WRG Scenarios for Wargames

Booklet Review

Reviewed by Rod Burr

This book by Charles Stewart Grant contains war game scenarios (or problems) in the same format as the ones by the same author that have appeared in BATTLE and MILITARY MODELLING magazines. These are all new scenarios, however. The motivation for providing a book of scenarios is to give people an intermediate alternative to the usual "confrontation" games between equal armies and full blown campaigns. The advantage of a scenario is that it can offer a more interesting battle between unequal armies with correspondingly unequal objectives without the additional work required for a campaign to do so.

In total 52 scenarios are presented in the book, all for land battles, although some involve supporting naval or air forces. These are arranged in groups by common themes such as "Reinforcements", "Rivers", and "Convoy and Ambushes". Each scenario is written up in 2-3 pages with a 1/2 page map and sections for Introduction, Ground (terrain notes), Period (for which the scenario is applicable), General Outline (forces, missions, and deployment), Playing the Game (set up sequence), Winning the Game, and Notes.

The forces for each scenario are generic for a given period. E.g., for a musket era scenario, the forces would be Red and Blue with generic units such as infantry battalions, foot and horse artillery batteries, and heavy and light cavalry regiments. In the period section, notes are given on what changes should be made in the forces and victory conditions to fight in another historical period (e.g. substitute elephants for tanks, ballistas for artillery). A few of the scenarios are by their nature restricted to a specific period, e.g. it would be difficult to fight the "Parachute Assault" scenario prior to the 20th century.

The scenarios can be used either straight from the book as written or easily modified by players for their own preferences. No particular rules are assumed, so rule specific details (e.g. morale and weapon classes, unit sizes) will have to be settled by the players. The scenarios don't require or assume that WRG rules will be used. In general the scenarios are clearly set up with few necessary details ommitted. One failing is in the maps that are sometimes unclear when a contour line runs between map edges rather than enclosing an area regarding which side of the contour line represents the higher ground. Also, while a terrain key for maps is provided in the back of the book, not all symbols used, e.g. for ditches, are listed in it. In these cases of ambiguity the Ground section will usually be adequate to explain them.

Overall this book can be highly recommended for players who aren't interested in the work required to design their own scenarios, but would like to fight something more interesting than pure "confrontation" battles between equal armies. Even for players who will design their own scenarios, the book will provide an excellent source of new ideas. One use our miniatures group has found for the book is to use randomly selected maps from the book as a basis for maps for battles from a colonial campaign.

More Reviews

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. IV #1
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1982 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com