Synopsis: A simple gridded game designed to be played with young wargamers. Miniature agnostic, but themed for Teddy Bears outfitted for 18th Century linear warfare. The rules are designed to be memorized by adults within a few turns and clever children within a few games.
Current Link: A Beary Simple Wargame
Change Log:
31 DEC 2023: Initial Upload
7 JAN 2024: Clarifications on unit cohesion, movement procedure, combat procedure. Images added
6 FEB 2024: Leader Bears lose combat ability, but encourage range extended to 2. Clarification on advantages. Author Notes added
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI think that these are a great, simple set of rules … and I hope that you give you and your family many hours of fun.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
DeleteThanks for looking them over. Your work on The Portable Wargame has greatly influenced A Beary Simple Wargame.
I agree with Bob, but found there were several points on which I wanted clarification, as explained below.
ReplyDeleteBear units: how many bears in a unit? I note that ‘Bear units and places must fit in the same grid space’, so a square must be able to hold one bear unit; can it hold more? Is there a fixed relation between the size of the squares and the number of bears in a unit?
Leader Bears: Does each army have just one Leader Bear, or may it have more? I presume that it is not necessary for each unit to have a Leader Bear? I would suggest that all bears ‘in the same square as a Leader Bear’ receive the advantage, rather than ‘adjacent to’ which might cross a square side.
Gunner Bears: It is clear only they can shoot cannons, but can other bears on Foot move a cannon, as seems to be implied in the Moving Rules on page 2? How many bears are required to move a cannon, and is one Gunner Bear sufficient to load and shoot it? The Advantages and Disadvantages section seems to suggest that bears other than Gunner Bears can man a cannon, but if only a Gunner Bear can shoot it, there can be no question of a disadvantage applying to cannon shots? If a cannon shoots at an opposing cannon, does a Scared or Run Away result apply to all the gun crew, or just to one bear?
Examples of attacks by musketry, cannon fire and Paw to Paw Combat would be very helpful. I presume each advantage adds 1 to the die roll and each disadvantage subtracts one, though this is never stated.
Is it your intention that, for example, if a Guard Bear unit on Foot attacks a cannon, the Guard Bears get +1 for being Guard, but also -1 for facing a cannon, which puts them at a disadvantage; or that the Guard Bears simply get their +1 advantage and the cannon gets +1 for its advantage against bears on foot?
Why not have differences in the defenders’ favour simply apply similar results to the attacker, so that the latter may become scared and continue the attack at a disadvantage next turn, or run away back to/behind its start point.
Does a bear unit that runs away remain scared afterwards until rallied by a Leader Bear? If a bear unit that is already scared suffer another Scared result, does that cause it to break and run, or count as a second disadvantage when dicing?
In Paw to Paw Combat, what is the relationship between ‘a space occupied by an enemy bear’ and a grid square?
One last point: be consistent in use of terms, so always put ‘square’ rather than ‘space’ to avoid any doubt.
Best wishes, Arthur
Arthur,
DeleteThanks for the feedback. I truly appreciate it. I think most of your questions come from a single poor explanation/omission on my part. Bear Units are intended to be a single entity. They are either all present for duty, scared, or removed from play (ran away). The number of bears in a unit is somewhat irrelevant. Obviously, as the size of the spaces increases, there is more room for bears or terrain.
Each Grid Square is a Space.
Leaders: I'm still somewhat undecided about how many leaders there should/could be. Initial thought is up to 1. Probably an advanced concept to have an officer leader bear and NCO leader bears. They are their own bear unit. Most likely a regular infantry unit, but players should be able to experiment with mounted leaders too.
Gunner Bears: Other bears are intended to be able to move and fire cannons, but they are not as effective as the gunner bears. The cannon is essentially a moveable terrain piece. If forced to retreat or run away (eliminated) the gun crew (gunner or other foot) leaves the gun in place.
Scared Bears who as a result of further combat would be scared again, retain their -1 scared disadvantage. Adding a retreat 1 space option will become an "advanced concept" for more experienced players.
Attacker vs defender differences: My kids are 4 and 3. They're not really grasping math all that well yet. They can count things that are "theirs" pretty well. The plan was for each player to roll 1D6, find/add their modifiers, and the difference was the result. For older players, it is mathematically the same as all modifiers impacting only the attacker and the difference between the attacker and defender being the "base value".
Ryan,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure your kids will have great fun playing this game with you, and you will be interpreting the rules for them much of the time. As you suggest, some of my concerns arose because it was not completely clear whether shooting and combat were resolved on a bear unit basis, or for individual bears, and the diagram on page 2 made it seem that musketry was being resolved between individual bears, like a skirmish wargame. Thanks for clearing that up.
On the other hand, your statements about Gunner bears on page 1 and other bears manning cannon on page 2 are contradictory, but can easily be altered to reflect your intent as explained in your reply. I presume a gun crew normally contains at least one Gunner Bear, but how many bears altogether to move a cannon?
There are many similarities with the basic version of HG Wells's Little Wars, in which infantrymen and cavalrymen could crew guns with no need for specialist gunners.
As you point out, there is plenty of scope for development as your kids learn the game and become more skilful. I look forward to reading about them.