You are the aggressor, move, now your on your own....

...these are all the rules you need, now go, make war.

Years ago when I was a kid my next door neighbor and I would meet t his house and wargame, his older brother had painted up a number of lead mini's including a large cyclops, the awesome mini crossbow gnome (who everyone wanted to be?), the warrior and a stack of evil enemies, I think they were the old Ral partha draconians and a few buildings. These were all we needed, battles were fought, roles were met and scenarios were conceived all before any one of us had seen a role play book or a rulebook.

Step to now, I have bookshelves full of books of rules, maps, counters, devices to allow adults to meet one other across a table and play out a game using the same figures as above....so what happened to the above old days of just playing it out, making it up?

As we developed from those early days a natural competitiveness built in and we needed to define, among these "games" who was the victor, who the loser, someone had to be the bad guy and as we grew older there had to be a defined state of rules as to who was who, how they can interact, how victory would be defined...and so the rules came about, battles became edged and most sense of imagination was pushed back, those were my first real taste of role playing and wargaming and almost my last.

Years later here I sit, surrounded by books and pamplets from the simple (USE ME) to the complex (ASL) of wargaming and I understand many of my friends and fellow wargamers to do the same, we all orbit our own small worlds pulling in and engulfing the latest rules, defining our standpoints, our goals.

But what if we met and things were different. "You are the aggressor, move, now your on your own" and this was it, the rules. As a group of friends we could begin, knowing what we know, many rulesets, action phases, charts to memory, could we not just start gaming? ok my guys are moving across rough ground so there move is going to be this? what do you think? and then they are going to try and shoot those troops there, I think with their weaponry the range is ok but what do you think I need to roll to hit?

I think it would need a lot of trust between the players, but it could potentially turn up new mechanics. i.e this is not working fairly so lets try.... it could also bring back the role play that many recent rulesets have tried to pull in, if the players are fully in control of the rules and want to play then any scenarios possible. Many of us with experience have knowledge of a number of rulesets etc, so why not apply that democratically within a group? i.e in this situation my troops can see you men on the hill, it a high shot and they are in cover so I think the could hit on a........and so on.

I feel that sometimes by trying to define a "method" of play, of accepting the written rule we deny ourselves the true involvement of goup gaming.

15mm to me is a step towards this abstract, yes there are rules, yes there are miniature manufacturers but the rules are very different here, models can be interchanged between manufactures at a whim and rulesets can be defined without models available, so with a shelf of mini's and a mind to play why not pluck a few onto the table and just "play"?

Rules Rules Rules

Busy,Busy, busy this month with work and the run up to Chrimbo but i've still managed to get some hobby time here and there.

First up the hobby board, oh dear what a bloody mess! I ran out of sand and then the tile adhesive was a complete disaster (made the whole board very sticky to touch) so I've picked up a new sand mix and a spray bottle for diluted PVA, fingers crossed for this one...

I have managed to finish off the Fubar Mech rules and posted them up here on the Forge of War:

http://www.forgeofwar.uk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=119

I now have a full appreciation of just how hard it is to get a set of rules written, I started off months ago sketching out ideas on a notepad then wrote and re wrote the one page rules numerous times, even now a few inconsistencies are showing but it has been an interesting project to work on and I already have plans/ideas to expand it in the future.

On to the 15mm rules, when I first get into anything I find myself getting really sucked in, I have to know everything from every angle so I ended up reading a fair few rules and here's my take on them:

Fubar: Great one page set of rules that works really well with 15mm, very adaptable and was the catalyst for my take on 15mm Mech combat rules above.

Forge of War: From the same team as Fubar, must admit this set has not really grown on me, some of the mechanics feel a little hard going (constant addition/subtraction) but is is still a work in progress so i'll keep my eye on it.

USE ME: Cheap set of rules (£3.50) from 15mm.co.uk, easy going and quick to read but what got me was how much was packed in, off board bombardments, swarm AI, solitaire rules, points calculator etc. It is simple but if you just want to grab some minis and get playing it does the job, highly recommended.

Chain Reaction 3.0: I read everywhere about people playing 5150: Star Army and this is the free set of base rules it is based on. I certainly needed to read this through a few times as the mechanics are VERY different to the typical wargame but they do make sense and are pretty refreshing. Looks like it would suit solo play well although I can't imagine using these rules to play large army battles etc.

Tomorrows War: Apparently setting a new standard in 15mm rules, this hardback and well designed book can be picked up from Amazon for just under £15 now so I grabbed a copy. I think I went in expecting something completely different as this feels a little too dry for me, the emphasis on hardware advancement levels and troop training left me a bit numb to the game, so I've put this on the backburner to pick up at a later date when hopefully it will inspire me a bit more (perhaps when the Alien book appears next year?). On another note the background design on each page felt a little too full on for me, I had a bit of trouble reading the text going through.

Blaster and Bulkheads: Another fairly cheap rulebook based on powers using the "Force", this just looks fun, with leads powerful characters and groups of henchmen. Already building up some models to game with this, what also struck me was what was missing i.e morale rules, this did not detract form the rules in the slightest and I want to game with these because of it. On the document design front, if a version with a smaller font could be made it would be great. I print out my docs in A5 format and even that small the font appeared large, a few less pages would make the rules nice and compact.

Anyway, I've been working on the mass pile of figs at my side so should hopefully have some pics next time!