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Sunday 15 July 2012

The Portable Wargame is alive and well ... and still being used!

One of the first things that I do each morning is visit Google Reader so that I can follow the progress of my favourite blogs. This morning's visit gave me a very pleasant surprise ... a battle report by littlejohn about a wargame that he had fought using a slightly modified version of my PORTABLE WARGAME rules!


In retrospect I realised that what I should have done yesterday was not to have produced an extemporised set of wargames rules and fought a game with them (albeit that it was a very enjoyable experience!); what I should have done is got my PORTABLE WARGAME stuff out and used it. After all, it was exactly the sort of situation the rules were designed for!

As Homer Simpson would have said ... 'Doh!'

4 comments:

  1. A great report! My main gaming opponent and I will be at a decidedly non-gaming festival for a week next month. We often end up gaming on a small 2x2 table in the back of his trade stand when business is slow.

    Accommodations are tents and caravans so miniatures are out. We usually play DBA using top down paper soldiers from Junior General stuck onto flat MDF bases. With DBA 3.0 still in flux, I thought of The Portable Wargame as another option.

    Which is a very long winded way of getting to my actual question: What size grid would you or other players suggest for an average battle? The hex rules suggest 8x8 but 19thC siege artillery goes out to 10 so 15+ would seem to be in order. Then there is the question of width. Your thoughts are much appreciated.

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  2. The board I used for my colonials was 4x5' with 2 1/2 inch squares that allowed for armies of about 16 units with lots of flank to work with. I think you go up to about 24 units and it would not hurt the game I think.

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  3. Pat G,

    Littlejohn has already answered your question, but here is my twopennyworth.

    The PORTABLE WARGAME would be an ideal alternative to DBA. A 2' x 2' space would easily give you a 12 x 12 grid of 2"/5cm squares, which would easily accommodate 15mm-scale DBA-sized bases. If you had 4cm squares, you could fit a 15 x 15 grid into your 2' x 2' space.

    Personally I think that at least a 12 x 12 grid is required to have a reasonable battle, and that each side should have no more than 16 units.

    All the best,

    Bob

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  4. Littlejohn,

    You are absolutely right that the more squares you have on your grid, the more space you have to manoeuvre ... and the better the battle will be.

    My calculations make me think that your grid is 20 x 24, and I would have thought that 16 units per side would give you an excellent game.

    All the best,

    Bob

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