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    The Portable Wargame
    The Portable Wargame
    The Portable Wargame
    Ebook127 pages1 hour

    The Portable Wargame

    By Bob Cordery

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The Portable Wargame has been developed over the past ten years to meet the needs of wargamers who want a fast, easy to learn, simple to use set of wargames rules that don’t require the player to purchase and paint a large collection of figures and that can be staged on a small dinner table, a large coffee table, or something even smaller. The rules are designed to be used with a gridded tabletop made up of squares or hexes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateDec 31, 2016
    ISBN9781326904609
    The Portable Wargame

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      Book preview

      The Portable Wargame - Bob Cordery

      The Portable Wargame

      The Portable Wargame

      Rules for fast-play wargames on

      gridded tabletops

      by

      Bob Cordery

      2017

      Eglinton Books

      Copyright © 2017 by Robert George Cordery.

      Robert George Cordery has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

      Typeset in Arial font

      Published by Eglinton Books

      84 Eglinton Hill

      Shooters Hill

      Plumstead

      London

      SE18 3DY

      United Kingdom

      First Printing: 2017

      Version 1.1

      Hardback ISBN 978-1-326-90454-8

      Paperback ISBN 978-1-326-90458-6

      EPub ISBN 978-1-326-90460-9

      Contents

      The Portable Wargame

      Contents

      Introduction

      A brief (and incomplete) history of gridded wargames

      Some basic rules

      Grids: Hexes and Squares

      Definitions

      Units … and how to represent them on the tabletop

      Design Notes

      Going Solo and the Sudden Death Option

      Portable Wargame Rules: Late Nineteenth Century (including Colonial)

      The Portable Wargame in Action: The hunt for the Mahdi

      Portable Wargame Rules: Early and Mid Twentieth Century

      The Portable Wargame in Action: Soviet Combined Arms assault

      Appendix: Some thoughts on wargame design

      Bibliography

      Introduction

      The Portable Wargame is my answer to a problem faced by many wargamers. In the modern world, where the amount of time, money, and space one can allocate to a hobby is limited, I saw a need for a set of simple, fast-play wargame rules that would enable most wargamers to fight a battle to a conclusion in about an hour. Furthermore, the size of the playing surface that the rules should require would be limited to what most wargamers would easily have available to them, namely a 2' by 3' (or 60cm x 90cm) tabletop. The final factor would be that the size of the miniature armies used should be small enough for even the most time-pressured player to be able to put them together without undue effort or expense.

      Figure 1: The first Portable Wargame.

      I would like to be able to say that these rules were the result of many hours of dedicated, solitary thinking on my part, and that I can take full credit for all of the ideas, concepts, and mechanisms that are used. If I did so, I would be a liar. Like most things in life, these rules build upon what has gone before. Their pedigree is best described as being mainly Joseph Morschauser[1] with some extras of my own added.

      Besides containing versions of the basic rules that cover the late nineteenth century to mid twentieth century period, this book explains how the various mechanisms used in the rules work and why they were designed the way that they were. It is my hope this will enable wargamers to do what they like to do with most sets of wargame rules they own or use, namely to write their own 'house' rules or variants of the basic rules. If you are one such wargamer, I won't be offended by what you do just as long as you remember where your starting point was.

      I have also included descriptions of some battles that have been fought using The Portable Wargame rules. This has been done so that readers can follow how the rules work … and because I know that lots of wargamers enjoy reading battle reports!

      There is one final thing that I need to mention. All wargame rules are full of compromises … and the rules you will find herein are full of them. It may well be that you don't like some of the compromises that I have made. If that is so, then I apologise. What I would say in my defence is that these rules are supposed to be simple, fast, and enjoyable to use, and the compromises I have made have been made in pursuit of that goal. They make no claims to be an accurate depiction of real combat … but surprisingly enough, when it comes to it they are no worse than a lot of other wargame rules.

      Bob Cordery,

      London, January 2017

      Acknowledgments

      No set of wargames rules is ever the work of one single person, and the rules in this book are no exception. Over the years that they have been in development, numerous people have made suggestions via the blogosphere as to how they could be improved as well as giving me support and encouragement, and I would like to acknowledge their input. These fellow members of the blogosphere include Alastair, Archduke Piccolo, Arthur1815, Barry Carter, Bob Kett, Chris, Chris Platt, Dale Hurtt, David Bradley, David Crook, Dick Bryant, Fitz-Badger, Geordie an Exiled FoG, Ian Dury, Jhnptrqn, Johntheone, Jonathan Freitag, Kaptain Kobold, Kev Robertson, Littlejohn, Nic101, Prufrock, Ross Mac, Stephen Briddon, Steven Page, Stu Rat, The Ferrymen, and Tradgardmastare.

      I would also like to acknowledge the help, support, and advice I have been given by members of Wargame Developments. These include David Brock, Richard Brooks, Ian Drury, Nigel Drury, Tim Gow, Tony Hawkins, Nick Huband, Martin Rapier, and Wayne Thomas.

      [1] Joseph Morschauser, the author of How to play War Games in Miniature.

      A brief (and incomplete) history of gridded wargames

      Please note that the majority of the gridded wargames I have mentioned in this chapter are ones that used playing pieces or figures, and that I have excluded most (but by no means all) of the wargames where the terrain was fixed and only suitable for one scenario.

      Gridded wargames are nothing new. If you accept that chess is an early wargame (and as can

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