Programmed Wargame Scenarios

[Norm]

I am playing tjhrough scenario 1 of Charles S. Grants revised Prograammed Wargame Scenarios, which involves red army trying to dislodge blue army from a low ridge.


The scenarios are multi-period enabled, so for this game, I have employed Wars of the Roses figures.


I have put some detail up on the blog as to how the programmed scenario works and included a short AAR.


http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2022/12/programmed-scenarios-by-charles-s-grant.html

[paulr]

Interesting 

[Steve J]

A good report Norm and I dug out my copy to give it a good read through once again, with the aim of getting something onto the table soon.

[Norm]

Thanks, Steve, this definitely has a place on wargamers shelves. I can see myself exploring quite a bit of it in 2023.

[Raider4]

Kings of War, eh?

What did you think? I've got and read the (freebie) rules booklet, but something about it didn't grab me.

[Norm]

Well my initial response was one of shock at the apparent brutality of the combat system. I say this because my usual system, Sword & Spear (Great Escape Games) is fairly plodding and it can take a while for casualties to accumulate and in some attacks there are no casualties, but with KoW it will be unusual not to get casualties.

The engine is very solid, so you can tweak it to get the game you want without upsetting anything else. So in my game, on the stats sheet, I moved the billmen armour up one point, so that they sat between bow and men-at-arms.

There is no fancy footwork, if you want to move, you do, even interpenetrating other units, when you know some rules might prevent that and things are not taking disorder tests etc for doing so.

So in some ways there can feel a generic feel to the rules, but in others, it allows the game to get on with minimal fuss and you will get a decisive result.

They have different sized units in the stats, so I was using the smaller unit for things like skirmishers, cavalry and crossbow etc, while using what they call 'regimental' for the bill and bow. This cleverly just gives the bigger unit a bigger total stamina type level, so it takes longer to rout.

Rather like Black Powder stuff, there is a basic stat for a unit type and then there are characteristics that you can give the unit. For example Longbow get the Piercing characteristic, so having scored hits, when you roll the hits against enemy armour (like saves) there will be a +1 to those dice because Longbow (and crossbow) could be effective against armour.

So things are mostly there, they are just done in a very streamlined way. There isn't really a command and control system. You will get to move everything.

[fred.]

I've played a lot of KoW, mainly Fantasy back with v1 of the rules. We played a lot of the time with 10mm figures on big sabot bases, which certainly gave a spectacular look to the game.

We did try a WoTR game - and it was a bit odd, down to the brutally of the rules, we ended up with a rather empty battlefield after just a few turns.

KoW has some unusual rules mechanisms, not least that you only fight in melee when you have charged. This leads to units rather jockeying for position to try not to get charged, but get within their own charge range - this can get rather tedious. This also means that when forming a battle line, you need to worry far more about how you can counter charge the attacking enemy next turn, rather than supporting your own defending unit this turn. This is all rather chess like, and some what abstract.

Flanks are really important, and are quite wide.

I do like the stat line, it gives a good range of unit types from a few stats. And the use of special rules feels about right, in that there is enough to differentiate between units, but not so many you can't remember them!

[Norm]

Fred, that was my experience with WotR ... but, I am still trying to decide whether this is a problem or whether the rules are actually reflecting that thing of both sides had lots of archers, so a bow advantage was not really gained as they tended to cancel each other out. So you get a bit of an archery contest, which sees lots of bowmen off! and then get down to the close up fighting. As I say ... I'm undecided!

[fred.]

A high removal of units is standard in KoW - in the fantasy game I've rarely had a problem with it, and it really speeds the game up in the last couple of turns. 

But when we played an historical game with KoW the battlefield emptying after a few turns felt odd. 

Overall KoW is very much on the game end of the game to simulation spectrum. It's a pretty tight game and works well within its own constraints, but nearly always feels like a game where you think about the game rules, rather than a simulation of a battle where thinking like a military commander would work.