After being converted by Sheffield wargaming chum Tim Gow to the Fistful of Lead skirmish game engine by Wiley games ( https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/ ), I got both the Core Rules and the Mexican Revolution supplement with scenarios and additional rules. Looking around for toys to play the rules with, I chanced on a nice “old school” 20mm range produced by Jacklex Miniatures https://www.jacklexminiatures.com/

The excitement of the figures arriving was increased still further by the great looking packaging:

… and some good old fashioned sawdust for further protection:

The figures themselves are crisply moulded with no flash – and look as if they will be easy to paint.

I got some US Intervention figures and some of Pancho Villa’s men. I hope to paint them soon and will post the pictures.

I had a very enjoyable Portable Wargame Ancients with Martin Smith by Skype.   There were some internet connectivity issues but not enough to stop us running another session in the future!

Following the game, we had a few ideas on some house rules as follows:

• Only allow pulling out of combat if you are faster than the enemy, and only if directly away from enemy front face, and not hard flanked. 

• Only apply having to turn to face rule if in enemy’s front’ square.  

• Massed bows (not skirmish bow fire) add +1 to die roll, take away the general -1 for  shooting if moving but apply the -1 for moving to massed bows only.

• For hits on elephants, use the normal hit resolution table but apply the flee/retreat rule only when the last SP is lost.

• Do not to apply the “-1 if attacked by elephants” modifier to light infantry. 

• Light troops may retreat one extra grid after a ‘retreat’ outcome from shooting or Close Combat to pass through friends behind – but only if facing same direction, and not into enemy front square or impassable terrain. 

• Evade option for light troops (LI / LC).  When testing for result of a hit, add +1 to dice for light troops, so they’re more likely to retreat than take damage. Also, MUST choose retreat whenever able, rather than dig their heels in and take an SP loss.  
• LI bows /slings may not be activated to engage in close combat.
• Troops MAY shoot (rather than CC) if enemy is in adjacent square to front. 
• When a retreat reaction is received, first must turn to face the shooter or CC opponent before the retreat.  Retreat reaction when flanked/reared – unable to retreat, lose an SP, but still turn to face the cause of SP loss. 
• End of Game – pinched from Alan Saunders’ ECW set – ‘Break Point’ is 1/2 army’s SPs, rounded up (or 1/3 rounded up). When, at end of turn, an army has suffered enough SP loss to reach that, dice D6. Adjust by +1 if objective attained, -1 if Commander lost.  Score of 3 or less, army morale fails, and game is lost. If survive the test, retest at end of each turn thereafter.  

Here are a couple of photos from our game – Alexander v Porus.   The figures are 20mm on 80mm frontage bases with a grid of 80mm.  The uncluttered plain table made it easier to play by Skype.

I thought I would try out the Portable Napoleonic Wargame rules by Bob Cordery for the American Civil War.

The scenario was loosely based on the early morning assault at Antietam by Hooker’s Union First Corps on Confederate General Jackson’s Corps, which formed the left wing of Lee’s army.  This was the part of the battle that featured the very bloody fight over Miller’s cornfield.

Although this was a Corps level battle, I used the Division level rules from Bob’s book – the book having rules for Brigade, Division and Corps level games.

Each side had 10 brigades spread across three Divisions.  On the Union side, there were the Divisons of Doubleday, Meade and Ricketts.   On the Confederate side, the Division Commanders were Lawton, Hood and Jones.

All Brigades were average apart from one elite Brigade (5SP) in each army – Hood’s Texans and the Iron Brigade in Doubleday’s Division.

As far as the rule changes were concerned,  the key ones were:

• The activation system involved having X counters, each with a different number from 1-X with X being 1/2 of all the units on the table.   Each side could place a number of counters face down, equal to half the number of units it had on the table at the time.   The counters were then turned over and that was the order in which the units were activated.   Units could save their activation for firing later in the turn if they wished.
• There was no separate artillery phase – they were activated like other units.
• Rifled artillery had a longer range than smoothbore but was less effective at closer range to take into account smoothbore grapeshot.
• I scaled the grids at about 300 yards – about the same frontage as a typical 900 strong brigade.  Each brigade had two bases and I allowed two brigades in a grid.
• I have read that troops were rather lessing willing to charge or stand a charge in the ACW.   To take this into account and introduce a bit of the to and fro action,  units had to throw less than or equal to their SP (strength point) to charge in and likewise to stand if the enemy was charging them with a bonus if a commander was present.  If they failed to charge or stand, they could fire instead but at -1.  Failing to stand meant the unit had to retreat.
• I limited musket and rifle fire to one grid.    With all the smoke around, I am not sure that rifled muskets were shooting effectively at much more than a couple of hundred yards anyway!
• If attacking, brigades got a +1 if there was a brigade lined up behind them and in the same grid.  This is meant to represent wave attaks but I am not sure about this!
• Although not relevant to this scenario,  I treat cavalry as more or less mounted infantry and took out any references to forming squares and all that milarkey!  (Although I did recently discover that,  apparently,  squares were very occasionally formed, but this, like cavalry charges, was very rare).

All in all, the changes seemed to work well in a brief solo game, with the bloody attacks over the cornfield being well replicated.

Here are a few pictures of the game:

Here is the initial deployment from behind the Confederate lines and looking North.  Dunker Church is in the foregrouns and the green felt is the cornfield.

A fun little experiment that I will try again.   The Portable system can cope well with being played around with and,  I believe, can also be good for historical scenarios.