Skirmish Wargames with LAW

[ednote]

Tonight I ran a small skirmish wargame using LAW rules.  I created several warbands, giving each a leader and a few followers. This was a simple combat with points going for kills, leader kills, and heroic one-on-one melees.  This was the extra game to pick up people not already in a game so that everybody gets a chance to play something. We had three players. The man in the middle got ganged up on but came in second. He won the Valhalla Award for most glorious death. His leader was the last man in his warband but he outlasted one of the rival warbands and wrought great mischief on the other two players' efforts.

We made movement based on inches instead of hexes.  Bow and crossbow ranges suffered a -2 for 10+ to 20 inches and -4 for 20+ to 30 inches.  Everyone had a Leader (with extra stats/skills), an archer (with either a longbow or bow),  crossbowman,  spearman, and a swordsman or two.  There were marsh and rough going terrains. The marshes had little impact but the melee swirled around control of one patch of rough going. The pile of bodies in that area was considerable so the ravens will eat well.  The terrain was placed on a small, Woodland Scenics grass mat.

Needless to say, I didn't think about bringing a camera.  I need to do that in the future.  I'll tweak the rules a bit and I'll probably run it again in 2 weeks. If I like that, I'll post the conversions etc... I omitted spell casters for the sake of simplicity.  As more players become familiar with the rules, I'll create warbands with wizards.  Clearly LAW has a lot of potential for small-scale skirmish games, harking back to its roots as the wargame Melee.  Several characters can fit onto a single, 4x6" notecard, in columnar format.  Each card represents a single, small warband built around a leader.  Using 25mm figures, several warbands, together with their cards, can fit into a single Plano box.  A small box holds notepads, pencils, dice, measuring tapes/sticks and other accoutrements.  A third box holds terrain except for the mat.  Remembering copies of the rules and scenarios, this makes for a nice grab-and-go wargame.  Once the warbands are set up, the cards can be re-used by erasing the lost hits, which are at the bottom of each column.

One another note, I completed the first run of the first dungeon in my Cleeburg campaign. One of the things people wanted was larger rooms, so I'll make some floor plan changes. I ran it with 6 players to accommodate our group. The next time I run it, I plan to run it with 4 characters. For the sake of party function, I'll hand out 4, pre-generated characters to make sure that the helpful skills mix is on hand. I'll also include a warrior with an axe who can persuade doors to open if needs be.  The players seemed to like the setting and the first scenario.

Regards,

Ed

[jimmyd]

Thanks for the recap Ednote. Playing skirmishes like that can really get folks comfortable with the rules and lead to more creativity in dungeon battles... which always equals more fun. Keep us posted on your campaign. I like to hear what others are doing in LAW.
-Jim

[nukesnipe]

Ed,

Ditto on Jim's thanks. I've never thought to use anything but hex movement with TFT/LAW. How did the -DX modifiers work? I sort of miss that from TFT.

[ednote]

Nukesnipe,

The modifiers seemed to get players to move their missile troops closer to the combat. I pointed out that crossbows should actually have shorter ranges not because of the power of the weapons, but because of they are inherently less accurate. I told the players that I was setting things the way I did (not varying ranges among missile weapons) for ease and simplicity. Things might change later. I am going to create some 1-2 page quick reference sheets and as people become more familiar, those rules can be expanded on and spells can be added.

The fact remains that when lightly armored troops/characters suddenly have well armored troops/characters with broadswords in their faces, that the heavier troops tend to have their way with the lighter troops. I expect that after another session or two that tactics will start to change to reflect the dangers. (The extra sessions required for change not because the players are thick, but because the mix of players will vary from session to session.) The different movement rates had an interesting effect. Some people like to keep their groups together and some like to move everyone at fastest speed. Stringing out one's small warband allows individuals to be ganged up on and killed piecemeal. The presence of missile armed troops seemed to have more effect on some players than on others.

I am considering doing the same sort of thing in 15mm to see how the greater ranges change the way people play. Adding unarmed "berserkers" with battleaxes is something else likely to have a major impact on tactics. It looks like I am going to run these skirmish games once or twice a month for a while and I have a fair supply of figures, so things should stay interesting for a while.

I showed the players a figure of a very large bear and reminded them that the penalties for excessive cheating are severe. I've caught one or two players double moving in the past and when somebody starts cheating with intent, large bears tend to appear directly behind their figures. It has happened VERY seldom over the course of many years of gaming, but it is a hoot and some memorable lines have risen from around the table.

As things continue, I'll probably add rules for mounted combat. Future scenarios will include Normans vs Saxons, Viking vs anybody; Scots, Irish, remnant Romano Brits, and who knows what else.

Regards,
Ed

[mister frau blucher]

This is good stuff, Ed! Love to see some pictures!