Begin a game (for newbie)

[Fabien G]

Hello everyone!

1) I have never played. I play football, chess, there is only 1 rule to play.
Here with toy soldiers, there seem to have different rules, why?
And which one to choose? And why choose this one?
I'd like one easy, please.

2) Also, when I look at games preparations, the play set are giants!, and the armies contain so many stuff (tanks and truck and planes and soldiers, and so on)
And that's for 1 battle only!
For another battle, the player will need different vehicles and armies, with different camouflage...

I do not have a big appartment, I don't have 50 tanks for Tobruk, and 50 other for Moskwa, and 50 for the Pacific. I have tanks and planes and armies but just a few for Normandy, or for Cassino, or Japs, or US, d-day or pacific, armies with desert or winter gear, it's really diverse!...
So, how do you do when you want to play a game but you don't have all the number of soldiers and vehicles? Can you at least mix them (egg: all US soldiers) even if they're not supposed to be at the same place / time?

thanks!

[luchs]

try this..
http://www.rapid-fire.uk.com/

[musketier]

Its all a question of scale, you can try Mega blitz rule set that way one needs very few vehicles to represent divisions. You can always look here http://www.juniorgeneral.org/index.html

or here
http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/inde ... ge=sitemap

to give you ideas and maybe invent youre own home rules.

[Fabien G]

ho! a lot of reading for the forthcoming weeks! thanks!

[musketier]

Just remember its all about having FUN

[Fabien G]

Well, I look here and there and it all look so 'close to reality' and looking for perfection that I really feel like an 'amateur'!

[Paul]

I suggest looking at a couple of the links, noting down a few of the fitting rules and then using them as "ground rules" make up your own.
basically they all come down to
1. how far anything can move and how often
2. how far anything can shoot and how often
3. how much damage one thing can be done by one thing to another
4. how much damage one thing can take from another
5. how much can one thing put up with..ie Moral factor..is it scared or brave
the last bit is probably the most important if you are playing on your own, the moral factor will become the second player. It will donate wether the other side will move and how far etc.

Obviously there´s a bit more too it than that but the more factors you consider, ie; how much ammo they have, did they have breakfast, is it cold/hot/windy, are they hung over from the night before, the slower the game becomes and IMHO more boring. Wolfgang and Markus´s Cowboy game (Kampen) seemed to have pretty good rules, maybe they could send them to you.

[Fabien G]

I have so many unpainted stuff, it means I have plenty of time to read all the rules before I can start. But i am impatient!

How can I play 'on my own' doing the two opponents?
I mean , a roll of dice for a fight is ok. But for the direction they're going to take?
If I know how both armies are going to move in advance, I may want to move one more efficiently than another,( and it's not fair).
Any tip for that?

[musketier]

I have so many unpainted stuff, it means I have plenty of time to read all the rules before I can start. But i am impatient!

How can I play 'on my own' doing the two opponents?
I mean , a roll of dice for a fight is ok. But for the direction they're going to take?
If I know how both armies are going to move in advance, I may want to move one more efficiently than another,( and it's not fair).
Any tip for that?

For this question I find that the rules set for Fire and Fury handle this in a very simple way.
if you Google it I think you can see a copy of the rules( I know it has its own website). This system originally started out for American Civil War but there have bee editions out there for Napoleonic, Marlborough and WWI
but once you know the basics of the set of rules you can adapt them to any era of history.

[Fabien G]

thanks again.

[Ochoin]

This set are a lot of fun & are well supported on the site by their author:
http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/
You can buy them online too.
You certainly don't need too many figures to start.

You will find something you like; hopefully soon.

Re: Solo gaming.
There are a number of ways to do this.
One way is to have one side as a static defence. They only need to respond (fire etc) to the active side which you command.

Another is to use 'event cards' for one side. Each turn, you pick a card that will tell you how that side will function (e.g. "Artillery barrage" or "unit closest to the enemy retreats a full movement" or " flank attack" etc).

Gaming with real people is better though. See if there's a club nearby? The BlitzKrieg Commander forum has an opponent-finder function.


donald

[Fabien G]

thanks Ochoin,

well, i'll have to read the 140 pages book before I look for an opponent!
Hum... no, I have to paint all the little guys first!

Yes, first things first: mission: check everything I have - swap everything I don't need (yes, I know you're there! ) - paint the guys - and then... I'll come back for more questions.

see you then, cheers!

[Ochoin]

OK Fabien,
remember you don't need to fight the D-Day landings with 1000s of figures.
20 figures a side, a few vehicles & a couple of tanks is enough for a good game.

For WW2, you will need (unless you're doing North Africa), lots of scenary.
This is mostly to contain weapons ranges & provide cover.
Trees, hedges, walls, roads & buildings.

Feel free to ask me or the even more knowledgeable membership any questions you like.

Good luck!

donald

[Fabien G]

but, the bigger army, the bigger the fun?

[Benno]

but, the bigger army, the bigger the fun?

Then you should try 6mm.

[Fabien G]

I like to play Risk, because I really feel like I can rule the whole world with giant armies! (hu ho!)

[Tantallon2]

Lot's of different questions here and lots of different possible answers.

The easiest period to play with only a few troops is WW2. You can do squad level actions with only a couple of dozen soldiers and maybe one or two vehicles. Rapid Fire is really a battalion level game so you would need less than 100 figures and maybe 10 vehicles for a grand fight in 20mm. Watch "Band of Brothers" for some inspiration for small unit actions and see how few troops are usually involved.

For other periods, skirmish level games can be fun but tend to be more difficult to play against yourself.

Playing solo has all sorts of challenges (and isn't as much fun as playing a human opponent). . However, if we just look at WW2 then usually, one side attacks, the other defends and pretty much reacts to the attacker. Best way to do this is for the defender to be automatic and for you to play the attacker. Random cards for the defender can introduce some unpredictability into the game which means you cannot entirely predict the outcome or what the "enemy" will do.

I could envisage a system where you place the terrain features down on the table based on cards being drawn or on a real map of an area you are interested in. (terrain features don't need to be fancy - you can use different coloured card to represent hills, woods, streams and outlines of buildings so that your battlefield looks a bit like a map).

You could then have random cards that represent the enemy troop types that you pull for each terrain feature (these can include blank cards). You only get to find out what (if anything) is defending a particular piece of terrain when you are able to spot it (Rapid Fire and many other rule sets have spotting rules). You could have twenty cards, ten of them blank, the other ten being (say) different enemy sections or an AFV. Or you could have twenty cards and you pull 15 so that you don't know exactly how many enemy units you will encounter.

So, when you start the game you know where the enemy might be and you know roughly how many of them you will encounter but not where anything is. This makes recce units very important. You then decide what your objective is and plan how you are going to reach it. AS soon as you start your plan will fall to bits as the enemy are revealed! Which captures the fog of war nicely. You might think that the enemy should be able to shoot before you spot them but in real life the enemy will often hold their fire until the last moment. So you could have a rule that the enemy open fire the first time they are spotted and always fire on the nearest unit to them (which is also quite realistic). I can imagine this system producing some anxiety - is that a squad of riflemen behind that house, or a Tiger tank or is there no-one there at all? Once the enemy are themselves are fired on you can draw other cards for what they do next (stay still or move basically).

Last thing to say is don't be discouraged by the superb pictures you often see on this site. This forum is really a place to show off painting skills and dioramas rather than a wargaming forum per se. If you look at shots from DBM type games, they often look very basic but the players can be having great fun (have a look at the Madaxeman web site).

Above all have fun!

[luchs]

there a set of rules in "francais" ..
"section d'assault" edit by "vae victis " frenche wargame magazine..
http://vaevictis.histoireetcollections.com/
i have a copy of the first version around my library if do you need....

[Fabien G]

Oh, I didn't want you to 'waste your time' writing such a long answer! thank you!

is that a squad of riflemen behind that house, or a Tiger tank or is there no-one there at all?

I wonder!!!

And thanks luchs, keep it fro yourself, I will have a look in my local shop. And I have enough to read with everything everybody's told me!

[Tantallon2]

Never a waste of time - it gave me some ideas for my own solo game!