Beary Simple Wargame: First Draft of Rules

 The first draft of A Beary Simple Wargame is posted as a page.  If you have a few minutes, I'd gladly appreciate any feedback.  I'm especially interested in hearing what confusions you see or how it could be better simplified/clarified for younger players.  The goal for this ruleset is for it to be memorized by adults after a few turns and clever kids after a few games.  

Painting Progress: Christmas Break

The most completed units

 Today we’re traveling and won’t be back until after Christmas. The goal was to get done before Christmas. I fell a little short. Overall the pieces are coming along well, but I’m not using the best paint or brushes. There’s a lot of touch up work to do. The only batch-wide effort left is the bright metal on the muskets and swords.

The Princess’s Army

 

The Prince’s Red Bears

Painting Progress

 Minor progress has occurred. All bears now have the top of their tricorn painted. The trim colors are yet to be determined. The red bears have the back of their tricorn painted as well. 

Beary Simple Wargame: Rules Ideas Coming Together

I've started collecting ideas for the non-combat portions of the Beary Simple Wargame rules.  The goal is to get them collected onto one sheet of paper.  

General Rules:  
Square Gridded Game Board.  Units and Terrain must fit in grid together. Exceptions allowed for impassable terrain.

Measuring: All distances are measured through sides (not corners).  No diagonal movement or ranging is permitted.

Activation:
    Youngest player goes first.
    Players move two bear units per turn.
    Bears can move, attack, or move then attack.

Move Speeds: 
        Bears on foot may move 2 spaces.
        Bears on horse may move 3 spaces.
        Bears on foot may push a cannon 1 space.
        Bears moving into buildings, through a tree line, or over a fence/low wall may move 1 space. 
        Bears cannot climb high walls.  They must use a gate.  
        Bears cannot move through other bears.  

Terrain Types:
    Buildings: Only Bears on foot may enter buildings.  Once inside, they receive an advantage if they are defending the building in paw-to-paw combat or if being shot at by other bears on foot.
    Forest: Bears on foot may walk between the trees to cross into the next space, but if they do so they can only move 1 space.  Bears attacking from forests surprise their targets and have an advantage.

Attack:
Combat happens when the activated attacker checks for range and line-of-sight for ranged attack, or, attacker attempts to occupy same cell as defender for melee.      

Cannons have a range of 5 and can only be fired by Artillery Crews.

Bears on Foot have a range of 3.

Bears on Horse can only attack paw-to-paw.
    Players each roll 1 dice, add advantages/disadvantages, and then determine the result by subtracting the defender's roll from the attacker's roll.

        If the result is 4 or more, the defending bear runs away.

        If the result is 1, 2, or 3, the defending bear is scared and will have a disadvantage.

        If the result is 0, the defending bear may repeat the attack as the attacker.

        If the result is less than 0, the attack has failed.

       

Advantages and Disadvantages:

    Cannons have advantage over Bears on Foot

    Bears on Foot have advantage over Bears on Horse

    Bears on Horse have advantage over any Cannon Crews

    Scared Bears always have a disadvantage.

    Bears defending from inside buildings have an advantage.

    Bears attacking from forests have an advantage.

    

Future Modules for Experienced Players:
Rallying: 
Flank/Rear Melee bonuses

Locked in Melee
Charging
Diagonal Measurement 
Additional Troop Types: Elite Infantry, Sharpshooters, Melee Specialized Infantry (Highlanders)

I'm definitely open to thoughts/critiques/edits.  The goal is to  have a simple enough framework for the kids to enjoy while still offering some interesting decisions and rewarding thinking ahead and risk management.

Painting Progress: Adding more colors

Over the weekend, Little Prince celebrated his 3rd birthday, participated in his first Christmas pageant, and got to watch the excavator digging the foundation for the new house.  That being said, there was little time to paint.  We did manage to add some paint in a minute of downtime.  The kids each got to use my oldest/worst brush to slather their cannon's carriage with paint.  I'll go back later and fill in the missed spots and get sharper lines.  

Gun Carriages and Miters Painted in Each Army's Most Senior Color

Beary Simple Wargame: Putting the Pieces Together

The Beary Simple Wargame made it to the table (floor) for the first time last night.  Most of the rules weren't followed.  The princess was just excited to play with her bears.  Her favorite part was having her cavalry rapidly advance to steal my artillery.  While we had fun moving the bears and stealing the guns, I was working through how the game looks once set-up and how that might impact the rules.

Pink's cavalry bounds over the guns to steal them.

The board we played is for a different, mostly 3D printed, game called Tech?No! Bowl.  It's got all of the mechanics and miniatures of a wargame, but instead of a battlefield, it takes place on a a football (American) field.  The grids are 1" here instead of 2" so each terrain piece and bear should occupy 4 grid cells.  I tried to keep the right spacings to get a visual. 

A possible early-game position. 

After the kids went to bed, and between other chores. I got the first coat of paint on the Prince's/My Red Bears.  I was worried about the coat colors being too similar, but now that the bears have different color fur, it is easer to distinguish them.  

Contrasting fur helps distinguish the armies

I've also been playing around with a flag-bearer.  I already designed a general and bugler, but every army needs a flag bearer.  It's not ready to show yet.  I've made probably a dozen or so flags but none of them seem to work.  I ran into this same problem on my earlier 18th century army with the round body soldiers.

 

Beary Simple Rules: Combat Results

Below is my first pass at combat rules for Beary Simple Rules.  They need to be simple enough for a pretty clever five year old to enjoy and still somewhat interesting for grown-ups too.  She's already starting to get frustrated with games of complete chance (unless all of the chance is going her way).  The rules should be easy enough to memorize for adults. Hopefully, the kids can figure out most of them pretty quickly.

Potential Results:

If the Attacker rolls less than Defender: no result.  

A tie allows defender to counter attack. 

Attacker beating the defender by 1-3 would disorder/pin/scare the defending bear. 

Beating the defender by 4 or more removes the defender bear.  

Bears that are disordered/pinned/scared would roll with a -1 modifier.  Leader bear can rally away disorder/scared.  (Not sure if that complication is worth it for a few years)  Other modifiers would include terrain bonus for being behind cover, and a rock/paper/scissors scheme where infantry beats cavalry, cavalry beats artillery, and artillery beats infantry.  

This system seems to be a good compromise for basic games.  It involves both players so everyone feels like they have a role (or roll) to play in the outcome.  It isn't as swingy as a hit/save result with a single D6, which I like.  Most importantly, the math is pretty easy.  Once the kids learn about multiplication/division, maybe something with 2D6 and doubling/tripling would be better.

If anyone has encountered a system like this before and has critiques, I'd be glad to hear them.

Beary Simple Wargame: Rules Objectives

 The main objectives for the Beary Simple Wargame are:

1: Concise Rules

    Rules should be easily memorized by adults.  After a few plays, hopefully clever children will be able to play without being constantly reminded of the rules.

2: Fast Play

    Kids have short attention spans.  They want to play with all of their toys every day.  Something that takes too long will not be played frequently

3: Thematic

    Kids play games.  They don't simulate warfare.  Every action should have an in-game explanation.   

4: Gridded

    Kids don't want to measure with a ruler or tape.  Gridding minimizes fiddliness and speeds player turns. Gridding should also reduce need for precision in moving pieces when there are long reaches for short arms.  

5: Modular

    As players age/improve, complications/expansions should be layered on to provide more strategic depth. 

6: Minimal Stat Keeping or Markers

    If it feels like homework, kids aren't going to want to play.  There should be no writing required during the game.  If markers are needed, they should be very thematic, very clear, and very rare.

I have a rough outline floating in my head of a IGO-UGO system with each player activating 2-3 units per turn.  For now there will be no limits on which units can be activated or tests to determine if the unit obeys.  Combat would be an opposed D6 roll.  Combat results in: No Change, Defender Counter-Attacks, Defender becomes scared, Defender runs away.  Unit types would be held to 3 (maybe 4) to start and as kids improve, additional types would be added.  Ideally, I'd like to build up to the trait/point system that Ganesha Games uses and multi-based units receiving group orders from dedicated officer units, but that may be several years away. 

No painting yesterday.  We put up the Christmas tree.  Which really means we spent way too much time messing with dead bulbs on the pre-lit tree then ending up putting string lights around it.  This tree only has to limp through this season.  Hopefully, we're in a new house next Christmas.  

A Farm Near Waterloo

 

One of the secondary goals of the Bear Project is creating 2" square grid terrain.  I hadn't liked the walls I had previously designed, but I think the latest variant will work well.  The bears will likely not be re-enacting specific battles of history, but if they would, they fit nicely.  For those who are not as steeped in history, any of these buildings could fit into any warm weather climate.  Painting the buildings darker gray could probably give a convincing stone look.  

Painting has not progressed.  Facing colors have been selected by the Princess.  The order of precedence has not yet been.  The full suite of four facing colors will only be needed for the infantry. The exact paint matches might be slightly off from what is shown below.

Painting Progress: Days 2-3

Representative Example of Each Army's Progress

Painting continues, even if at a slower pace.  Day 2 saw the Red Bears get their first and second coat of paint.  On day 3, the trees were painted with assistance from the kids.  Two hands on a cheap paintbrush with cheap paint makes for sloppy work. Luckily the trees can be cleaned up with a final coat pretty easily.  I do like how both sets are coming along.  I would have probably purchased better paint if I were to do it again.  The brand the kids picked takes at least three coats to get the right amount of coverage and intensity.

Armies on their drying trays

Closeup of Red Bears

 I’ve continued work on modeling walls with and without gates. I think they’re coming along well but may not be print-ready for a while. I’d like to get some/most of the bears finished painting before adding too much terrain work. The goal is to get a game playable by Christmas break.