Little Wars Revisited Forum Games Day 2019

A group of us from the Little Wars Revisited 54mm Wargames Forum met up in Woking for the second LWR Forum Games Day on Saturday March 16th.



The idea of the day is to bring a group of people interested in 54mm wargaming together, put on some different games so that people can see what others have been working on and chat to some fellow enthusiasts. We managed slightly more people this year with the furthest traveller coming down from Fife.





We have 5 games this year:



Anthony Morton put on a Zulu Wars games using the Portable Wargames Rules and using Little Legion figures



Eric Kemp and his son Jonny put on a Schleiswig-Holstein skirmish game using figures converted from ACW ones and using their own rules.



Tim Rose put on a VBCW game using various figures and his own rules



Brian Carrick ran and Battle Cry ACW game using Britain's detail figures



and I ran a 19th Century game using my own Little Wars Revisited Figures and the "A Gentleman's War Rules"

People arrived at 9am and after introductions, coffee and some chat, we started playing the first games around 10am. There was a break for lunch in the church cafe and then we swapped around to play another game in the afternoon.

After packing up, 5 of us went for a meal in a local Turkish restaurant and then onto the pub for a drink and more chat about toy soldiers.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the day.

There are many more photos and reports on the day on the Little Wars Revisited Forum here:

http://littlewarsrevisited.boards.net/thread/172/lwr-forum-2019-games-day?page=3

A Gentleman's War playtest

"A Gentleman's War" is a new set of rules that Howard Whitehouse has been working on for a while. They are shortly to be published as a book but I used the playtest rules from April 2018 for a test game.

AGW is a deliberately old school set of rules for playing with toy soldiers on a table top. It used card activation, quite a few dice and single figure removal.

I am planning on running this at the Little Wars Revisited Forum Games Day on March 16th in Woking, so wanted to try out the rules ahead of time and test out the Hook's Farm scenario to see what tweaks I would need to make. As always, Anthony gave me a hand by playing the British side...



The table laid out for the game, complete with Gizmo the cat surveying the scene...



The Prussian setup at the start of the game.



The British setup at the the start

AGW uses 12-man infantry units, 6-man skirmisher units and 6 man cavalry units. Guns are crewed by 4 figures.



The Prussians advance.

The game uses activation cards which determine which side moves and how many units it can move (it is possible to brigade units together) - you can also have hold cards in your hand which enable you to interrupt the other person's go before they have taken an action.



The British Cavalry

Shooting is fairly straightforward, rolling a D6 for each figure in the first two ranks and the number needed depending on range. Hits can be saved which is modified by cover.



The melee around Hook's Farm

Close combat is a little more complex and there are a number of factors which determine whether one side has an advantage or not. This affects the number you need to roll to cause a casualy. I did like the fact that casualties are counted and that determines the winner of the melee and THEN the outcome determines what number you will roll to save your casualties. People running away are more likely to bayoneted!



Hook's Farm

Terrain does disorder units which restricts what you can do and we have too much terrain on the table for this game - I will run the LWR game on a wider table which should allow for freer movement.



Firefly Church

I also got the melee rules wrong - partly by reading a table incorrectly and also for a couple of other reasons. This seemed to make skirmishers in a building too strong but in retrospect I think that they are about right with the correct rules!

I enjoyed the game - it has an Old School feel and gives a good game with larger units and probably larger forces than The Portable Wargame...