One Hour Wargames: My Review

I should be picking up my war room at present vice writing this reivew. However as I look at my models that are still based up for other systems and think of how I am going to rebase them  I can't help but reflect on how much more I like One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas. I can almost see the casualties as they fall or flee and virtually feel the morale of the unit dripping away as they resolve to be steadfast and strong. OHW has upped the imagination factor for me by 10x or more and that I believe is what we as wargamers strive for in our miniatures recreation.

I can't really put my finger on why I was so keen to buy this book. I remember reading the reviews up on TMP but my first thoughts were it was overly simple. What I didn't realize until I bought and read it was that it was simple genius. Neil's rules are subtle and sophisticated. I've spent way too much time looking for that perfect set of rules to capture the feel I wanted from wargaming and at long last found it.

I was guffawed at how his army sizes capped at 6 units but then started thinking about the average size Warhammer army like this one below (*note image had to be removed Aug2017) and discovered that they almost always have around 6 core units.

So I was hooked and decided to look at basing schemes that keep with the principles I've learned on army design from the masters like Donald Featherstone and Bob Cordery on starting and keeping your armies small. I've come up with 50mm square bases for 10mm World War II as you may have seen in two of my recent battle reports here. The other base size is 1.5" x 3" for 6/10/15mm ancmed/fantasy models which you can see on my fantasy blog here: The Chronicles of Aeyr. I am also flirting with using 50x40mm bases for 1/600 VSF & moderns along with 2" x 5" for 28mm fantasy. 

Applying the principles above with Neil's suggested guidelines I now have several really well rounded forces for OHW and am close to completing several others. And most importantly to me are projects I've had sitting for years are seeing the light of day and are drawing closer to completion. 

One side effect however is that I have developed a voracious appetite for wargame scenarios. Gone are my days of the tournament style pitched battle. Done. Well it's 1600 hours here in Northwest Arkansas so I should return to cleaning up and organizing my messy war room. In closing OHW, for me, has been my best wargame purchase of 2015. Possibly in the last several years. Cheers.