How to Play Wargames
How to Play Wargames In wargames as in real life, strategy is largely dictated by the available tactics. If tactics are what you do in detail, strategy is what you do with your total resources. If your tactics are such that your forces are much more effective in rough and wooded terrain, then your strategy will dictate that you need far fewer forces to hold the wooded terrain and, if perchance, you have specialized units that are more effective than the enemy in attacking in rough and wooded terrain, then much of your operations would take place on that kind of ground. That's a fairly blatant example of how strategy is dictated by the tactical abilities of your units. In wargames, tactics are also affected by certain mechanical elements common to most games. The chief among these is the hexagon grid itself.
As you can see from looking at the Drive on Metz game (and it's a good idea to refer to the game map while reading this section), there's a best way and a worst way to defend on a hexagon grid. The best way is to have an empty hex between each unit, have your defending units in a straight line along the grain of the hex. The "grain" of the hex grid is a straight row of hexes (the hexes stacked on top of each other like barrels).
The worst defense is one in which there is a unit in every hex along the grain of the hex. This prevents you from covering a very wide area, usually makes it easier for your units to be surrounded and also ties down a large number of your forces. The next worst defense is defending against the grain since this allows the attacker to bring a minimum of three units to bear against each of your defending units. When you're defending against the grain you also have the option of having a non straight line since you will again have no more than three attacking units against each one of your defending units. This can actually be an advantage in that, in almost any situation, you won't be able to avail yourself of a straight line because of the way the terrain shows up in irregular patterns across the map. That hill you must defend or river crossing that must be held always seems to be in an awkward position. Thus, the straight line is the unnatural situation.
Another type of defense which is not really a defense at all is the one in which you have two empty hexes between each unit. This is actually not a defense but a screen since the loss of one unit or even the movement of one unit one hex in the wrong direction opens up your line and allows your enemy to penetrate into your rear area and easily surround your units. A situation such as this assumes one of four things. One, you don't have sufficient forces to cover the front, in which case there's not much you can do about it. Second, you do have sufficient force to cover the front, but you prefer to have a strong reserve (in which case you know what you're hex tactics doing); and if the enemy does break through, you will presumably know what to do with your superior reserve. Third, you've just made a stupid, terrible mistake and are about to lose the game because you left two empty hexes between each defending unit. Four, you took a calculated risk that one particular part of the front would not be threatened and left this area thinly held. If you calculated correctly, you can recover from this, if not, go back to third item.
Another one of the standard items of hexagon games is the ability of the attacker to advance into the defeated defender's vacated hex. This is usually known as "advance after combat" and is an exception to the general rule that units may not move during the part of the game turn where they conduct combat operations.
All is not as simple as it seems. Remember, in most games you cannot move once adjacent to an enemy unit. On the face of it, that vacated hex is a new possession of the victorious attacker, but it can be a poisoned gift if, on either side of it, are additional defending units. Therefore, you must observe a couple of very important rules when making your decision as to whether or not your attacking units should advance, There are basically three reasons why you would want to advance. First, this would normally pin down additional defending units. You may wish to do this even at the risk of losing the advancing unit. Second, as a corollary of the first reason, you may wish to set up a defending unit for elimination by surrounding it with flank attacks and then destroying the unit just surrounded (and thus unable to retreat)
Surround Attacks
The third reason is for you to be in favorable terrain. This is often the case in situations in which you are fighting over possession of a town or another key terrain feature. Since, in many games, you are forced to have combat if you are in an enemy unit's Zone of Control (one of the units adjacent hexagons, which limit the movement of enemy units entering it), by your taking the favorable terrain, the enemy will then be forced to attack you at unfavorable odds.
Again, the only big risk in advancing after combat is that the advancing unit would put itself in a position to be surrounded and destroyed in the next turn. This risk must be weighed against the potential advantages.
The defender will also get opportunities occasionally to advance after combat if the attacker gets an unfavorable result and must himself either retreat (or be destroyed). Normally, the defending unit will not advance after such a favorable combat. In the first place, since the defender is going to move next anyway, there's no advantage to be gained by advancing in order to pin enemy units, although there are exceptions. There could be a situation in which the defending unit is already immobilized by enemy units all around it and, in its own turn, would not be able to move anyway. In a case such as this, your "lost battalion" might as well do all the damage it can since its days are numbered. In general, the only reason for the defending unit advancing after combat is to disrupt the attacking side's operations. But again, you must weigh the possible loss of that unit against any possible advantage. When dealing with combat operations on the hex grid, you will quickly discover that when playing another person, the intrinsic instinct for self-preservation rapidly asserts itself in the form of an unbreakable line of your units facing an unbreakable line of your opponent's units. Victory, then, usually boils down to how best to break the line.
I should point out that this is a classic problem for game designers. Granted, there are many situations that are basically lines of opposing troops staring at, and sparing with, one another, unable to do much damage. But what makes historical wargames so interesting is that most battles did have a winner (war, being a game without rules, does not lend itself to draw-type situations). These victories were usually the result of any number of factors that, if the designer can incorporate them successfully into the game, will make for a rich and varied situation.
Some of these factors had to do with the way the armies were set up at the beginning of the battle. Others pertained to restrictions (often self-imposed) placed on one side or the other with regard to moving or using their combat forces. Other odd but interesting effects come from the historical victory conditions which often have nothing to do with logic, but are nonetheless critical because at the time, they seemed like the right things to do. For example, in the Drive on Metz game, the Americans would have been much better served by trying to get around Metz from the north instead of from the south. At the time, going around from the south seemed a great idea, but, with the advantages of hindsight, we can see that the Germans north of Metz were weaker than we assumed.
History provides a never-ending procession of examples such as this. Without such odd and illogical behavior, history would be dull indeed, and there wouldn't be much need for games such as ours.
All right, but let us assume logic does prevail and you're faced with a line of units. You've got to crack it. If there isn't any flank you can get around and assuming it has to be a frontal assault, pay close attention to the following points on how to do it.
First of all, you must be the superior player. That is, you must have more strength on the map than the other player. First you must calculate the maximum of combat strength you can bring to bear in any one hex. This means analyzing your units and, if you have stacking of units (more than one unit on a hex) in the game, you must take that into account to see how strong a "shock" force you can come up with. Then you must calculate the maximum defensive strength of the various enemy positions. What you are trying to achieve is good combat odds, normally 3 to 1 or better, so that you can at least push back defending enemy units, What you are going to try to do is compromise the defender's entire position by taking key defensive positions away from him. As this is done, you will force the defender to do one of two things: either retreat his entire line, which will be costly since you will have already pinned down (moved adjacent to) some of his units, thus forcing him to sacrifice the pinned units in order to retreat the others; or, if he decides to stay where he is, you will create a bulge in his line that you will eventually surround and destroy. This is much like a siege in that it's going to require a lot of carefully planned attacking. It will also require a bit of luck since, if the defender is on the ball, he is going to see what's coming and form his own shock force for the purpose of taking yours on.
You now begin to see that technical expertise will take you only so far. A lot of it is psychological. Much of it depends on the other player making a mistake or something as simple as putting one unit in the wrong hex, putting it in a position that looks OK at first, but on further analysis is not OK at all. In this respect, playing the games is much like playing chess. There are tremendous similarities and the last time we checked, more than 98 percent of wargamers had played chess. To be successful with wargames, you've got to plan, look ahead and be lucky.
All of this advice also works when playing solitaire. It's an amazing experience to take advantage of, and be tripped up by, your own mistakes on both sides. Kind of makes you humble.
