Virtual VAP21 : a wargame ruleset

I guess I have become an accidental acolyte for Neil Thomas. Why?

In wargames rules terms we live in an era where there are “gazillions” of rules. There are probably AI engines knocking them out these days: I am of the view that wargaming is the multi billion dollar hobby that includes every online gaming app from fortnite to defend the cauliflower patch from aliens (ok I made one up). Miniatures is just an oxbow lake in this mighty river of gaming. And this particular oxbow lake is up to its ears in rulesets for miniatures gaming and seems to love it.

So who needs another ruleset and especially one that is so “retro”?

I do.

Sometimes you have to go back to go forward and just sometimes you can go back and rework an idea using more recent thinking to go somewhere else instead.

I like Neil Thomas rules because there is a hint of Donald Featherstone in his thinking. He is quite direct in his writing – this is useful – and his approach is to apply the right amount of abstraction.

It is quite interesting to reread Donald Featherstone occasionally. For example one of his books is ladled with “scale” as in movement, time and distance: yet Donald says at one point he would rather just approximate matters so he can get on with the game – a battle. The book is his offering on Wargame Campaigns!?

This is my key to Neil Thomas. He wants you to play games and specifically battles. That is his endpoint, the outcome desired.

Neil’s book “Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878” delivers battles using miniatures. It starts at the end result and is designed to give you a game in a space – typically 6’x4′ or 1.8m x 1.2m and very often less.

Neil presents his take on the various elements that defined the era and then puts all these into a neat package of rules that are brief and to the point.

The rules mechanisms are familiar to those who have his other rules to hand. Not too many and simplicity is the order of the day.

I think the important thing about his rules are what he leaves out – which of course you need to fill in – so abstraction is all.

Neil normally achieves a balanced asbtraction in his rules. They feel right to me. So did I like these rules?

A qualified YES, I have only used them once after several rereads of the book itself.

Both paintings are to be found in the excellent Hull City Ferens Art Gallery: Go visit when lock down ends.

The rules come with scenarios and cover all the key changes in weapons and fighting that occurred from the demise of Napoleon to the Russo-Turkish war of 1878. His rules are so abstract or rather to the point, that technology changes like the railway and telegraph get little mention. Actually covering this periods scope in itself is quite a feat – a bit like a ruleset mixing Napoleonic, AWI and most of the Seven Years War yet along with significant weapon/technology changes.

In 2020 I was at the Lance and Longbow Society stand where Lithuanians and Poles were fighting it out with the Teutonic Knights at the battle of Tannenburg (1410). There were live opponents that day.

For Virtual VAP 2021 I have time warped to around 1850 to play a solo battle.

My latest project is about the Wars of the Italian Unification (WotIU). The outlier campaign is 1848 when the world also first saw Garibaldi play a signficant role in the peninsula.

By 1859/60 Garibaldi was ready for a star role leading 1000 red shirts driving out the Two Sicily’s Kingdom troops from Sicily in short order. I have already discovered some new aspects in my expanded reading on this fascinating period: That Naval muscle helped him was a surprise. And there seems a varied range of battle situations with the red shirts not having it all their own way.

The real wars seem to be fascinating. I normally like to fight with “imagination” forces which offer freedom to generate many battles and situations without the confines of “well that happened next”.

My WotIU armies are still “under the brush” so to speak. This means my game is populated with what is to hand. And the protaganists are the elusive “Empire” and “Kingdom”.

Back to the rules. I chose to start with the early period set – 1815 to about 1850. Smoothbore muskets and cannon. So pretty much Napoleonic era kit.

I had bought the “e book” as a limited dip in the water for a new period. I struggle with using rules in this format even though it is quicker to flick the pages!

So I wrote out on two sides of A5 the rules that seemed to matter.

When you look at them they amount to about a quarter page on movement, a quarter on firing and half on close combat plus a bit on morale.

So the usual fare then from Neil. Neil likes his saving throws and uses this double dicing to achieve some of his flavour/depth or granularity. So even though for solo play it seems avoidable this step provides a bit of subtle ebb and flow.

Both the Empire and the Kingdom fielded “Monarchist” armies.

I will run through the resulting battle in my next post.