Compressed Wargaming refers to an even smaller gaming surface than one normally expects from wargames with historic miniatures, especially those that utilize a hexagon grid. A small battlefield means the placement of units in the first or second turn may set in motion a limited series of choices, and pretty much decide the outcome. Also, using a small table means miniatures larger than 15mm may not be acceptable for appearance, though it may be possible to use 1/72 Ancients. The reason for that is ancients war gaming doesn't usually contain a lot of terrain other than elevation change, so there won't be too many buildings and fences and walls to stand out against the smaller height of hills that is necessary with smaller hexagons.

What Had To Change

The first thing we already knew was terrain needed to be created to fit a smaller hexagon grid. Buildings weren't an issue, but the fence and wall sections, formed to follow the shape of a 4" hexagon, had to be remade for 2.5". As the walls and fence are paper fold-ups, we just printed more and folded them up around farm field zone templates (a farm field averages 4 hexes in various configurations). We also reasoned that as there was not going to be a wall or fence on the table without being part of a farm, individual lengths would no longer exist. So, while we like to see fences following a country road, they'll now only do it as part of a specific scenario or part of a larger field. This cleans up the table. For Hex Command Gunpowder, this works fine for ACW, but we'll have to see what happens in WW II Europe for Hex Command Mechanized.

While we had great success with four inch hexagons, the move to 2.5" yielded the space of a 10'x6' table in a 6'x4' space. This smaller footprint made a lot of people happy. In keeping with the hexagon change, the stands for the figures had to be changed again. Instead of being two separate stands per unit, all the figures were mounted to a single hexagon shape cut from matte board. Though it is still possible to put all the existing stands of a 15mm unit on a movement plate and therefore not have to remount them, the benefits of remounting were obvious.

So, from the days of 10'x6', we've gone to 8'x5', then 6'x4'. After using 4'x4' successfully, we've gone to 4'x2'. If we go any further, it's time to bring out the CD rom games! That's a heck of a savings in space and makes gaming in dorm rooms even more possible.

Rule Changes

Keep in mind that the size of the gaming area in question here equates roughly to that of only Cemetery Hill. If one hex is supposed to represent about 100 yards, this smaller gaming area measures 10.5 hexes deep (between players) to 23 hexes wide. With a range of 800 effective for artillery, it means they're firing from virtually the first turn they move on. With units potentially in combat on turn one, it means players may have too much control.

We wanted to institute the use of action cards for more random events. We've always considered a random event or action card system similar to that in Hasbro's "Battle Cry," but those cards have more to do with disconnected story than actual historic relevance. That is, there is no cause and effect of using the cards -- no "consequence." So, we created our own using Avery business card template for MS Word and these will be available from our website at imagineimage.org.

Some of the other givens in a game like this include the following:

• Must be a Defender/Attacker scenario
  -- Having a scenario where both units move onto the area will have to be tested later, so for now it was Defender (me - Confederates) in place.
• Defender Order of Battle
  -- Defender must be outnumbered by 1/3 in order for the Attacker to have a chance of winning. Use of the cards, however, makes that supposition less certain. Defender cannot have more cavalry than Attacker. Defender must have some fake units on board or hidden and marked on a map.
• Attacker Artillery
  -- If Attacker wishes to bombard enemy before or in tandem with assaults, will have to set artillery down virtually upon entering it.
• Attacker Quantity and Entry Points
  -- Attacker cannot be limited to entering from just one region of the board, but on two facings at least, or at one with another as a random event. If attacker masses for assault for first turn and Defender is not allowed to adjust at least 1/4 of his forces, chances of Defender winning are remote, unless other random events, cards or secret events are part of the scenario.
• Flexibility Limitations
  -- Due to the increased "Birds Eye" View and proximity of units to each other, written orders for each brigade's objective may be necessary, unless a card system can effectively control (or more accurately dispense) a believable story line. Traditionally (at least in Fix Bayonets!), commanders who wanted to change intentions had to roll a die higher than the Tactical value in the Command Valuation System (CVS).

Use of the Cards

Action cards are pretty much a replacement for a plan, which is refreshing because players don't have to think too much beyond the first turn, which is pretty much the intent for such cards. It didn't take long to see that, when using cards, what is needed is a way to connect cards. In other words, you cannot have an all-out attack followed by a move a single unit situation. Well, you COULD, but it makes no tactical sense. For example, some cards should not be playable depending on the card that was just played. What this implies is that players may have to keep the cards on their side of the table to be sure they are following a logical time-line. This is not complicated. It's similar to keeping "property" cards in Monopoly.

Different from the way the Battle Cry system works is that we don't have a 3-region use of the cards, because that doesn't make tactical sense either. What DOES make sense, however, is that the cards should be applied to a group of units that the player chooses. In other words, it's bad enough the card limits what the player does, but limiting who it applies to is going a bit too far. So, instead of Right/Center/Left, we grouped our units by Force 1, Force 2 and Force 3 -- conceivably up to five or more, depending on how long players want the game to last. In a sense, this segmentation is similar to the Activation Sequence we already use.

The Result?

For pictures and more information on how this all actually worked out, see our website pages describing these events and the article "Moving to Hex Command 2" at: www.imagineimage.org.