and so on.
Trevor has been painting up 10mm Pendraken figures for the Zulu wars, with the intention of basing them up for proper big battles, but he has based the first few as individuals for skirmishing. So we played the One-Hour Skirmish Wargames Zulu scenario, which is a sort of miniature Rorke's Drift. The British redcoats are taking cover in a redoubt as an endless stream of Zulu warriors rushes up to overwhelm them. Dead Zulus are replaced after one turn, a little more than one move away from the redoubt (though they still count toward the Zulu morale breaking).
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| Tiny skirmish action |
The luck of the cards was outrageous. I kept pulling face cards for actions, while Trevor drew 2s & Aces. Twice the turn ended just as Trevor had one of his redcoats attack my best warrior across the wall of the redoubt; to resolve this the attacker draws two cards and uses the higher of them to beat the defender's one card draw; he pulled a high card, I pulled a low card, then he drew his second card and it was a Joker. That means that the turn ended immediately without resolving whatever activity needed the card to be drawn, and so my warrior wasn't dead after all. It sounds like one of those very rare events, but it happened twice in one game.
The fighting continues until one side's morale breaks or until a relief column appears to save the day for the British. The timing of the relief column is decided by drawing one card at the end of each turn, and when the running total reaches 30 the column arrives. Trevor drew some terrible cards for this. He was down to just the lieutenant and the inspiring private Alexander when it finally appeared. He spent the whole game moaning about his terrible luck (and it really was outrageously bad) right up to the point when he suddenly won.
The OHSW rules are cinematic and generate games that are exciting and fun. They are massively "swingy", generating very unfair and unlikely outcomes for individual actions with the expectation that they will average out across the game. The outcome is far from predictable. But if you are less concerned with playing the odds to maximise the effectiveness of your side and happy instead to effectively watch a Hollywood action movie unfold on the table, then they are worth a look.
The scenarios are frustrating to read. They are all specific actions, no generic situations. The terrain setup is disturbingly vague. In this scenario "the only cover [is] small outcops of rock and giant ant hills". There are no clues about how many to place, how large, where they should be, whether they slow movement or block line of sight, just the assumption that they probably provide a 1 or 2 card bonus for Zulus being shot at when next to them.
There is a chapter in the book on point values, but those costs don't give the numbers stated in the scenarios. For example, in this scenario the British force is correctly costed at 18 points, with no extra points for being in a redoubt, but the Zulu force is 24 points, not the 31 stated in the scenario. Perhaps the extra 7 are the price of limitless replacements and a 9" movement rate? In effect the book might as well not include points at all, and instead say "write your scenario and play it a dozen times; if one side keeps winning then change something in the other side's favour".
Until next time, health & happiness to you all.
