There's a bit of a thing going around the Portable Wargame community at the moment for the 3 x 3 concept. This was originally devised by Mark Cordone at the start of the year, but has rapidly captured the imagination of players, and is regularly appearing in a number of the blogs I follow and, obviously, the Portable Wargame Facebook group.
The original aim was to produce a game which could be set up and played in under 30 minutes, with an actual playtime of 15 minutes or under, but which still provided some entertainment and decision-making. Bob Corderey has outlined the early history of the concept in THIS BLOG POST, and his blog contains more examples of the genre.
Inevitably I decided I should have a go. A couple of weeks ago I tried a couple of set-ups with my ECW armies in order to get used to the concepts; not really full games, but just moving things around and rolling dice in order to get a feel for mechanisms. The thing is that like most Portable Wargame stuff, you're dealing with a toolkit, and how you choose to use it is up to you. People have different ways of dealing with shooting, close combat, terrain, and victory conditions, and that's to be expected when they're all using the game for different historical periods and different scales. One of my personal favourites is the idea of fighting a large battle, such as Waterloo, in a series of linked 3 x 3 vignettes, each focusing on a particular phase of the battle.
Anyway I got a few ideas in my head, and yesterday felt ready to set up a 'proper' game or two. The ECW armies have gone back into the box since I was fiddling with them, but my Liberation armies are out on the table, so I used them. The 3 x 3 game basically uses six units per side (shades of OHW there), set up on a 3 x 3 grid, although each side also has a reserve area at the back of the grid.
I used four infantry and two cavalry per side, and diced for deployments (just to keep it interesting). The Patriots massed their cavalry on their right flank, and kept some infantry in reserve, whilst the Royalists split their cavalry on the flanks and had infantry across the line.
I only took one photo; here's the battle partway through, taken from behind the Patriot lines:
As you can see, I dispensed with a grid. The files are easy to see, and once the game got going I marked the three 'ranks' with the rocks you can see to the right of the picture.
I based the rules loosely on my ECW mechanisms, but units only take two hits.
Eventually, after a shaky start which saw their infantry close to collapse, the Patriots secured a victory with their cavalry, breaking through to the Royalist baseline and holding position against a counter-attack from the reserve.
And what of the game? Truth to tell it didn't do a lot for me at this stage. It took me around 30 minutes to play (I had some distractions, it's true), but I didn't feel the rules clicked for me. Don't get me wrong; I like the concept, and I think it has legs. It's just at the moment I can't get the implementation to sit right in my head in a way that excites me. A lot of the discussion in the group about it revolves around the difference between shooting and close combat, and how they are represented. In addition I found the way I run continuing combats - they only happen if an activation is spent to initiate them - didn't feel right here, and I may need to resort to the idea that combat happens even if a unit is not activated.
For now it's something to think about and come back to at a later date.
Still, it's another game to add to my 52 Games project.
You’re right Alan. There’s soooooo much going on around the 3x3 PW concept that it’s difficult to keep up-to-date with developments, as lots of people are experimenting with little tweaks here and there. Cheers,
ReplyDeleteGeoff
I am intrigued and confused by the concept.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of 15 minutes games, but it seems that there is no real maneuver. Just advance straight ahead and roll dice. I tried something similar back in 2014 but found it lacking. I'm trying to figure out if there is a twist to it that I'm missing.
I think that the FP3x3PW is indeed a toolkit that one needs to adapt both to the period and level of engagement being fought, and to one's own personal preferences in wargames. I always add systems to discover exactly how generals are affected when they are at risk from fire, whether they or their horses are killed or wounded - if the latter, where and how severely - or have narrow escapes such as hats being shot off or balls bouncing off gorgets/items in pockets &c. This helps create the sort of narrative one reads in books about one's own character and his subordinates' fates - perfect for writing AARs.
ReplyDeleteI'm considering adding similar descriptors to the results of fire and combat for units, so that a battalion that has lost several SPs in one turn might have lost nearly all its officers, or had its colours captured in a close combat, &c., &c.
That would mean the game takes a bit longer to play, but for me the extra detail and involvement makes it well worth it.
On the subject of continuing combats, I feel combat should continue automatically if one side has not been broken without use of an activation, but that a commander could use an activation to order a unit to try to disengage (which, however, might not be successful).
With respect to continuing combats, my homebrew rules work the same - combat continues unless there is a deliberate disengage. But recently I was re-reading One Hour Wargames and was intrigued by Thomas's system, which assumes that the attacker disengages if the defender is not eliminated. That may make things a bit simpler.
DeleteKevin - I think the only combat disengage in OHW is cavalry in the Horse & Musket rules. In other periods close combat either doesn't exist (the ACW rules for example) or it continues until one side is destroyed.
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