«Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.»
Life has a funny way of waylaying our best-laid plans. Last year I had to forgo my hobby time as my main occupation left me exhausted. In the evenings I found myself many times sitting in the sofa staring blankly at the walls, drained of all possible energy.
This year seems that I will be able to dedicate more time to the hobby. Unfortunately due to me and my main gaming partner hectic lives, we won’t have as much time or space as we used to.
I used to have a dedicated 6’x5′ gaming table which has turned now into office space. Instead I’ll have to make do with the coffee table in my living room. It’s about 3’x4′, and with a little effort I can manage to get it up to 4’x4′ when needed. Which is not too shabby.
Yet, this situation presents a challenge as we used to play a lot of Too Fat Lardies games (like Chain of Command or Sharp Practice 2), that required 6’x4′ tables and were 2-5 hours long. So we have been forced to change our “wargaming scope”. That means opting for smaller, shorter and a tad simpler games. Those should allow us a more relaxed narrative experience. That also means less big expansive projects, and more tamed limited ones.
Setting Requirements
I don’t know how other people solve their issues, but I like to make lists. List help me see and analyze possibilities. In this particular case I made myself a little list of requirements to find miniature wargames that would suit our new scope:
– Gametime between 30 minutes and 2 hours.
– Table space of 3’x3′ or 3’x4′, and 4’x4′ for special occasions.
– A figure count of between 4 to roughly 40 figures per side.
– A focus on narrative gameplay.
– Simple rules but with many possibilities.
– If possible an option to be played in cooperative mode instead of player vs player.
Qualifiers
An instant qualifier were the games by Joseph A. McCullough like Frostgrave, Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago, Rangers of Shadow Deep or Silver Bayonet. They are well written, with a ton of possibilities that allow deep narratives without crazy miniature counts.
A second choice was a selection of games designed by Andy Hobday of Footsore Miniatures and Graham Davey from Gray for Now. Those would be games like Test of Honour, Mortal Gods, 02 Hundred Hours and Baron’s War.
A third interesting option were the games published by Studio Tomahawk: SAGA, Muskets & Tomahawks 2 and V for Victory. All suitable for a 4’x4′ table and covered all the eras we have miniatures for.
Last but not least, the wild cards we found were the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, Star Wars Legion and Dead’s Man Hand, as we already owned them.
Here in this space I’ll publish the steps we take in this journey to a new wargaming scope.
