Little Wars for Fantasy Wargaming?

[DungeonDevil]

Has anyone ever taken the very, very simple mechanics in H.G. Wells' Little Wars and adapted them to a Mediaeval/Fantasy campaign? I decided to dig out all my wargaming materials and get back into that hobby after a multi-year hiatus, and am reacquainting myself with H.G.'s famous little tome. I'd like to engineer something which is at a complexity level below that of Chainmail, but with a little more Fantasy-relevant "crunch". Surely I am not the first soul to contemplate such a project. I'd hate to reivent the wheel if another person out there has ideas in that direction.

[Starbeard]

I haven't really tried playing it before, but Little Orc Wars does exactly this. It still focuses on spring/rubber band-loaded catapults, but should have dice rules too. It also has supplement booklets for wizards and giants.

[xerxez]

Haven't seen much in that vein DD. Was going to same with Starbeard, I recall the "Knock Down" mechanic in Little Wars. Magic would be the hard part, I would think.

[Starbeard]

I don't have Little Orc Wars with me, but I have the Giants and Wizards supplements. Some notes:

1. LOW uses the same "knock down" mechanic for catapult attacks just like LW, but melees are diced rather than purely mathematical.

2. Rules for ranged attacks from bows, etc. are added (also using dice). From this, you could easily play the game without catapult knock down.

2. Wizard magic is represented largely by giving nearby catapults special effects. For example, a water mage can make a nearby catapult shoot 'waterballs', which act like normal catapult shot but will also extinguish any fires if they hit, and catapults combining into a 'mega waterball' can create pools on the battlefield. Water mages can also help troops walk through water obstacles more freely. The supplement gives rules for water, fire, earth and air magicians.

3. Giants are essentially walking catapults with hit points.

Overall, they seem quick and simple. They're written in the style of the original and use rules in the style of the original (except for the dice; Wells wrote that he didn't care for the randomness of dice rolls).

[DungeonDevil]

May 16, 2017 2:17:02 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

(except for the dice; Wells wrote that he didn't care for the randomness of dice rolls).

...or H.G. didn't bother with learning about elementary dice probabilities. This is puzzling, as the probs of 2d6, frex, have been very well understood for quite a long time (far longer, I'd imagine, than even Hoyle's famed treatise on backgammon). For him to hand-wave using dice is a major shortcoming of his rules, among other things. IMHO, YMMV, etc.