Original Manuscript of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 2)" by Tony Bath

Thanks to Frederik Geudens (see also this earlier post), here's volume 2 of the original "History of Hyboria", the original wargaming campaign run by Tony Bath.

A History of Hyboria, Volume 2.

More work on the Wargames Magazine Index!

A few years ago I started to index all my articles in my magazine collection. Then the magazine collection started to grow through many donations, and now I have a backlog of magazines I still need to enter into the database. Perhaps this Christmas break will allow me to catch on.

I have used my index quite extensively over the years, often to relocate some article I vaguely remember, or to hunt for a good scenario. Sometimes, I help out other bloggers when they are in search of a specific article. Every time this happens, I reread that particular magazine issue and update its entries a little bit in the database. So the database is a "living thing".

Nevertheless, the database remains far from complete. I don't have subscriptions to all current magazines, and certainly have not acquired all copies of extinct magazines. But I see this as a lifelong project. There's no rush.

A new problem has arisen though, and that is that British magazines have more difficulties making it across the channel. Blame you-know-what. Each time a magazine doesn't arrive I contact the relevant subscription services and a replacement copy often arrives a few days later. So those issues (usually in an ordinary non-transparant envelope) do arrive. Perhaps someone in my local post office is snatching all those magazines, but on the other hand, a friend says she has the same problems with a British gardening magazine she's subscribed to. Issues fail to arrive, ever since the you-know-what-agreement kicked in. All those benefits!

Original Manuscript of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 1)" by Tony Bath

 

Over the years, I have developed an interest in the work of pioneering wargamer Tony Bath, and more specifically, his famous Hyboria campaign.

It was well-known that Rudi Geudens, who passed away last year, was the proud owner of part of the original Hyboria documents, as written up by Tony Bath himself. Rudi had long intended to make the manuscript fully available on his website, but for some reason, never came around scanning in all the pages.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I received a mail earlier today from Frederik Geudens, Rudi's son, asking whether I could help in distributing the scanned pages of "A History of Hyboria (Vol 1)", in honour of both Tony and Rudi, who have inspired so many wargamers over the years.

As far as I know, this is the first time this document in its original form is now again available for all wargamers to enjoy.

So, without much further ado, here's an important piece of wargaming history:

A History of Hyboria (Vol 1), by Tony Bath

Chain of Command revisited

A few years ago we tried our first Chain of Command game. As some of you know, Chain of Command is a WW2 ruleset published by Too Fat Lardies. Our findings from last time:

What was our impression of the rules?

• The pre-game deployment (patrol markers, drop-off points) was fun, but we kept wondering why we should go through all these motions simply to get our troops into action? Shouldn't a good scenario setup be able to do same?
• Combat resolution was rather convoluted to our taste. Over they years, we have come to favour "lean and mean" rules. Keep the number of procedures and mechanics as simple, but as elegant as possible, while focusing on the important decisions a player has to make. We felt that the resolution mechanics of Chain of Command were a bit too "fiddly": too many dice, too many statuses to keep track of, a bit too confusing.

Granted, it has been a while - our previous game was played in December 2018, 4 years ago. But is funny to say that during our post-briefing we came to exactly the same conclusions.

This led to a discussion about why some rules have an elegant design and some ruleset feel like a mish-mash of different mechanics cobbled together. For me, the essential guiding principle in a ruleset is that you have to pick 1 or 2 core mechanics, and all other procedures should derive from those core mechanics. E.g. a core mechanic could be unit activation; or could be in which manner combat is resolved. But many game designers (amateur or professional) then have the tendency to pile up new mechanics to resolve new situations, without thinking how such  situation could be resolved by using or adapting the core mechanic. And if that's not possible, then perhaps the core mechanic isn't that well designed to start with. 

But anyway, back to Chain of Command: one of the other aspects of the rules that ruffled our feathers was that some mechanics were designed at the level of 'sections' (e.g. activation of units), others at the level of 'teams' (e.g. distributing shock results) and still others at the level of individual soldiers/models (e.g. casualties). That doesn't feel like all these procedures are elegantly designed. When the plumpire (playe-umpire) announced that there were also rules for individuals to hang out of windows to shoot to whatever is below them, it was a bit too much ;-)

But anyway, that doesn't mean we had a good time and had a fun game. We are simply over-critical, that's all ;-)

And now some photographs. The game is is 20mm, pre-Arnhem.

Bart as plumpire explaining the scenario.

The wall with decorations, most notably the secret plans of Belgium's defence in May 1940.

Jockeying for jump-off points.

Deploying some of the German troops.

Overview of the table.

Another overview.

Germans crossing the fields, British were hiding n the building.

Some more action along the road.

3D-printed Hotel Hartenstein.

Another overview.

Eddy, Ruben as interested son, and Bart.

Eddy trying to micromanage his Brits.

A Jagdpanther arrives!

Eddy and Jean-Pierre, British commanders.

Plumpire Bart.

Bart, Ruben, Jean-Pierre, Eddy and myself in a selfie.

The infamous pigsty, a mainstay of Bart's wargaming table.

History of Games Workshop

It finally arrived ...

I already browsed through the book, lots of interesting pictures.

Now to see how many games I recognize and how many events I have a vague awareness of ... ;-)

Lardwerp (Lard in Antwerp)

I went t Lardwerp today - a gaming event were the Too Fat Lardies showed and set up some games in the Tin Soldiers Antwerp clubhouse.

I arrived around 11.00, and had to leave again around 12.30. Some work in the garden was waiting for me!

Although I was only there for a short while, and the event was smallish compared to the yearly CRISIS convention (more about that later), it was a lot of fun. I bumped the many friends from the "old Belgian wargaming guard" (also more about that later) and had lovely chats with fellow wargamers I hadn't seen for almost 3 years (we all know why ...).

So, what was some of the wargaming news I picked up?

• Crisis most likely will never happen again, or at least not in the format we were used to. There are several reasons for this: the "organisational flow" was interrupted for 2 years, but there also is a lack of volunteers for people willing to help to put the thing together (this seems to be a common problem in many hobby organisations). People want to attend, but people don't want to help, or at least not in a structured manner ...
  A second big reason is Brexit. Many of the traders are UK-based, and Brexit has made it very hard for small businesses such as wargaming traders to cross the channel and set up shop in Antwerp for a day.
• A similar sentiment was aired w.r.t. Warcon, the yearly event that was scheduled in February or March and was organized near Ghent. Probably over as we know it.
• So, there were some chats with the "old Belgian wargaming guard" and some vague plan was uttered to organize a smallish gaming day (no traders, just games), in an effort to have at least one national wargaming event where the Belgian wargaming could meet and see each other. After all, although wargaming is a hobby that takes place in small unconnected gaming groups (apart from some larger clubs), it stil is important to have some sort of community feeling. We'll see how things will evolve ...
• Brexit again: rumour has it that some traders have lost upto 70% of their customer base. European gamers don;t want to go through the hassle of ordering from the UK anymore. It's back to the pre-EU early nineties ... I still remember fondly trips to London to stock up on gaming stuff, exactly to circumvent high P&P and import taxes. Perhaps the gaming trips will come back?

Overall, it was a pleasant visit, and great to egt the wargaming mojo back!

So, any loot?

Not so much. There was one trader present (https://www.tabletopper.nl/nl/), so of course I had to buy something, even though I don't need anything. But still, supporting the hobby and all that ... so I got a few explosion and smoke markers.

One of the TSA members also sold of some old wargaming books, so I got a couple for 5 euro each. The Featherstone title was still missing in my extensive collection of old wagaming books.The Terry Wise I have as a reprint from the History of Wargaming Project , but now I have the original. And I had the 1st Fred Perry book, but not the 2nd one ;-)

And here are some photos from the games, in no particular order. All quite spectacular, specially the last few photos, which are from a 54mm Arnhem game.

What is it with Warband Games?

Last weekend we played a fantasy warband game. See our previous post for some pictures. Although the game was fun, I felt that the full potential of the game was not unlocked.

In a warband game each player controls a handful of figures that move and fight individually. Nothing wrong with that. But I feel that warband games have the tendency to become too fiddly when to much emphasis is being placed on close combat. The game then degenerates into a brawl where a bunch of figures are cramped together on a few square centimeters, fighting in multiple rounds of close combat till one side wins. Sure, there might be some push-back rules, such as a figure being pushed back 1 inch or so after the result of combat, but this only adds to the fiddling. When orientation of figures is added to the rules it's even worse. Combats are decided based on the micro-placement of individual figures. Throw in some variation in basing and things go completely out of control. So we end up on staring for three hours at a few square centimeters, while we have a splendid 6x4 table full of scenery set up.

So how can this be avoided?

The scenario can certainly help. Eliminating enemy figures should not be a goal in itself, but merely a means to achieve another goal: finding a treasure, guarding a convoy, stealing something and running away. So at least one side should have an incentive trying to avoid combat. But even so, this is difficult if all your figures can do is to fight in close combat, or if the rules system is build around that mechanic.

A better solution is to focus on ranged combat as the primary ability of all figures. If all figures have ranged weapons available (and I'm talking about significant ranges, as in multiple movement distances), we can use the entire playing area of the table. Scenery becomes more important to block line of sight or to seek cover. Movement and manoeuvre (the fun part of most miniature games) becomes again a tactical decision maker rather than merely moving towards each other and battle it out.

It reminds me very much of the Wild West games we used to play quite a lot several years ago. Each player had a few shootists, but the fact that combat was primarily ranged and the table had a lot of terrain and cover, made the game fun.

So, warband games? Ranged combat!!!

Fantasy warband game

FInally, we managed to stage a game! JP was so kind to host a game for us. The game used the "Fistful of Lead Fantasy - Might and Melee" fantasy skirmish rules. We had 4 players (me, Wim, David, Eddy), each commanding a warband of 5 figures (Orcs, Hobbits, Humans and Goblins). JP was umpiring. Fun game!

The usual pre-game banter. Coffee and beer ready to go.

Contemplating tactics.

The cattle pen was an objective for some of the players.

The game starts!

The goblins knock on the door of a house and discover what's inside. Nothing! It's the other house!

Humans guarding the cattle pen.

Hobbits approaching through the fields.

Some more action ...

A wild boar suddenly appears!

Heavy melee between humans and orcs.

Orcs trying to run away with the cattle.

More cattle stealing going on.

The state of my wargaming room

I am lucky to have a dedicated wargaming room to play games in. I also have a garage in which I store my excess stuff and do my painting.

However ...

Back in february we ordered a new garagedoor. Delivery and installment was planned for May. So back in April, I started to clean out the garage and put all my wargaming stuff in my wargaming room.

Current state of affairs in my wargaming room.

Then the news came that due to shortages of steel and other materials, it was postponed to June.

Then it got postponed to September ...

That has left me without any significant space for my wargaming activities. So I'm currently confined to reading, hoping that friends will host a game at their home, or playing Wingspan with the missus.

Crisis 2022 cancelled

Earlier this week, there was a somewhat depressing announcement by the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp:

A more detailled explanation will follow later but we sadly have to announce that we are unable to organise Crisis 2022 in the current format.
We were still in the process of writing the communication but as it is out, we quickly have to address the news now.
Rising costs, lesser availability of volunteers and the announcement of restrictions already on the table for pandemic measures later in ’22 have made it a far too big financial risk for us to carry trough with the known format,hence the cancellation as organizing this can’t have us risk our club finances.

That would be the 3rd year in a row there will be no CRISIS show, arguably the biggest wargaming convention on the European mainland.

It's a real pity, since I was hoping to rejuvenate my wargaming mojo at CRISIS after the pandemic. Let's hope this cancellation is not the final nail in the coffin for a show such as CRISIS. Otherwise it will be back to smallish club events ...

Creating fantasy maps

A few weeks ago Henry Hyde's new book "Wargaming Campaigns" was published. I haven't read all of it yet, but it's definitely worth its weight. The book outlines various ideas on how to run wargaming campaigns and how to make them work in practice.

I've long toyed with the idea of starting some sort of fantasy campaign, and the book contains some useful pointers on how to build your own maps using software. One of the tools mentioned is Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator, a free mapping tool that runs in your browser. Sounds good, so I wanted to give it a try.

Last week I toyed around with the tool and trying out various options and what one could do. Then, it was time for some real work, and I started to create the World of Do, a fantasy world me and a few friends invented back in the 80s for a roleplaying game we published (more details about that game here).

I started out with an original hand-drawn map of our fantasy world (this map is over 30 years old).

Original map of Dor, drawn in 1990.

 

I then used Photoshop to make a quick (manual) mask to distinguish between land masses and water:

This was imported into Azgaar, and with some manual tweaking a height map was the result:

Then I started to define the various states and give them names. Here are some screenshots of my efforts so far. Some of the content such as city names, heraldry, etc. are still randomly generated, but I was very satisfied with the results so far.

Map with the various states.

Zoom of the region of Atumbar. All city names (except Atumbar) are randomly generated.

Same regions, but with some layers made visible.

3D view of the map

Map projected on the globe, which also allows for defining climate zones etc.

Heraldry layer made visible. I experimented with a few emblems myself, but almost all of them are randomly generated.