Monday 23 March 2020

Solo Wargaming, or "What to do when you don't live with an opponent!"

I think by now that most of us tend to regard wargaming - that is, pushing our toy soldiers around a table and rolling dice to determine the outcome of conflict rather than leaving it to spirited yelling of "Bang, bang! You're dead!" - as a social activity. Most of the people that I know who play regular games invariably schedule theirs for the weekends as parenting or work requires. I suspect that most people would look at our games as an opportunity to pit two tactical minds against one another. They're friendly, spirited games with a code of honour that demands we treat our opponents amicably, but still a contest. Our enjoyment of the game might not come down to whether we win or lose, but it can certainly have a say in it!

The 'solitaire' or solo wargamer might seem to be at a disadvantage. Either faced with no regular opponents, a great distance to travel to play, or fascination with a period or conflict that nobody else sees the interest in, it might seem that solo gaming is the desperate result of necessity! Thinking of it this way, it could be imagined that solo gaming is the second best alternative, or 'not really a proper game' put together only by the desperate. Not so! Playing a game by oneself offers a host of bonuses and unexpected positives that might not be obvious at first glance, not least of which is the ability to interpret rules how you like rather than needing to adjudicate with an opponent seeking advantage!

Here I will offer my thoughts on where to get started and how one can begin looking at ways to adapt just about any game to play solo, whether there are published rules for it or not. I'll include links to a couple of resources along the way, and as much as possible I'll be trying to avoid repeating advice you'll find in other books or blogs - especially where those are published and available for purchase. Solo wargaming is its own beast, and with a great many people suddenly at a loss for how to get their gaming fix in the days of quarantine and self-isolation, consider at last a hidden gem you might enjoy a great deal more than you'd expect.



Just Play the Same Game as Always, By Yourself.

This is by far the easiest way to get started. Just drop down two armies - or split a collection in half and run a 'training exercise' - and play the role of your own army and the opponent's commander. A common question people ask when getting started with solo gaming is how to 'surprise' themselves, or make a system by which the enemy will act unexpectedly. When first dipping your toes into the idea, don't worry too much about that. Any game which features an element of chance such as dice or cards will provide a random outcome to any plan you try to set in place, so the surprises are baked straight in to the system.

This doesn't solve the essential issue of how most games are designed, though. Ordinarily pitting one (hopefully) balanced force against another in a game where neither side is meant to have any advantage at the outset means that the test - what we're trying to achieve with the game - is to overcome our opponent's tactical acumen, react to our own poor luck or push good luck, and generally come out on top of a fair fight. Once you've played a couple of simple games by taking on the role of commander of both armies on the battlefield, you'll no doubt get a sense of what those earlier questions are about. Past a point, you're really only playing to overcome the element of luck; you can't very well best yourself, after all, and even if you're playing both forces without favouring either of them, you'll still find after a couple of games you're probably looking for something more.

It does still provide an easy opportunity to test the waters, though, and by far requires the least preparation. Give it a shot, see what happens!



Commanders: Roleplaying Rears its Head

A very simple way to introduce some surprise and uncertainty to your games is to randomly generate a personality for the commander of the opposing army. This is a concept explored in depth in Platoon Forward! (available from https://toofatlardies.co.uk/ ) and one which is really easy to tack on to most games, no matter what rules you're using. Platoon Forward! covers this really well, but I'll offer an extremely brief consideration on the idea.

Before deploying both armies on the table, pick which one is going to be the opposing force and roll a die to generate the enemy commander's personality. This could be as simple as a D3 result: 1 is Cautious, 2 is Balanced, and 3 is Aggressive. With that in mind, you can start deploying forces to the battlefield, bearing in mind how the commander is likely to want to push their army into enemy territory or to hang back and fight more cautiously to deny ground to you, their opponent. This is essentially a very simple roleplaying game! When it comes time for an enemy unit to act, consider how the commander might order them about. A Balanced approach will ordinarily try to take the 'best choice,' maneuvering for advantage and pushing where a gap appears. Cautious commanders will either advance slowly, or create a massive push where they are guaranteed superiority at a specific point. Aggressive commanders will race for objectives, well, aggressively, and seek to isolate and destroy enemy units as quickly as possible.

This will occasionally mean you're making choices for the enemy that you might not ordinarily, creating a battle plan which your own army will need to adapt to rather than knowing automatically what both sides will do. You can even push this further, as sometimes it might seem that a commander will order something totally suicidal, or flounder and waste an opportunity due to their nature. Once again, a simple die roll will fill in for the role of fate (or roll of fate, if you will): Roll a D6, and on a 3+ a unit can act 'out of character' to either preserve itself in the face of overwhelming enemy presence, or to push an advantage their commander might avoid if it is clearly the best choice for them in the moment. Even the most steadfast model soldiers will occasionally object to being sacrificed needlessly!

You can, in theory, tie this in to however your game system handles the concept of Leadership or Morale. Rigid discipline might be boon or bane depending on the character of the army you're playing as the opposing side, so tweak and test and try again if it doesn't seem like you're getting quite the right result. The solo wargamer is lucky not to worry about wasting an opponent's time if they want to go back and re-do something!



Cards, Blinds and Keeping Secrets from Yourself

There's no end to the ways in which you can inject surprises into a game against yourself. Consider making up a deck of random events or bonuses that you draw at the start of each turn for your opponent, or 'immediate use' orders when you activate a unit. I thoroughly suggest owning a copy of The Wargaming Compendium by Henry Hyde - available through Amazon or wherever else Google tells you it can be purchased - and leafing through some of his suggestions on this. Likewise, Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming can be picked up via Amazon through John Curry's efforts, and this has a wealth of hidden activation systems and ways to make an enemy army act without your knowledge, if that's really what you're looking for. These do tend to require a little more preparation, but the end result is absolutely worth it as some of the critical decisions for an enemy really are taken out of your hands, leaving you at the mercy of an invisible, inscrutable high command!

I've also attempted to tackle something similar on the tabletop. The following is designed primarily for use with Bolt Action or similar WWII gaming systems, but remember as always that the solo wargamer needs only to entertain themselves; bodge the rules, tweak the system and jam it sideways on whatever game you like if you can make it work. It doesn't need to be perfect to be fun and occasionally surprise you!

Bolt Action Blinds System



Campaigns: Your New Best Friend

Playing a one-shot game to best an opponent is one thing, but where solo wargaming really comes into its own is as an opportunity to tell stories. Playing battles against armies that aren't necessarily equally matched or on ideal ground against one another? Perfect for when you aren't invested in success for either side, except for the outcome of the tale unfolding in your campaign. Playing to specific objectives and campaigns is absolutely where solo wargaming holds sway for me, personally, as you're free to tweak rules, introduce more if you like, throw out what doesn't work and simply enjoy playing out a series of scenarios that touch on the wider story unfolding, whether that's for a single platoon of battle-hardened soldiers in 1944, a posse of gunslingers in the Old West, or Space Marines and Orks off in the grimdark future. Again, I point to the absolutely excellent resources from TooFatLardies if you're in need of inspiration here. Any of their 'Pint Sized Campaigns' will provide ample suggestions if you're running a game, and 'At the Sharp End' is a must-have campaign construction kit I think belongs in the collection of any solo wargamer, with suggestions and rules that will absolutely work no matter what game system you're playing.

Playing to the outcome of a single battle is one thing, but you'll find it easier to invest in solo wargaming when there's more at stake - so to speak - than a few models removed from the table with every roll of the dice. When casualties mount, high command demands results and objectives are just out of reach... the stuff of legends will unfold on both sides, whichever outcome you're rooting for! Then at last, when the dust has cleared and the final tallies are made, if you don't like the result you can always throw down the miniatures again and go for a second round! Playing true consequences for your armies in this sense will usually be more satisfying, I suggest, but nobody's going to slap your wrist if you tweak things a little. You are literally entertaining yourself, and there is no wrong answer for how any of this should be played.



So, at last...

I've found it rare that many solo wargaming resources actually produce huge, detailed rule sets. You'll tend to find that most material aimed to those playing alone are really more toolboxes or guidelines, things to bolt on to familiar settings and games to introduce some of the drama and uncertainty of a live opponent with the benefit that we aren't going to bother them by taking an extra ten minutes between each move to get down and take photos of our battles! That being said, as well as the books I've mentioned already, you should definitely check out The Lone Warrior Blog which - as well as suggestions and forums for more content - actually does have complete rule sets for the enterprising gamer at home to print out and try themselves, many of those for free.

There's a lot more to be considered and plenty of ways that one can play without the 'benefit' of a live opponent, and solo wargaming needn't be considered the poorer cousin. I hope this encourages you to give it a shot yourself, and do check out some of the excellent resources out there. Google is your friend!

So good luck, and for as long as we might lack for opponents, have fun tackling the opportunities it presents to dive into a classic of wargaming.