"One-Hour SKIRMISH Wargames" by John Lambshead - an overview

Another Glossy Cover:

Fortunately, this book is not best judged by its cover!

Firstly, this game is not a direct sequel to Neil Thomas' "One-Hour Wargames: Practical tabletop battles for those with limited Time and Space". It IS however another game that fits into the "one-hour to play" ethos, so the title is a bit confusing thanks to Pen and Sword's marketing department, but "bidness is bidness".  

SIMILARITIES:

1. Both cover a variety of eras / genres. OHW starts with Ancients and ends at WWII. OHSW starts with Napoleonics [could easily be pushed back to the flintlock musket era, say Nine Years War] and ends at sci-fi. Both sets could easily be pushed into eras not covered in the books, either forwards or backwards in time.
2. Both require a modest number of figures, terrain and space, and time, thus falling into the entry-level side of wargaming.
3. Both allow for a wide variety of combat results possibilities in the short-term that tend to smooth out over the long-term, but not always - both games can have some drama!
4. These are "Desert-Island Books". If you were stranded on an island, these books and some sand table skills and you'd be playing until rescued. I'm willing to say that with a bit of rules tweaking, you could play your entire wargame hobby life out, altho some like more complicated rule sets.
5. Both have multiple scenarios to play. OHW has 30 distinct scenarios with interesting challenges each, while OHSW has 6 plus a tool kit to make your own, emphasizing that skirmish gaming is heavily dependent upon good scenario making.
6. Both offer campaign game ideas that could keep one busy - with a little imagination - for a long time.

DIFFERENCES:

1. OHW takes place at a higher level of combat - platoon in WWII, company / battalion in horse and musket, perhaps a bit larger in ancient rules. OHSW is 1 figure / vic is a Unit.
2. OHW uses an attritional combat model with a few simple modifiers [double, half].  OHSW uses a 50-50 high card wins [essentially, a dice off] model, with a few additional cards drawn for terrain, firepower.
3. OHW requires math - doubling, halving. OHSW is virtually math-free [some adding, subtracting]. This makes us liberal arts types happy...
4. OHW has a predictable IGO-UGO turn sequence, e.g. Move, Shoot, Melee, and every unit gets to act every turn. OHSW has an unpredictable turn sequence - at any moment, it can be interrupted [unless all four Jokers have passed already, putting one at turn 4]. This can be frustrating but it is certainly  dramatic.
5. OHW has no morale and minimal quality differentiation.  OHSW has a morale mechanic at the end of each turn.
6. OHW is a very traditional wargame. Things unfold in a pretty predictable manner [albeit with lots of variety] except for combat dice rolls, which are quite variable. Thing of OHW as "beer" - moderate, predictable effects over time, a pleasant evening of mild conversation resulting in a light buzz. OHSW is unusual - more like tequila shots: you are uncertain just what will happen, especially if you eat the worm, resulting in wild shouting and table pounding [occasionally head-pounding] and you could end up wondering where your pants have gone. This can be frustrating but it also brings you back for more.

Book Format
Pros: Historical step-by-step shows evolution of weapons and game mechanics nicely.
Cons: won't lay open on table, information is scattered around, e.g. weapon effects, and there's no QRS.

This post is intended to add to other reviews and some comments by the author. Therefore, I will not repeat things they have already noted [at least not much]. I base it upon around 20 actual plays of the game, Most of them RAW [Rules As Written], several with some simple modifications that changed game flow without changing the turn mechanics completely. 

A great place to start reading is the excellent review by Dale Hurtt [CLICK] which includes his play example and follow-up from both gamers and the author. I've also included below some errata and additional AAR comments by John Y over at "54mm or Fight!" blog [CLICK].

1) DESIGNER'S INTENT
The book should be judged by the author's design intent, so the below comments are from author John Lambshead's blog here [CLICK] with my comments in BLUE below JL's:

I have always like the idea of skirmish games because 
(i) one can experiment with a small unusual army that one has no intention of turning into a 2000 point force, 
(ii) one can have a great game in a small area, and
(iii) a game can be played theoretically in a limited time.
But many skirmish systems have only allowed points (i) and (ii) but not (iii). 
Agreed. OHSW successfully handles all points, including iii.

The logic has been that because a skirmish involves a limited number of models then each one has to have lots of complicated special rules. The trouble is that these slow the game right down until a thirty second encounter in game time takes an hour to play out in real time.
Agreed. OHSW successfully shows you don't need lots of special rules - whether complicated or simple - to have an enjoyable, flavorful, tactically challenging game.

I wanted a skirmish game that had all the feel of the shootouts in Where Eagles Dare: I wanted to have heroes like Clint Eastwood jumping form cover and mowing down the bad guys with a schmeisser fired from the hip. The problem is that one can’t just simplify the rules or one ends up with something completely bland that has no feel for the period. So that was my first task: to speed up the game without simplifying the rules.
Maybe. British rule sets seem to emphasize over differentiation. There needs to be a balance between differentiation, historicity and playability and most importantly, PACE. I think one can emphasize the most important points and let the little details be ignored, and have a great game. Pace is another matter, however.

I started to experiment back in 2006 with my long suffering regular opponent, Shaun. Much of the tedium in skirmish games concerns the dice-based randomiser system. This inevitably involves lots of tables with lots of modifiers. Clint Eastwood jumps out from cover and checks the hit number of his ballistic skill, modified by the weapon, range, target and concealing terrain and carries out a deal of mental arithmetic before...being gunned down by a stormtrooper firing his schmeisser from the hip on full auto.
I'll disagree here.

Dice systems aren't the cause of tables with lots of modifiers - you COULD end up with the same problem using cards as JL does. Fortunately, JL sticks to the *most significant differences* of modern weaponry without getting bogged down in "Private Snuffy goes from prone to kneeling position [2 Action Points], and readies his weapon [1 AP] then takes careful aim [1 AP, +1 to Hit] at a moving target [-2 to Hit] and his Quality is lower [-1 to hit] but he has a laser-guided sight [+5 to hit...]. There are rules like that out there, that have the temerity to use the term "game" with them...

The "inevitability" of the lots of tables / modifiers has to do with:
1) The mentality of elderly game designers  who say that "more modifiers is more realistic" and provides better "feel", and, 
2) Game marketers who say "we need people to buy additional rules, codexes, and special figures" which propels a need to over-differentiate certain newly sculpted figures in terms of game mechanics, almost always giving them new special advantages - a sort of "keeping up with the Joneses" marketing ploy. While it is easy to pick on GW for pioneering this dubious effort, it has been shamelessly imitated on both sides of the pond.

It is a fact the skill in mental arithmetic is age-linked. 

The advent of cheap, powerful, easy to use, portable digital machines means that mental arithmetic skills are going the way of calligraphy as a universal skill. 
Calligraphy is no longer a universal skill??

:)

Agreed. Lots of math is out of the question for games today. One should note that Charts make math easy to handle, the charts of modifiers mentioned above...

I solved this by switching to a playing card based system. Playing cards offer a wide range of various probabilities from 1:2 to 1:52. Randomisers become simply a matter of drawing additional or fewer cards against the opponent, highest card wins. This system is mechanically fast and simple but very complex with the range of probabilities. 

In playtesting, we found the act of turning over cards against each other competitively was fun in itself….kinda like pontoon. 

Partially Agree.

You can get the same simplicity or complexity with dice as with the card deck, but it would require polyhedral dice or modifiers [with charts]. A card deck makes for ONE mechanism, which is easy, BUT you still need to remember the variable of Number of Cards to Pull, for example.

The question remains, "How many modifiers is too many for a fast-play game?" NT simplifies his game designs by stressing a few, significant modifiers. JL mostly does the same, but by nature skirmish gaming has lots more weapon variables. Still, one has to look up the difference between throwing a grenade v. firing an LMG, until one has them memorized.

This means that all the unit-data needed to play a game can be summarised in a few lines on a card that the player keeps in front of them. The player spends 99% of his time considering what to move, where to move it and what to shoot at. The game is not bland, because the wide range of modifiers easily available using a single mechanism means that it is no hassle at all to give individual figures special skills. 
Mostly Agree.

"A few lines on a card"...wait, isn't that a chart? The popular Black Powder and Bolt Action games have pretty short charts, but the rules are lengthy and confusing and suffer from over-differentiation. 

So the real argument here is actually for simplification, not the card mechanic vs. the dice mechanic, both being equally susceptible to over-design with modifiers. I think JL could just say that OHSW is a simple game, but not a simplistic game. This a quote from Neil Thomas.

For example, an ace sniper might draw two extra cards when shooting; a scout with concealment skills might draw an extra card over and above the terrain normal; and a skilled technician might draw three cards when trying to start a machine compared to a normal bod against a fixed number depending on the scenario rules).
So, an Ace Sniper might roll two extra dice when shooting...etc. How many special rules will we use per game? That will increase how complex it is. JL provides plenty of attributes and weapons, 53 by the Points Chart. If I run a scenario that uses all 53 special rules and attribute between the two sides, I'm back to the bogged down game of GW, WarmaHordes, and so many others. The key is for the scenario host to limit the special rules, and let the ordinary Joes predominate.

I would say that JL has provided a tool kit that is just as likely to be abused and become a boring game with lots of references to the book as "Kill Team". However, he and NT provide an ETHOS of fast-play that has a chance of impacting game play. It is still up to the players to not overdo it!

Looking at the forces in his scenarios, JL does a good job of having a over half the force be "regular Joes", and often it is higher, e.g. the RAF has 2/3 Joes and 1/3 someone with a special weapon or attribute, while the Troons are 9/11 Joes and 2/11 special types.

The second major point after speed of play that I wanted to address was chaos. Large ‘things’ with multiple sub units, like one division versus another, are easy to predict because all the chaotic interactions cancel out.

Agreed - that is the OHW level of combat, not OHSW.

Tiny subunits, like one person against another, are controlled by chaotic processes and so are unpredictable. That’s one reason why one needs a wide range of probabilities for a skirmish game. This game rewards players who can handle chaos and exploit changing circumstances: it is poker rather than bridge.

Agreed!

A skirmish game should have more possibilities and be more like managing chaos than larger forces who are often - if subject to discipline - more predictable by means of inertia.

I introduce this chaos by the way the game turn is structured:

• A turn is divided into phases. 
• The player who wins the phase initiative draws a card to get command points that are spent moving and firing figures one at a time. A single figure can make up to three moves before firing (or doing something technical) but each extra move cost exponentially increasing command points. The extremes are moving lots of things once and not shooting or moving a few things a long way. 
• Command points can vary between 1 and 13 depending on the card drawn. 
• When a player has used all their points, initiative switches to their opponent. 
• This continues until a Joker is drawn by either player whereupon the turn ends immediately. 
• Players go to the end of turn phase. Check Army Morale - if one fails, games ends, if both pass, check status of casualties with card draw, "Red is Dead".

Army moral is tested to see if one (or both) armies have had enough and retreat. This is based on a card test on the actual number of soldiers that have been killed. Using an absolute measure rather than a percentage makes the game self balancing and introduces the ‘heroic’ Hollywood-feel that I wanted to simulate.

Fair enough - 90% of Soldiers have nearly no idea what is going on 90% of the time and certainly won't be looking at a big picture issue that may not even be know for a few days, like % casualties 

Having lots of indifferent troops lurking in the middle distance will not stop your army from withdrawing but leadership is critical because they add extra cards when testing morale.

Assuming both armies survive, models knocked down by shooting are tested to see if they are permanently out of action (doesn’t necessarily imply killed - they could have gone to ground) by drawing a card for each: Red is Dead.

There is no bureaucracy in the game to slow things down.

I'll say this is true unless you use a lot of special rules and additional gear like artillery and tanks - but don't most of us?

Models defeated in close combat are removed, shot models are knocked down. A good tactic is for one of your figures to make the knock down and the another to close combat the down figure whereupon a kill is automatic. 

Very true!

The book is structured into eras, with each era introducing special rules for the period and an historical scenario with army lists based on a real event. The scenarios get more complicated as appropriate new rules are added, eg automatic weapons, armoured vehicles, guided weapons and, er, rayguns and psychic powers. The eras are 
(i) Early Days - Age of the Musket, The Rifle Era, 
(ii) The Twentieth Century - Wars Within Peace, World War II, The Cold War, 
(iii) Extending The Game - Pulp Action. 
There are rules for campaigns, including a WWII example. A points system is included, although the system is forgiving for asymmetric warfare, and ideas for modifying scenarios to refresh them. 
I'll agree with this also. However, it is not going to be easy for a newbie game to do this - more experienced gamers will find it pretty easy after a few mishaps.

The book is to a large degree a skirmish tool-kit. 

Because skirmish games are so dependent on scenarios, I wanted very much to provide an open ended system so buyers got the maximum value for their hard-earned dosh. 
Success!

But "Very Successful" would also have included a dozen scenarios [30 is quite a bit] that generally work in all the periods. 

Also, suggestions on how to design forces and scenarios based upon your time and space limits would have been most welcomed, e.g. "If you want to stick to an hour long game, have no more figures than 10-15 and keep figures with a special weapon or rule limited to less than half the force, preferably under 1/3."

What made me turn what was intended just to be an experimental system to test new ideas into a commercial product was a constant reaction from each new playtester: “This,” they said, “is fun!”
Yay! That's why they call it a "game"!

John Lambshead26 November 2018 at 20:55

I do hope that I have been very fair in beginning with JL's own stated design intent regarding his rules before expanding it into a full critique! 

2) Dale's Errata, John Y's thoughts

In an excellent playtest and review by Dale [CLICK] some clarifications  were offered. These largely fell into the "so basic they weren't fully explained category" which means that they are more like Errata than Addenda.

Author John Lambshead answered:

You shuffle the cards after the deck has been used up so one starts again with a newly randomised deck. Stops players memorising where Jokers were, etc. 

Great question from Dale's review and playtest:

Unknown Poster "So maybe a close combat should be treated as firing - engage in one and the figure ends all action for the turn."

Dale: I suspect this is the authors intent. This is a shooting focused game and melee should not be so over powered.

Author John Lambshead answered:

I intended that close combat ends a figures move for that phase.

Ignore the Joker[s drawn] after a turn has ended.*

*To clarify, if you turn over a second Joker while resolving the turn end mechanics - force Morale and resolving Casualties, you ignore the Joker.

Dale: I was discussing the idea of adding an extra action point in order to fire if you have a musket or a rifle. So a musket would be two action points and the rifle would be three action points and ordered a fire. The reason for this was it seems like age of musket troops fire too rapidly. I was going to give it a try and maybe blog the result, but I was wondering what your thoughts are on this.

JL: Yes, I know. I agonised over this but then left the somewhat unrealistic rate of fire for muzzle loaders on the grounds that they are unlikely to be used in the same scenario as more modern weapons and it left the game with a smooth basic ruleset. However, one can make a good case for doing just as you suggest.

Dale's Observation: Cards v. Dice

One thing that Dale very perceptively notes, is that all mechanics in OHSW could be performed with dice instead of cards. However, the deck of cards also presents a fixed number of possibilities, while dice present a far higher range of possibilities, albeit at less likelihood of occurring the more extreme they are.

Observation, re: dice v. cards. What you get with cards is a fixed storehouse of possibilities. With a card deck, there are 4 each of all 13 possibilities, Ace thru King or 1-13.  Once you use a value [card] up it doesn't not return until the deck re-shuffles. So once you've pulled all four of your kings, your chance of pulling a king is...zero. 

With dice, every time you roll a d12 you have an equal chance of all the numbers being rolled. If you roll a 12, your next roll still has a 1/12 chance of rolling a 12, just like all the other numbers on the dice. This can be hard to understand at first, I know I had trouble with it!

This may be good news for some people I know, who have a disproportionate tendency to roll low or high at inopportune times. However, you cannot control when you will turn over the card you need, so it is theoretically possible, if highly improbable, to consistently pull cards that are lower than your opponents. 

If so, I suggest you take up chess, checkers, et al, and drinking sherry in drawings rooms like a civilized person.

54mm or fight! AAR [click] by John Y:
For one, I couldn't decide if I should draw the 2nd, 3rd, etc card if the first one succeeded when defending in cover, shooting multiple shots at a single target with no one nearby (and the target was downed on the first one), or testing for the army breaking. That is, I wasn't clear if the additional card is required: "you MUST draw two cards in light cover"  vs "you may draw up to two cards in light cover". 

In the game I played, at first, I required all the cards to be drawn. This increased the possibility of a Joker coming up, to the Germans great detriment. Later, I decided to stop if the first draw resulted in the desired result.

This is what I'm doing, also, and to slow the Jokers down a bit - better flow, IMHO.

I also wasn't clear about multiple shots from an SMG into a vehicle. For infantry, if you shoot and hit on the first card, your second card can target someone nearby (because you can't target a downed figure). I decided that for a vehicle, it was more than likely that the second card would also target the vehicle since, for them, damage is cumulative and as long as the vehicle wasn't destroyed by the first shot, the second shot would target the same vehicle.

Seems likely - assuming an unarmored vic [armored vics are unaffected by weapons that do not have an Armor Piercing value] the damage should either accrue or spread to passengers. I like the latter, as IF you "hit" the car, you can THEN try to hit "nearby" figures, just like with any multi-shot weapon. Seems consistent to me.

3) Final thoughts and questions from me

A question to add: Do you draw cards if the result would be an auto-pass? 
Probably "YES", because a Joker may come up, ending the turn, causing morale checks and adjudication of Down figures as "Dead/Fled or Back". 

Action Points - what are they?

The game mechanic of AP has a few effects. They are a - severe -  limit of repeated movement with the same Unit. Second, they have a mild limit/cost for Fire or Task Actions - the main limit is that either of these ends the Unit's Actions for the Player Phase. Close Combat also ends a Unit's Actions for the Phase [I wonder if Cavalry shouldn't get a Close Combat per Movement spent...].

So the game mechanic of AP can be conceived in a variety of ways in reality. 

First, it shows a resource limit per Unit - the maximum amount of activity that people [or machines] can effectively perform in a Turn. This effectively reflects an average amount of activity but allows you to push it a bit - if you've the AP. Considering the human limits on short-term intense activity is about 10-15 seconds, with a 60 second "breather" before another burst [CLICK], I like this! It also solves the issue of short-term fatigue and changing ammo clips, etc, by providing for two basic amounts of activity.

Second, as AP come from a fairly random deck of cards, they can also be seen as a Command and Control and Communicate issue.  The commander - the Player - has a limit to conceive, Communicate, execute, modify and adapt a plan. It may be a bit unrealistic that one knows how much activity can be performed with the AP, but there is always the possibility of a Joker showing up and ending your Player Phase.

A Turn Sequence "problem"

It is entirely possible as a game goes on and figures go Down, that one has few or even zero Units with which to act. You are now doing nothing and awaiting a joker for the turn to end. This can be brutal as you watch your enemy move into contact and automatically eliminate a Unit that is "Down".  By JL's definition, Down means ducking or hit by fire, not completely out of the fight, so this seems a bit extreme. A couple ways to reduce the impact of this are:

1. Allow Leaders the ability to "rally" a Unit, i.e. move into contact with a Down Fig and pull the casualty card immediately. Sure, you've a 50-50 chance of the figure being removed, but you had that anyway, and now you've a 50-50 chance of the Fig being back in the fight.
2. When a Fig moves into Close Combat with a Down Fig, draw a casualty card for the Down figure, and if it is Red, it is Dead as usual. If Black, the Fig fights Back instead of fleeing, being killed or prisoner. But possibilities can change by Army. Perhaps the Japanese will be Red=Dead, but maybe in WWII North Africa Diamonds=Prisoner while Black= Fight Back.

I think that when playing with newbies or children, or those with fragile egos [gamers...] or who expect a game to be "fair" the potentially punishing card draws make for less fun. Your typical gamers are used to an IGO-UGO game where they always get to respond or initiate in a predictable manner. Overall, those who like to play in the fat part of the bell curve will probably hate the turn mechanic and seek to decrease those possibilities or quite frankly just not play this game. And maybe it isn't for them! As JL notes, this game is for those who are ready to manage chaos...or Kaos...!

Still, below are a few ways to make the turn sequence a bit more predictable altho I think you're better off not playing OHSW! There are vast numbers of predictable skirmish wargames out there that worship the bell curve. But if you must:

1. Remove one Joker from each deck - this will make each Turn last a bit longer, making it more likely that you will be able to act with all your figures.
2. Decrease the hurt of AP draws a bit by removing the bottom end of the deck, say, Ace thru 4 or 5. This leaves you with 6-13 AP a turn, which is usually enough to execute some sort of plan.
3. The same, but remove both "extreme" ends of the deck, say A-4 and the face cards, giving 5-10 as your AP amounts. You will have a half deck, so also remove one Joker per deck.

Buy or Don't Buy??

This books is a no-brainer purchase - BUY IT!

:)

I think the system as-is makes for an exciting narrative game, or series of game i.e. campaign, where I am playing solo and am not invested in winning v. losing so much as having fun and an interesting narrative. This game with its WIDE variety of possibilities definitely makes for real drama! 

OTOH But this game provides a structure that can be blatantly unfair. This can be painful for those who expect a "fair" game at least in the turn sequence - dice rolling is an accepted unpredictable event.  The possibility of a pretty painful series of Player Phases that can possibly end your game. The most likely way is for one side to draw cards in the 10-13 range for AP a couple times in a row, while the other draws only a 1-4 or so. I've had this happen occasionally, and it can turn the entire game around. You've been warned!

Still, the game offers the most unusual and in many ways the most realistic skirmish game around, and it is easier to tone it down a bit than to introduce additional drama and possibilities in a more traditional game.  So, yes, BUY IT!