One Page Game Jam - 51 different free one page gaming rules you can play

A wargaming Discord-group I'm following invited it's members to suggest or share their own One Page games or rules in a Jam. I was working in the finishing stages on the 'Rules of Engagement - Modern Warfare' at the time, and submitted the rules to the Jam. I was very surprised and thrilled when my homebrewed houserules were accepted and included in the Jam. 

There are 50 other free One Page Games in the Jam besides mine, covering a lot of different themes and periods. Have a look at them and see if you find any of them you want to play or collect for future gaming. 

Link: One Page Game Jam

The published version is marked "Vol. 1", so perhaps future volumes will follow?  In that case I hope I can encourage you to participate with you own houserules.

One Page Rules - Army Men Combat v2.0

One of the nice things with sharing blogsposts from this blog with relevant groups on Facebook, is that it reaches people who either doesn't follow this blog or else doesn't read it/find it. On one such grop someone pointed out that one of my reviewed games had similarities to the 'Army Men Combat' rules by Gaetano Ferrara at 'OnePageRules'. I'm a great fan of rules that can be fittet into only one page, and I've seen several references to these rules several times in the past, but I've never seen the rules them selves before. The link to them seem to be inactivated from the OnePageRules page as well. The nice thing is that these rules got uploaded to the Facebook-group's file-section and they are free. Since you probably need to be a member of the Facebook-group in speak to download them from the file-section, I'll also share The One Page Rules' Army Men Combat v2.0 in this blog-post so you can have a crack on them yourself if you'd like to.

These rules are referred to as a throwback to the 1st edition of one page 40k and its mechanics. I've never played any 40k games earlier and have no experience with them. Despite of the name One Page Rules, these rules aren't actually only one page. They fits on a single piece of paper printed on both sides though. It's free, can be played with any miniatures including regular army men and it's within my scope of 'budget wargaming'. Therefore I wanted to test-play and review them, and it would be fair to use the same 'Battle of Lumbaya'-setup and scenario I've used for all my other previous game-reviews.

The Army Men Combat rules states that the game ends after only 4 turns and have only up to 3 units each side. Considering that all the previous 'Battle of Lumbaya'-games have more units and lasted for several turns more than that, it was clear that this scenario couldn't be played in only 4 turns, as just trying to get the attacking forces in positions almost took that many turns. -So to be true to this game limitations of number of units and 4 turns, I think it was time to develop a new scenario which could be played in such a time, and I needed a break from playing the same scenario all over again anyway. Besides, these rules presupposes that the forces involved are balanced in strength regardless of 'dug in' defenders in fortified positions, so I think a new scenario for more balanced forces and terrain for this game was needed anyway. I found inspiration for a new scenario at the excellent blog of John Yorio and a game he recently posted a battlereport of; 54mm or Fight.

The scenario

The rules' cover-art suggests some kind of 'Green vs. Tan'-battle, and since my 'Tan' Katangese and 'Green' UN miniatures are still ready available and the Congo conflicts and this UN-mission really interests me, I've placed this skirmish as well to the United Nations largest mission in both scale and operational scope during the Congo Crisis 1960-65, when UN troops 'peacekeeping' was more offensive 'peace enforcement'.

Situation:

Two UN vehicles from the UN base at Kamina were performing a reconnaissance mission on the roads  between Kamina and the city of Kolwezi. Outside Kambezi they came under heavy mortar shelling from Katangese forces and they were probably both hit as the UN HQ at Kamina cannot reach them by radio anymore. 

The UN HQ sends out search and rescue patrols to find the missing reconnaissance-unit, and it's expected that the roads in the area have taken damage and are impassable for other vehicles, and it's only reachable at foot.

The Katangese forces in the area are aware of the possible UN-wrecks and sends out patrols to find them, and to seize anything of value such as documents like the UN SOPs and codes for radio-communications.

Some houserules to this scenario seems to be required though; It takes 1 man 1 turn to search a vehicle, and it takes 1 man 1 turn to examine  a casualty. To check a casualty's condition, roll a D6, and if the roll is the same value or higher than the turn number for that turn, the casualty is alive and can be medivaced. Casualties can be medivaced at half speed. 

Forces:

• Katangese:
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles, 1 sniper rifle and 1 LMG

• UN:
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 6 rifles and 1 LMG
• 1 rifle-squad with 8 members, armed with 1 smg, 5 rifles, 1 bazooka and 1 LMG

Mission:

• Katangese: To find the immobilized UN vehicles and search them for valuable things such as secret UN documents, orders, maps, SOPs and radio-codes 
• UN: To find the missing reconnaissance-patrol and save the members of the unit, and make sure no graded documents in the vehicles fall into the hands of the enemy.

AAR

Time:    40 minutes

Turns:   4

Result:  UN victory by only 5 pts.

When UN and Katangese  forces spots the UN wrecks on the road, both sides advance rapidly and make a run for it. 

And it looks like the UN will reach the site first in the cover of the wrecks...

...which they do. They immediately begins to examine the 2 casualties, gives them first aid and starts searching through the jeep for any compromising material.

The Katangese have reached the other vehicle, and take the UN search and rescue team under fire. They start looking through the UN vehicle close to them.

A fast and brutal battle breaks out, but they're starting to run out of time to secure their missions, and the UN forces tries to 'secure' the possible secret documents in the UN vehicle under Katangese control by blowing it up by a bazooka rocket. The grenade hits but doesn't make much damage, and the Katangese soldiers leaves the truck as they didn't find any thing interesting in it.

The UN have searched the jeep and secured the only secret documents the reconnaissance unit brought with them on this mission; a map and a radio code-list. They've also managed to save one of the crew-members and are now starting to Medivac him...

...as the one of the few remaining squad-members gives covering fire.

And this was the situation after turn 4. Both sides managed to search a vehicle each, and the UN forces also managed to Medivac one casualty and seize the graded documents in the jeep.

There were almost the same numbers of soldiers left on both sides at this time (the UN won only because one of their targets was a sniper and gave another 5pts to their winning score) and it would actually been interesting to see how this battle would have evolved futher if it hadn't been for the limit of 4 turns only.

Pros

• It's easy to learn.
• Fast playing.
• The activation-mechanics ensures pretty fair activation among the players.

Cons

• To make balanced forces some calculation is needed.
• The rules includes only MGs and doesn't differ between LMG and HMG, even if it includes rules for vehicles which is often armed with HMGs.
• There are no rules for SMGs or pistols, even if your Army Men are armed with such weapons.
• There are no rules making heavier weapons needed to be served by 2 or more crew-members.
• I think it's unlikely that a bazooka have longer effective firing range than a rifle.
• No aim-bonus for 'Hold action'. It's probably easier to aim at a target when you're not moving.

Conclusion

I don't know if the game is very 4k-ish, as I have no experience with Warhammer, but I felt that these rules missed some essential elements in modern combat. The rules only mission seemed to be like "kill as many enemies as possible within 4 turns to gain as many points as possible" making no room or time for a secure advance for your own troops. This makes this game a good game if you just want a fast and brutal battle. 

Print and Play for Free: The very first war (-games) in history

Where did it all start? There would be no wargaming without wars, but when did the world's very first war take place?? One thing is certain, and that is they took place for so long time ago that there are no actual historical records documenting them (except for some 10 000 year old cave-paintings). Therefore there are only hypothesis claiming that the first battles were no actual wars but more spontaneous violent conflicts between hunting parties claiming the resources. Hunting parties were armed with spears, clubs, stones, fire and later also with bows and slings.There are also hypothesis claiming that Homo Sapiens violently replaced the Neanderthals and that the extinction of the Neanderthals was a result of a over 100 000 year long 'skirmish' with Homo Sapiens claiming their resources and conflicts over hunting ground. 

Again, there are no historical records, but there does exist some few evidences with 'battle-damaged' skeletons and some cave-paintings showing battle between humans.

Cave painting of a battle between archers, Morella La Vella, Spain

To support these hypothesis we know that our closest relatives, the chimpanzees (and males to be more specific), regularly teams up and attack and kill other male chimpanzees from rival bands. This implies that cooperative aggression evolved in our same ancestors. 

Neanderthals were cooperative big-game hunters using weapons like thrusting spears and clubs. The Neanderthals were more massive muscular builds and had tougher physics than modern humans, and were stronger. Some claims that they couldn't trow objects like spears very well due to their physics. But they must have been superior fighters in close combat.

Homo Sapiens were more numerous, had larger population growth and needed more territory to hunt to feed their growing population. On the other hand, this must have given them numerical superiority in battle after a while. Homo Sapiens hunted with the same weapons as the Neanderthals, but they were more light built and were more dependent on the invention of ranged weapons like throwing-spears, bows and slings making them able to fight from a distance.

There were no regular war declared or big battles, but there seems to been more like small scale raids and ambushes between hunting parties.

If you want to read more on the Subject:

• BBC: Did Neanderthals go to war with our ancestors?

• History of Yesterday: The 100 000 year war between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens

Evidences or not, I became curious how a battle between modern humans with ranged weapons and physical more superior Neanderthals (but without ranged weapons) might have looked like.

The Rules

I didn't find many free wargame rules covering prehistoric periods, and those I found included hunting, wild animals and dinosaurs in som degree. I wanted rules from the period focusing on man vs. man. I guess parts of  different rules covering ancient and medieval periods can work, as such rules are more available. -Just skip some weapons and armour. I was even thinking of 'backdating' Pete Kautz' 1 BC Toy Soldier rules to prehistoric by rewriting them. I ended up backdating my homebrewed Rules of Engagement to cover Prehistoric Warfare, and even before any 'Rules of Engagement' even was invented in real life yet regular combat or battles. 

Link to the rules: Rules of Engagement - Prehistoric Warfare Rules of Engagement - Prehistoric Warfare 

The Armies

Like the rules I didn't find many miniatures to cover this period. -Except for some few and very expensive miniatures. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this experiment, so luckily I found some free prehistoric paper miniatures I could download and print at Junior General. The website covers miniatures thru the whole history, even some prehistoric. I settled for 'Prehistoric Hunters' for my Neanderthal army, and 'Upper Paleolithic hunters and gatherers' for the Homo Sapiens. I printed enough miniatures to make 3-4 hunting parties of 5-6 members for each side. The benefits of printing miniatures and armies from Junior General is that they are free and they come ready 'painted'. All you need to do is cut them out and base them. I think this is a very underrated source for wargaming miniatures. 

There are free bases to go with the miniatures at the Junior General site, and you can make some of cardboard to make them even sturdier. I chose to be fancy about the basing and 3D-printed some found for free at Thingiverse. I think it's still within the scope of 'print' and 'free' as mentioned in the heading.

It didn't take more than 3 evenings after work to print, cut and base these 2 armies

The Game

Scenario:

A hunting party of 3 teams, each with 6 members, of Cro-Magnons coincidentally run into a hunting party of 3 teams, each unit with 5 members, of Neanderthals in an area both claim to have exclusive rights to hunt. The units have a mix of different weapons, but only the Homo Sapiens have ranged weapons like bows, javelins and slings. The mission for each side is to eliminate the other side to claim the territory.

The gaming table. It's a good spot to hunt, as the big game and prey comes to drink water

The Neanderthal hunting party of 3 teams, and mixed weapons

The Homo Sapiens hunting party of 3 teams and mixed weapons.

AAR: 

Time:    1 hour

Turns:   9

Result:  Neanderthal victory

The hunting parties were sneaking around the lake to look for prey, and they couldn't actually see each other before they were pretty close. The Neanderthals in the bush decided to wait to see what the humans did as they could strike from a distance with their ranged weapons.

 

Contact! The hunting teams on the other side of the lake could see each other, and the Homo Sapiens shot at the advancing Neanderthal teams. These ranged weapons weren't so precise, so they hit only a few of them. The Neanderthals knew they didn't have a chance on a distance in the open aganst these weapons, and hurried to engage in a melee. 

One of the hunting teams of Homo Sapiens decided to run around the lake to fall the advancing Neanderthals in the back and relief their tribe members. But as they were running past some vegetation a small team of Neanderthals showed up from the vegatation and engeged them in hand to hand combat.

There was no time or distance, so the Homo Sapiens couldn't use the advantage of their ranged weapons...

...and had no chance against the raging Neanderthals.

On the other side of the lake, the Homo Sapiens managed to slow down the Neanderthal advance with their ranged weapons...

...So the Neanderthal unit that recently eliminated a whole team of Homo Sapiens, started to run around the lake to fall the Homo Sapiens in the back and come to their tribemembers relief.

But the Neanderthal units managed to close the distance and engage the homo sapiens into hand-to-hand combat, and the Homo Sapiens lost their advantage.

The last 2 Homo Sapiens remaining decided to flee the battle, and was almost caught by another Neanderthal team in the flight, and they barely managed to escape. We know that the Homo Sapiens eventually will gain surperiority by being more numerous so they'll probably be back some day to claim the scarce resources again. 

The Conclusion

I've been considering to try out 1:72 scale for future wargaming projects for a while, as smaller armies and terrain pieces are easier to store in this space. If I am to 3D-print more terrain and vehicles on my 3D-printer, it will be a lot quicker in 1:72 due to reduced size and the printers size limitations. I've been a little put off by paintings miniatures this size though. The miniatures from Junior General are about 20mm and gives a good feeling about how it feels to game in this scale. As I've already mentioned, I think the resources on Junior General are highly underrated, and I consider downloading more miniatures from there for future gaming projects.

Historically correct or not, no one knows for sure. -But this is a really budget-wargame you can easily print and play for free. -And it is fast as well. If you have any other suitable rules you prefer, use them instead! Feel free to share your experiences if you play this scenario or rules.

Rules of Engagement 19th Century - Another Shootout in a 'Coffeyville-scenario'

Rules of engagement in the West

I've made a home brewed house rules called 'Rules of Engagement for Wargaming' based on my experience by playing a lot of other free downloadable wargame rules for toy soldiers, which my own rules also are heavily influenced by. Now I wanted to tweak my home brewed house rules further to see if they could be adapted for other periods as well. As I'm found of westerns and 'Old West'-gaming, I've tried to make my rules more '19th century friendly'.

So I decided to replay the same scenario as I played with Thor Sheil's OMOG - One Man, One Gun 19c and my own homebrewed 'Once Upon a Dice in the West' in an Old West scenario, based upon Dalton gang's robbery i Coffeyville in 1892; An Outlaw gang had to tie their horses slightly away from the bank, while a couple of the gang-members looks after them when the other members robb the bank. Can they robb the bank, get back to their horses and leave the town without getting caught??

The bank is further down the street from where the outlaws placed their horses

The 'Forces'

Playing the same scenario, I decided to use the same forces; 2 members of the gang are watching their horses while 4 gang members has gone for the bank. These have been recognized on their way to the bank, so the town sheriff and 2 of his deputies are alerted and also on their way to the bank. 4 citizens have armed them self, and are ready to try to stop the robbers from stealing their savings. A small Army-detachment of 2 is also located in the outskirts of the town. My rules are not entirely based upon 'units', but on 'characters' as well, so I treated the Sheriffs deputies and the Army-detachment as 2-men units, and all the others as single characters. The Sheriff and one of the robbers I made 'elite characters' to give them the skills of professional gunfighters.

The Game

The robbers were totally ruthless an very offensive when leaving the bank, shooting in all directions...

...and quickly gained the initiative in the shootout. Managing to wound the Sheriff and one of his deputies, the robbers got an advantage and could start on their 'retreat' towards their horses and to the escape.

When exchanging fire with the ruthless robbers, the townsfolk realized that they lacked the necessary marksmanship, and after a failed morale test the citizen in the house on the other side of the street just had to retreat inside and shut the door. He didn't come out again before the robbers was about to leave the town and it was 'safer'. 

One of the robbers who were guarding their horses, rode quickly down the street towards the gunfight to cover his fellows retreat. - And succeeded. He was taken out when the law regained the initiative, shot in the back when trying to catch up with the other fleeing robbers later on. But then they were by their horses already.

3 of the robbers managed to ride away with the loot while 'Pedro' gave them necessary cover to do so.

Due to the townsfolk's poor marksmanship they didn't manage to hit him behind that wall, but they proved them self better in fistfight instead and was able to knock the last robber out so the deputies could arrest him. The rest of the gang had already left the town with the loot. I suppose the Sheriff will have to arrange a posse when he can find members with better marksman skills.

The Conclusion

This game lasted about the same time as a 'good western movie' and 12 turns. I think using so many individual characters made the game longer, and it would have been more fastplay with smaller 'units' instead.

I think the rules are so general that they will easily fit other conflicts in the 19th century as well, either being Napolonic, American Civil War or Colonial wars. I think they can be used for some 18th century wars as well, just omit the most modern weapons in the charts. -So I've labeled the rules as such;18th and 19th century.

There was one thing I was not quite satisfied with the core rules in the 'Rules of Engagement', which I decided to change. Off course it's more difficult to hit targets on a distance, and even harder on even longer distances. But in the core-rules of ROE it only gave a -1 penalty for targets further away than 'Long Range', meaning that on distances over 'Long Range' all different weapons would have same accuracy and hit probability. That is not so in the real-life so I've updated the the rules so this only applies for distances between Long Range and double Long Range depending on the individual weapons. For distances over twice the Long Range, the hit probability is so low anyway that I've just given a general penalty of -2.

Another thing I updated in the core-rules is that a unit that fails a morale-test and are moving back two full moves, are considered fleeing and are less likely to fire in this panic.

I provide the Rules of Engagement for Wargaming with miniatures for 18th & 19th century warfare here on my blog, so you can have a try at it as well if you'd like to. If you do, I really hope you had a good time as I did playing these rules. Please feel free to post your conflict, scenario and experiences here if you'd like to as well. 

Link: Rules og Engagement for wargaming with miniatures for 18th & 19th century warfare

Rules of Engagement Part IV - The Counter-attack

In my previous game with the Rules of Engagement rules, the UN platoon managed to take the Katangese Strongpoint of Lumbaya and capture the few remaining Katangese troops there. What the UN platoon didn't know at the time was that a Katangese QRF with 'elite soldiers' already was requested and on it's way to the village to support the defenders there. On the other side the Katangese QRF does not know that the Katangese Strongpoint of Lumbaya has already fallen, and that the UN controls the village. What will happen when the Katangese QRF enters the scene; will they be able to retake the Katangese Strongpoint in a counter-attack??

Katangese:

• A QRF consisting of:
• 1 truck with a HMG
• A section of 10 'veterans' with a LMG and a bazooka. The squad can operate as 2 individual fire-teams.

The UN forces didn't take Lumbaya without some losses and are reduced to:

UN:

• 1 Platoon of 3 rifle-squads each with a LMG. The squads can operate independently. The squads are reduced to:
• Squad 1: 5 soldiers
• Squad 2: 7 soldiers
• Squad 3: 6 soldiers
• 1 Light mortar-detachment of  2 soldiers and an observer.
• 1 bazooka-detachment of 3 soldiers
• HQ-section with platoon-leader
• 2 medics
• 1 Jeep with HMG and 2 soldiers.

Mission:

• Katangese: To retake the strongpoint of Lumbaya, and free the prisoners of war captured by the UN.
• UN: To hold the village of Lumbya.

AAR

Time:    1 hour and 20 minutes

Turns:   9

Result:  UN victory

The UN platoon have taken positions, securing the access roads into the village

As soon as the Katangese QRF appears on the road and have the village  in sight...

...they comes under heavy fire. The UN mortar team are prepared and set the morter impact area on the access road to Lumbaya. As soon as the Katangese QRF are spotted, the UN morter open fire...

...and get a direct hit on the Katangese Gun-truck and knocks it out for the rest of the game. The elite infantry has to run for cover.

At this long range the UN units have problems to get any direct hits on the Katangese soldiers in cover, and only manage to pin them by suppressive fire.

As the Katangese units got pinned and didn't manage to advance further, they returned fire from their protective cover. Being 'elite' their marksmanship and harassing fire are accurate...

...and they gets several hits on the UN squad on roof which secures the road to the village, forcing the UN medic to triage between light wounded and severe casualties. He is helpful but can't help them all...

The UN forces doesn't manage to eliminate the Katangese forces in their protective cover and the harassing fire, so they need to advance closer to try to take them out. A UN squad advances in cover of the armed Jeep.

When they are getting closer they attract the Katangese fire...

...but Katangese units are soon outgunned and starts to take it's toll. The Katangese morale is still high and they keeps on fighting to the last man...

The UN platoon managed to hold Lumbaya and stop the Katangese counter-attack. This was a successful skirmish in the bigger 'Grand Slam' operation.

Conclusion 

Now I've developed and test-played these rules under different conditions and with different strength-ratio in 4 (actually 5) games, and I think these rules are considered 'battle-proven' now. Before they get my final approval, I think there is one more thing that needs adjustment; In this game the ever fewer 'elite' troops rolled for morale and managed to hold. - I consider 'elite' units are more likely to have higher morale than regular units, so the fact being 'elite' should affect their morale rolls; So elite is a +1 in morale in this final version of the rules. And with that I think I conclude this development of rules. This makes my final home-brewed rules to look like this:

Link to the rules: Rules of Engagement 20th Century Warfare

If you have followed my 'series' and the development of these rules in 4 parts, I hope you enjoyed it. It would be nice if someone else tried the rules as well, and if someone does; feel free to share your experiences and views on them. 

But the most important thing; Use the scenarios, games and rules that makes you happy, and have a good time!

Happy Wargaming!