Month: October 2021

Wars of Ozz Game Last Weekend

I received an Email recently from Les, who is a fan of Combat Patrol(R) that he was going to be in Florida near where I live for a few days. We took the opportunity for him to come over and try Wars of Ozz for the first time. I had planned on a rather large game including Zoom and in-person players, but a number of people had to cancel at the last minute. We played a two-player Ozz game with Dave playing Nomes and Les playing Munchkins.

Initial setup for the game. The white tags are to help players participating via Zoom.

The scenario involved the Nomes and Munchkins vying for control of a key crossroad. It was a simple scenario to introduce Les to the rules. Each side had 25 points.

The Munchkin force had two Landwehr units in column along the road (M3 and M4), a medium artillery battery (M5), Sourdough’s Regiment (M1), and a regiment of light cavalry.
The Nomes begin to advance. Throughout the game, Dave played the Nomes very aggressively, which may have been his downfall — or maybe it was his dismal dice rolling. The Nomes had two blunderbuss units (N1 at the top of the picture and N2), two axe-armed units (N3 and N4), and a medium artillery battery.

As usual, turn one consisted mostly of both sides maneuvering into contact.

The Munchkins advance toward the crossroads.
… Then it got exciting.

Dave charged with his Nomes and gained some initial success against the Munchkin Landwehr, with their poor Melee attributes. The Landwehr counter attacked against he blunderbuss men. In FIVE consecutive Reaction Tests at close range, Dave’s blunderbuss men never decided to fire. The blunderbusses have an advantage at close range, and Dave’s poor Reaction Tests on his right flank probably contributed most to his eventual defeat.

On the other flank, the Munchkin light cavalry threw back Dave’s other Nome blunderbuss unit. They eventually rallied and took another stab at the cavalry, but not before the horsemen charged and routed the Nome artillery. Dave failed another Reaction Test and did not get of effective artillery fire before the horsemen closed.
A Nome axe unit did manage to route the Munchkin artillery as the center and Nome right got more confused.
This is right before the cavalry charge the defeated the Nome artillery. In the distance you can see the Nome axe unit that routed the Munchkin artillery but never managed to take advantage of the situation to hit either Munchkin infantry unit on the flank.
The Munchkins have driven back the aggressive Nomes and resumed their advance toward the crossroad.
At this point, the Nomes had only one unit left. Although they technically held the crossroads, at the end of turn four, we called the game a Munchkin victory. The Nomes had no hope of holding the crossroad if we had played another turn.

Despite dismal die rolling by Dave, I think that both players had a good time. Les’ dice were about average, some good rolls and some bad. I don’t think Dave rolled less than 9 on a Reaction Test the whole game.

This was Les’ first experience with the rules, and he seemed to like them. He is working on his own rules for the American Revolution. I have sent what I think is the final draft of Wars of Orcs and Dwarves to the publisher for layout. Soon I will begin work on Wars of Eagles and Empires (for black powder era warfare). The initial rules will focus on the Napoleonic Wars, and I’ll be looking for folks to write supplements for other periods, such as the Seven Years War, Jacobite Rebellion, and AWI. I am talking to Les about writing that supplement.