Massacre!

 

Play testing the 3x3 PW game in a Wee Matchbox  produced a surprising result, so that ticks a box (pun unintended).

Before reporting the game I want to point you in the direction of Roger's Matchbox game which is a really very brilliant Cowboy shoot-out, featuring thematic dice!! Please visit here.

The Game (see the last blog post for the rules)

The grid squares were shuffled (blank side up) and 9 picked and placed between the Reserve Areas

The two sides diced for ends. Red scored highest and chose North.

Army Red looked smugly at a very defend-able town between two woods (the Lake is impassable too).

Initial positions - Red had 4 Infantry and 1 Artillery, Blue 3 Infantry, 1 Cavalry and 1 Artillery (positioned on the hill to get a bonus).

Simultaneous Artillery fire saw red lose an infantry unit on the first throw!

Army Blue attacked the town and moved up a unit from the Reserve Area. Army Red replaced his lost Infantry unit with a reserve.

Turn 2 saw another Red Infantry unit destroyed by Artillery fire!

Blue's attack on the town continued without success. Red brought his final reserves into action (not illustrated)

Blue's Artillery fumbled on Turn 3 allowing Red to rush out of the woods and attack them. The attack on the town saw a Blue success with a natural 6 rolled - Red were now down to two units!

Blue moved up more forces on Turn 4. Red was now attacking both the town and the hill, desperate to damage Blue somewhere!

Disaster for Red! Turn 5 saw the Red Army reduced to one unit which was looking likely to get surrounded!

The horror show was completed on Turn 7 - a complete massacre of Red's Army and a resounding success for Blue. Not at all as I expected things, mainly due to the powerful (rather too powerful) artillery that wiped out two units of Infantry at the beginning of the battle blunting Red's defence.

The playing pieces, in case anyone wants to have a go...

Distracted

 December is always a bit of strange month at work, completing projects that "have to be done before Christmas", and finishing processes that work on a Calendar Month rotation. As a creative distraction yesterday I invested an hour making a 3x3 Portable game that would fit in a Wee Matchbox. Apart from the challenge of fitting a complete game in a matchbox, I also decided it had to be made from things I already had, or had free access to and should provide a game which required no record keeping. The latter meant a game that saw units that were"hit" being destroyed / removed at once. In terms of game period, I chose a Roman Civil War theme as I'm really enjoying Archduke Piccolo's latest campaign.

Here then is Civil War! in a Wee Matchbox.

Art credit: www.symbolikon.com

The Matchbox - the grid on the cutting mat is 1cm

The Rules (unfolded and legible with good eyesight)

12 grid square options and 2 Reserve Areas - printer friendly card used 

Unit tokens - 4 Infantry, 2 Cavalry, 1 Artillery
Art Credit: www.juniorgeneral.org

The Wee Matchbox packed - with room for an Expansion Pack

Digital Play Test in MS Excel

Downloadable version of the Rules

In the next post I hope to demonstrate that one could actually play the game using the components created... (I hope).