The inscrutable H.G. Wells developed a miniatures war game called “Little Wars” (available at Project Gutenberg). I recently had an opportunity to play a modified version of his game. I’ll briefly review the game itself, and then provide a full account of the Battle of St. Enoch’s Cathedral.

Game Play

“Little Wars” is in many ways the grandfather of our modern miniatures war games. Unlike the games played by professional soldiers, it sacrifices realisms for fun. In general this is a good thing as the rules are simple and play isn’t bogged down.

In combat, forces with equal numbers kill each other to the man. If one side has more men, some of the enemies are taken as POWs and the rest killed. There are no ranged attacks for the soldiers, but Mr. Wells allows for a six inch range for the inclusion of forces in a melee.

Cannons actually fire projectiles and if they hit a soldier, he dies. To make them a bit more potent, they shoot four times a turn. Though they can either move or fire, they cannot do both on the same turn.

Units

Mr. Wells uses three units: soldiers, calvary, and cannons. The soldiers and calvary only do melee combat and are exactly the same except that calvary can move twice as far per turn. This rule ignores that men on horseback tend to be more powerful than those standing. Sure, they have the movement, but they have the same fighting properties as the soldiers. The soldiers and calvary are portrayed on the battlefield by toy soldiers of approximately 2″ in height.

The cannons are however toy cannons that use a spring to fire a small wooden projectile. They must also have four men around them or they can not fire. They can also be captured or rendered unusable by killing all or some of the men guarding it.

Rules

As previously said, the rules are pretty simple. This leads to fast game play, but downs the realism. Some of the more complex rules govern POWs. Mr. Wells devised many rules about how to capture groups of men and what happens to them. I won’t go into them here, but there are a few and they don’t seem to add much to the game.

My biggest gripe is in how he handles combat. He is trying to eliminate the element of chance inherent in rolling dice, but reduces combat to a simple mathematical calculation. Dice allow for heroes and wimps, as well as all those small factors that the rules overlook and catch generals by surprise. Despite this, it is overall a very fun game and worth playing.

The Battle of St. Enoch’s Cathedral

Before I get into the battle report I’ll explain a few changes I made to the game. I used dice to resolve melee combat. The rolls were opposed, in that the player with the highest number on a die killed the opposing unit and kept their own, in the event of a tie both units died. We had five dice each so it was easy to handle turns with lots of action.

I didn’t have any toy cannons so I constructed catapults out of spoons and rolled up cardboard, and then used wadded up paper for ammo. They worked surprisingly well, but I made a critical error in only allowing each catapult to fire once a turn. That oversight drastically reduced their effectiveness and made the game last longer.

I also threw out all the POW rules, shortened soldier movement from 1’ to 6″, and didn’t have any calvary. I wanted calvary to be part of the game, but I didn’t have any suitable units to represent them. To represent the basic soldiers, I used those cheap plastic army men found at your local drug store.

In the Beginning…

Our armies consisted of 75 men and 3 catapults each. Shannon decided to play on the defensive and I went for the offensive. My plan was to go strong on the left and middle, and then sneak a catapult and a small squad to the right. I intended to take the combat to her back lines as quickly as possible. To this end, I wanted to advance my catapults to the most advantageous positions.

From the diagram one can see our starting positions and initial battle plans. The light green blobs are my soldiers and the dark green my catapults. Similarly, the light yellow blobs are Shannon’s soldiers and the dark yellow her catapults. The red lines are my planned advance and the green “x”s the intended locations for my catapults. The blue line is a river, with the two breaks being bridges; the black boxes are buildings and the one with a “c” is the cathedral.

Whiffage…

We both slew a few of our own men during the first few catapult salvos, mostly because we were still learning how to aim them. Then I committed a great tactical blunder by forgetting where she had placed her men. In my defense, she had hidden them behind buildings to avoid my catapults and from my position I couldn’t see them. So when I advanced around the cathedral I didn’t expect any resistance, but it sprang from the trap and kept coming.

The following diagram shows how the melee started.

End Game…

My blunder led to the defeat of my main force. I barely held my right flank and my most exposed catapult. However, Shannon was so busy with those fights that I managed to slip five men past her defenses to the far left. Those few men fought hard and defeated one of her catapults. By this point her forces were too few to mount a defense and the day was mine.

This diagram shows the end of the battle.

Summary…

It was a very fun game. For all of the crudeness of the pieces, it was just as entertaining as any high priced miniatures game I have ever played. It cost a total of $10.14 to buy the necessary pieces and a small time investment to assemble the catapults. Money well spent.

I made the mistake of not allowing the catapults to shoot more then once a turn. However, the inclusion of dice spiced things up a bit. Admittedly, Mr. Wells was imagining fielding a few more troops, but I still like dice.

The two lessons I learned:

1. Never ever forget the location and strength of enemy troops.
2. Allowing even five men to break the line can lead to disaster.