Wargaming In the Sun
When most people think of wargaming, they think of elaborate tables, massive armies, and a spectacle that would make Cecile B. DeMille weep with joy. But that’s not the only way to go with wargaming. You can have just as much fun with a small table, half-a-dozen figures per side, and the rules to fit.
I’m talking about skirmish wargaming.
Skirmish wargaming is going through a renaissance of late for a variety of reasons, amongst them being the low-cost entry point (most “armies” are at most, about a dozen figures to start), and a well-run skirmish game usually can be run on a board of 3’x 3’, or about half the size of a usual 4’ x 6’ board found in most wargames. This means most skirmish wargames are smaller, with the troops already in contact, and the action gets bloody fast, which makes for a fast game. Skirmish wargames usually do the fights TV shows and movies are made of, with small patrols bumping into each other, or skirmish lines duking it out ahead of the main van of troops. These encounters are often glossed over in larger scale wargames, but considering the human drama one finds in these encounters, a wargamer can have a lot of fun with this.
Most of these rules are written around 28mm miniatures, but you don’t have to go in that direction. I’ve seen great skirmish games run with everything from 6mm to 54mm. Heck, once I played in a game with GI Joe and Cobra action figures, I don’t remember the rules we used, but yes, Virginia, it was a very bloody Saturday morning.
What I like the most about skirmish wargaming is that you create personas for your army, and run them through campaigns, and watch them improve or die on the battlefield. You’re personally invested in your army in ways you might not be with larger-scale games.
I’ve decided to do a sampling of some rules, some of mainstream interest, some not, to show the depth and breadth of skirmish games out there. If I left your fave out, I apologize in advance, but there are simply so many out there these days.
While most of the attention has been on Osprey Games fantasy and sci-fi efforts, which we won’t discuss here, there’s a lot of historical skirmish games out there for you to try your hand at and that I’ve played and would recommend.
Sharp Practice
Too Fat Lardies
Sharp Practice is one of those games I own on PDF but don’t play as often as I’d like. It’s meant for larger skirmishes (30-40 figures per side) for an era stretching from 1700 to 1865. It’s an era with the potential for plenty of history on both sides of the Atlantic, the American Civil War, the Seven Years War, the American Revolution, and of course, the Wars of Napoleon. And that’s just the ones off of the top of my head.
The game, like most of Too Fat Lardies efforts, run on a card-based initiative system, and your officers are generated almost like miniature RPG characters (which can have appeal if you’re trying to do a campaign bases on a certain book series about an officer of the 95th Rifles fighting Napoleon in Spain.) But the rules are flexible. I’ve played both the Franco-Prussian War and War of the Roses with them, and the results have been spectacular. I wouldn’t choose these as my first skirmish rules for a period, but they are good rules for someone looking for a little more out of skirmish wargaming as a whole.
Wars of Insurgency
First Command Games
Wars of Insurgency by First Command Games is also a game that caters to the larger side of the skirmish house, with each side being about 30-40 figures, but in the game I played, I had fun running just 18 “elite” Zairian Paratroopers in a game loosely set during the Congolese Emergency. There are not a lot of games out there set during the “wars of liberation” that racked the African continent during the years of the Cold War, but this game is a hoot. Having played it at Historicon, I had a ton of fun, even if I was stuck in the middle of the board with everyone trying to kill me. I think I counted it as a moral victory I got 3 of my paratroopers out of the original 18 out. The game’s mechanics are simple, and the weapons stats are kept generic, which does make play fast and bloody. If you have an interest in this period and you’re new to wargaming, these are the rules set for you.
Spectre Operations
Spectre Miniatures
Spectre Operations is for those folks who really want to play out the stuff happening behind the headlines. Special Forces raids on terror compounds, firefights between SWAT and cartel gangs, heck, if you want to do your fave action movie, this game can do it. I also suspect it could run World War II games as well. The game is centered around play with no more than a dozen figures per side, which is the perfect size for a skirmish game, and like most skirmish games, has a nice “quasi RPG” feel. The game is a meaty rulebook, but the support for the rules is phenomenal, with the rules favoring troop quality over hardware. If you like modern warfare, this is a good buy. The only downside is the book is published in the UK, and shipping is kind of expensive these days. But I highly recommend it. I’ve played it solo a few times with 20mm figures and had a blast.
Other good rules sets in this vein you can look at are:
Black Ops by Osprey Publishing
Skirmish Sangin by Radio Dishdash Publishing
While I would recommend Black Ops if you want something simpler and a bit more “James Bond with a side of SEAL Team Six.”, Skirmish Sangin is a rich and detailed set of rules that break down the things that can (and have been assured sometimes do) happen in a firefight in Afghanistan. It’s as near to the real thing as I’d ever want to get personally. That said, I’d recommend both games, having played them and had a rather good time.
SAGA by Gripping Beast
Right now, SAGA is the Medieval Skirmish Rules around. A lot of folks swear by them, even if I must confess, I’ve never played them because it’s not my period. But I will say the rules are lavishly illustrated, and the rules are clearly laid out, which is a plus to any wargamer who’s trying to learn a new set of rules, especially someone like me. You do need to buy additional supplements to do specific periods, but the game is structured around small bands of men going out in the world and making their reputation by fire and sword, which is pretty much meat and potatoes for any skirmish gamer! Who knows, maybe one day, I’ll break down and paint up a Viking Warband and give it a try?
Five Men in Normandy/Kursk by Nordic Weasel Games
Wargames Vault
I like a lot of Nordic Weasel’s products. The design philosophy is good in that it focuses on getting your troops on the table quickly and playing. Five Men at Kursk is no different. While it may have a bit more chrome than its predecessor, it’s a game designed to achieve a World War II skirmish game that plays fast and plays bloody with a squad on per side. And, if you’ve played one FiveCore game, you’ll know the basic rules to this one. You don’t need big armies, and the rules at $15.99 for a PDF download, add in say $80 for two squads for both sides, and you are in the hobby for less than $100. The terrain might be an issue, but there are creative ways to overcome that, ones I might discuss in a future issue! In any event, if you want to do a World War II skirmish, these are the rules to try, in my opinion.
Well, that’s it for this article. I hope it’s been good food for thought and give a skirmish game a try. Big games aren’t always the most memorable.
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(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)