SOLO WARGAMING

There is many people who don't understand what are we talking about when we deal with solo wargames. 

Fear of the Dark skirmish wargame was born as a solo skirmish wargame, as I always leaned to solo gaming, and many people ask about how does it work, or even why do I play solo. 

Playing always has a social component, meeting with friends or acquaintances to have fun around a table, but we do not always have opponents against which to deploy our miniatures.

It may be for various reasons that we end up approaching solo wargames or with the option to play solo:

There are no players in our surroundings; Nobody collects miniatures or loves to roll dice while making the noise of shots with their mouths... Pew, pew... (yes, we have all done it at some point).

No other player wants to play THAT particular wargame that you like so much ("my little pony skirmish battles ... why the hell doesn't anybody want to play this game?").

You want to try new rules or variants in games and nobody else seems to care. ("Who says that my paratroopers can't face werewolves? Okay, the characteristics don't come in the Chain of Command ruleset but ...").

Know perfectly a particular ruleset ("they have been playing Flames of war for two years, and I start playing now and I haven't even read the rules yet, but they are not going to beat me up").

You don't have time to meet friends because of real life responsibilities (work, kids ... The f*****g real life).

You just like to play alone, some will see it as something strange, but we see many people play video games or computer games alone and nobody finds it strange.... Many times we like to play our way, at our own pace, take our time...

In fact, there is currently a great demand for miniature wargames to include rules to play alone, or at least have an adaptation that allows it, and more and more games include rules that allow you to play and have fun by deploying your miniatures in the table and play alone.

I have to tell you that (for me) solo wargames don't deal with wining the enemy or prevent him from wining... Solo wargames are about IMAGINATION, creating a story and seeing it develop through your actions. Many times when you lose a game but the story has been great (or epic) you feel comforted. This is not competing to win, it is creating a story.

You may think that what I say is a bit childish, but ... What can I say? I am 44 years old and I enjoy playing with little toys in a table... Don't tell me that something may sound childish ...

What do we usually think when we talk about solo miniature wargames? A player who sets the table and then plays both sides, unable to fully identify with either side and trying not to cheat himself?

A basic idea about playing solo is to split up and play with both sides... That may work for some people, but it is not common, since when splitting you cannot fully identify with either side, and it is difficult to make decisions without your previous or future actions been affected these decisions.

There is much more beyond that image, we can really play solo and make it a very fun experience.

For these reasons we will avoid this solo game mode, since (from my point of view) it is not totally satisfactory, since what we are looking for is to choose a side and face the enemy, fully identifying with our side and doing everything possible to defeat the enemy. So let's see the possibilities we have...

We generally find two types of games that we can enjoy playing solo:

Narrative games based on scenarios or adventures with a plot. Each scenario will set the story that we are going to play, will establish the layout of the table, where each side displays and the behavior/actions of the enemies. These types of games are the closest mixture of skirmish wargames and role-playing games (at 75% and 25% respectively), giving great importance to the story behind the scenario.

Within the category of miniature skirmish narrative games we can include many available titles that are directly intended to be played solo: Fear of the Dark, ​​Rangers of Shadow Deep, Pulp Alley, Arkeo Obskura, Perilous Tales, Blood on the Blade / Blood in Space, the Walking Dead All Out War, Last Days, Battlespace...

In these games we will have a base game (a core book) with its system of rules and a lot of scenarios or games, each with its specific characteristics (number of minis, deployment, table layout, enemy behavior, possible events...) so that when we read the scenario we know the layout of the table and the enemy's deployment, but there are always points of interest, plot points, threat tokens or whatever you want to call them that are nothing more than random events that make the course of the game random enough to surprise us when playing it.

In fact, you can replay these games and most of the times the result will be very different games.

Games designed to be played by two players in which an artificial intelligence (AI) system has been made to decide the actions of the side we face. Generally, the layout of the table, the deployment and everything related to the enemy side will have a fairly high element of randomness and luck. These types of games are the classic miniature wargames to which an AI system has been implemented to face us.

Within this category we can find books that offer us some tools that will allow us to play as if we had a real enemy. What these tools will provide us is a multitude of possible confrontation scenarios, each one with its own table layout (or totally random) displays of the different sides, structure and composition, possible events... Everything you need so that you can face the enemy and do your best against the enemy who will act/react based on programmed decisions.

These systems have a solid base such as one hour wargames, one hour skirmishes or platoon forward (for World War II), although what we will find easily will be adaptations or mods made by the players' community themselves.

And another important issue is: of all the existing ruleset available, which rules to use? And there is a golden rule: play with the ruleset with which you feel more comfortable.

The rules have to be simple and easy, since you are alone to carry both sides, and the more complicated they are, the easier it will be that we get stuck in the mud and cannot move the story forward. We can complicate them as much as we want as long as we are comfortable with them and can handle them in a fluid way.

Let's list a few of the existing rulesets for solo play:

Fear of the Dark. What can I say about this ruleset? I made it, so, whatever I say is going to be quite subjective and it's not going to be a fair opinion. 

Made for solo play (or full coop) in the horror world created by H. P. Lovecraft. It's a narrative skirmish wargame as it mixes classic skirmish wargame with a rpg lite system in a narrative setting. 

If you want to know more bout this game click HERE

Frostgrave. A successful and well known game. In the Perilous dark supplement it includes some rules to play solo and a campaign of 10 scenarios. It is very interesting to read just for the ideas it generates when explaining how to play solo. Although apart from those 10 scenarios and a random system to create dungeons, it is a bit difficult to use it as a solo game itself.

Rangers of Shadow Deep. Narrative skirmish wargame perfect for solo play. 100% recommendable. Everything I could say about this magnificent game is said in this review I made in a brother blog a few months ago and that you can see by clicking HERE.

THW. Initials of TwoHoursWargames, a classic of solo wargames with a multitude of settings. Highly recommended. This system has deserved its own post in a brother blog in which you can read the virtues of this system. You can see it clicking HERE.

Battlespace. A recent title designed for a modern warfare setting and designed to be played solo. Through a random enemy deck the enemies and events appear in a random way. This game is fast and deadly. And really fun, it´s a great game.

Frontline Heroes: Fields of Normandy. This is a solo/PvP skirmish wargame set in World War II. In this game, our soldiers will be members of the Allied forces battling against the Nazi army on the European front.
Frontline Heroes features a comprehensive rules system and 21 missions for solo or multiplayer play, presented in a nearly 200-page book, available in english and in spanish.

This ruleset is a fast-paced, easy to learn and dynamic game.

Check the Facebook group for more info (click HERE) 

Last days: zombie apocalypse. A recent game from Osprey publishing with very good reviews, with a solo system created by its own author and posted on their website for free. Zombie games have the advantage that zombies have a fairly simple AI, so the games in which we face our side against groups of zombies, the solo mode is perfect and runs smoothly with guaranteed fun.

The walking dead: all out war. It has a solo system that works very well, and like any other zombie game, it is perfect for solo game. A must if you are a fan of the comics / series saga.

Blood in the blade (and its twin brother blood in space). This game is a set of rules for solitaire or co-op skirmish game, set on a fantasy background, but can also be used for non-fantasy games it introduces a really good AI decision-making system based on flowcharts or decision trees.

This AI system makes the enemies act in a logical way as a real opponent would do.

Pulp alley. Created by David Phips is a pulp adventure game with a solo system created by its author based on a deck of cards that will control enemies and events that will create uncertainty in the games. 100% recommended and with a multitude of games and campaigns. And an author and a community devoted to the game.

Perilous tales. A game that has been in the gaming community for years, but continues to be played solo because of the advantages it has, as it even has an automatic scenario creator on its web page, you simply press the "create a scenario" button and a new scenario with enemies, objectives, a completely different story appears created.

Arkeo obskura. A rara avis. It is a game created by Massimo Torriani that started with great interest in the gaming community, on his webpage you can download 4 very interesting free adventures. The system by which the plot of the game is developed is very successful and is very good. Unfortunately the game has been abandoned for a long time. It does not have a community of players, the author does not publish absolutely anything about this game... Which makes it less appealing to start playing it.

Zona Alfa. A very attractive and interesting post-apocalyptic game designed for two players to which its author created a solo game system available for free.

In addition to these rulesets, we have a few books that provide us with tools to play games (mainly battles between two armies), such as:

One hour wargames (and its little brother one hour skirmish wargames) that provides us with a large number of different scenarios specifying table layout, deployment, size of the opposing sides, events, possible options...

There are more books of this style (which we will mention below) but these two are the most current and most interesting that I have read, their information and tools being the most directly applicable to the game.

Platoon forward. This deserves a separate mention, since with this ruleset you will have a large number of possible combat scenarios based on the Second World War, and each one with its own random tables to generate the enemy troops and their deployment, this being hidden.

And many more, that although they are older, provide us with ideas of different scenarios, events, displays, ways of arranging the game table...

And there are many more games, books and rulesets that I haven't mentioned either by oblivion or ignorance, although you already know that here below is the comments section in case you want to add any ruleset, specify any detail or whatever comes to your mind, that will surely help more people with doubts about the possibility of playing solo miniature wargames. 

Believe it or not, the community of solo miniatures wargames players is quite big, so we can see a facebook group called SOLO wargaming with miniatures that has 11,500 members in which players post their battle reports, rulesets, reviews or simply post their ideas regarding this style of play.

Knowing that there are groups like this one, it makes me remember the motto of this blog: 

"You may play alone, but you are not alone."

PS:

And something to keep in mind, that is implicit in the philosophy of this blog, is that the solo wargames player is alone to buy the miniatures, paint them, get the scenery done, get a playmat... 

...And that implies a big economic expense, that's why this blog was about to be called low cost wargames,  as always I try to ensure that the needs to play can be made in the cheapest way possible.

I already wrote an entry about this topic on how to set up a gaming table without spending a fortune. You can read it HERE.

PS 2:

Those two cats in the pictures are my cats, the second one was Suki, who passed away three years ago, and the black cat is Kira, that is always around when I'm playing.