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A current trend is grid-based wargames like Arrowstorm, To The STrongest, Space Battles by Priestley, etc. However, grids are nothing new in wargame design. They have been around since the beginning. The classic example is Battletech but also Hex and Chit wargames.

How do you think and feel about grid-based wargames? Do you have a preference for hex vs grid? Are there genres you prefer it and genres you prefer not to have it?

Thoughts?

There are numerous ways to use the grids. I have played games which have foot square grids, and ones with 3 inch ones. They all have different uses. Typically it works when matched to rules sytems that take advantage, and doesn't when its just to make measuring quicker.

I generally prefer hexes to squares. Feels more natural for some reason. Less issues with how do we deal with diagonals.

They play faster then free measured systems. Quick count of hexes for range, no measuring tape needed. But you are also locked into fixed spaces/directions.

I have no problem playing any sort of system though. I did grow up in a more rules crunchy era though, so add a grain of salt.

Not a fan of grids in general.

However, they work well for board Wargames. Battlelore, Imperial Assault and Halo are all great games on my shelf that I'd love to play more of.

In token based games I'm happy with grids & prefer hex to rectangles (grew up with hex).

For miniature based games I prefer terrain which appears more "realistic" to the visions in my head.

Obviously grids are more precise and faster. They also look like ass and result in rigid, unnatural terrain, arcs and movement.

That said, two of my top 3 best games of all time have grids (Monsterpocalypse and Deadzone)

I'm not fond of grids and wouldn't pick a game that uses them.
They're nice for convention games though and I'd rather play a grid game than no game.

Cubes in a Sci-Fi setting seem more palatable, but Deadzone has other things going for it.

So rectilinear grid and hexagonal based wargames are a bit different. The very first “modern” wargames (i.e. not Kreigspiel or Fletcher Pratt’s) like the early Avalon Hill games, used a rectilinear grid. Games like Tactics II or (IIRC) the first AH Battle of Gettysburg.

The problem with squares is the diagonal move problem. Moving on a diagonal is ~1.4 “faster” than zig-zagging. That’s typically rounded to 1.5 or ignored . Either way, there’s some fudge. Plus, they just don’t look very good. But they are easy.

Hexes work better but there is still the issue of moving with, or against, the “grain” of the hex. IIRC the math works out to about 1.2 times more efficient if you’re moving straight along the spine of the hexes vice having to tack. But that’s generally seen as manageable and, short of actual measurement like miniatures wargames use, hexes are probably the best option since there are no other useful shapes the tile the plane.

Generally I prefer straight up measuring for miniatures games since it lets you have a bit more fidelity and makes it look more “real”. Although I’ll admit hexes in games like Battletech do work.

There was also a Steve Jackson power armor game years ago (Battle Suit?) that used “dots” but the dot just marked the middle of virtual hexes, so it was essentially just hex-based, but the aesthetic was a bit cleaner.

Valete,

JohnS

I was beaten to it, but: Kriegspiel

That was a really cool game. It's a shame that it isn't in print anymore.

 Cothonian wrote:
I was beaten to it, but: Kriegspiel

That was a really cool game. It's a shame that it isn't in print anymore.

Oh, you can 100% get Kreigspiel still…. There is a smallish, but vibrant, community still keeping it alive. See, inter Alia:

https://kriegsspiel.org/

Valete,

JohnS

I like the idea of grids as a concept, but they make terrain significantly harder. Especially if you already have a bunch build for a grid less system. I don't feel like adding a grid to anything because that would ruin the aesthetic and because I use a modular system, it would also be pretty hard to do.

 Dolnikan wrote:
I like the idea of grids as a concept, but they make terrain significantly harder. Especially if you already have a bunch build for a grid less system. I don't feel like adding a grid to anything because that would ruin the aesthetic and because I use a modular system, it would also be pretty hard to do.

I totally agree, in wargaming, grids and terrain are tough to mix unless every building, tree or rock is a uniform square. But I think back to my days playing Pathfinder on a battle grid, and it can definitely be done - I'd probably say D&D or Pathfinder played on a grid is effectively a wargame as there are a fair amount of tactical choices with miniature movements, AOE effects and so on.

However, because all parties (including/apart from the DM) were on the same team, a certain level of abstraction was easy to agree upon, both in terms of what the terrain represents and how it should be played on. I can see two different interpretations in a classic "versus" wargame quickly leading to a breakdown unless the rules offered a lot of clarity as to how to label and play with terrain.

Judgement works pretty well on a hex grid. There's some oddities but I think overall it translated pretty well from its hexless roots and has let them create significantly better map variety.

MonPoc is absolutely great and mostly gets the diagonal movement right.

Heroscape certainly justifies the use of hexes with its insane terrain system.

I'm fine with grid based games. I prefer a square grid to hexes - I don't mind the 1.4 discrepancy because it's easy to just count every other diagonal as 2 squares. Hexes also have discrepancies and I find them a pain to work with.

I think grid games work best in a very abstract, high level wargame or in a lower level wargame where the environment is itself fairly regular. The classic example is a dungeon crawling skirmish game - that can work very well on a grid, because dungeons are generally regular geometric shapes, usually squares and rectangles.

I think Deadzone does well at having a middle ground - very large squares, and then you can place your models wherever you like within them. This allows you the feeling of freedom of movement and placement with the advantage of the grid. It even extends the grid into the third dimension, which works quite well.

But overall my preference is definitely for non-gridded wargames. I prefer the greater immersion it provides and how it can accommodate a larger variety of figures and terrain. You've got to have something clever going for your grid system to make me want to play it.

I think there was also a Dust game by FFG at one point that was Hex.

Has anyone used an Off-set Grid? I.e. it is structured more like a brick wall instead of an even Grid?

 Easy E wrote:

Has anyone used an Off-set Grid? I.e. it is structured more like a brick wall instead of an even Grid?

That's functionally the same as a hex grid. You end up with each square adjacent to 6 other squares.

Facings and forward movement look very different, so maybe the same touching, but different facings and end results. .

 Easy E wrote:
A current trend is grid-based wargames like Arrowstorm, To The STrongest, Space Battles by Priestley, etc. However, grids are nothing new in wargame design. They have been around since the beginning. The classic example is Battletech but also Hex and Chit wargames.

How do you think and feel about grid-based wargames? Do you have a preference for hex vs grid? Are there genres you prefer it and genres you prefer not to have it?

Thoughts?

I cut my teeth wargaming in grid games of all stripe, in the Mid 70's. They were THE STANDARD at the time. The first game I played was Starfleet Battles, which the logistics is the game. Your grid is space, your turn takes an hour, depending. Second, was Squad Leader, which began my road down the Avalon Hill days, and got me hanging around a bunch of bitter, old curmudgeons- cigar and pipe smoking armchair generals of every strip. They then introduced me to 54mm, and 25mm miniature gaming, roughly around the early 80's. Games Designers Workshop (GDW), Heritage, Avalon Hill, etc... In fact, those WERE gaming.

You have to be a voracious reader... of books. The Hexes were in most of the gaming, and it just was. There wasn't as much a preference, as to keep you in a game playing mode. We had some board games, such as Tank Battle, or Chopper Strike from Milton Bradley that had the grids on the game board,

Off the top of my head, and going on the haze of history, and the power of Google Fu, it depends on the game, the decision of the grid.

Starfleet Battles is a grid hex of about 15mm, or whatever the size of the chit is, Unless you get the 25/30 mm map, where you can use the Miniature ships.

Squad Leader is a grid hex game with chits for your squad, weapons, etc. and your using that 15mm for each ones movement, unless you combine them, and the unit chits are used.

Heritage Miniatures had a wonderful prize called, Paint and Play sets that included a batch of miniatures, a couple of dice, a pamphlet, and a grid map. They used a square based grid for the Dungeon, but I'm not sure about the Galacta, the superheroes, or the WW2 games, I never got around to those.

Battlemaster had a big grid vinyl sheet that you spread on your floor, and it had around 3 inch hexs, so you could put in the protoplasm GW fantasy unit blocks in, and run around the battlefield/ floor.

Heritage Miniatures, that later grew into REAPER miniatures had a games in the stores called pocket games. Steve Jackson also had his, as well. Back then, they were around a buck or three, now, you've got to dig deep for a set. The Heritage games were, or are now taken over, and carried by Dwarfstar games. I'm not sure if they work like the old games, but just last week, I picked up Barbarian Prince, now printed on 8 X 11 inch paper, with some clear chits and some dice, and a meeple. The old game came with a single Barbarian prince mini, and the map was a Hex crawl, with encounters, assets, towns, enemies...

There's a lot of those types of 3.00 games that are now worth 100,s of dollars., including Car Wars, OGRE,

Starfleet Battles
https://www.starfleetgames.com/starfleetbattles.shtml

Steve Jackson Games
https://warehouse23.com/pages/about-us

Dwarfstar/ Heritage Games
https://dwarfstar.brainiac.com/ds_barbarianprince.html

ASI/ Squad Leader
https://asl-players.net/

Heritage Paint and Play sets
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/43585/series-paint-n-play-heritage-usa

@grot 6

Heck yeah, Battlemasters. One of my first "wargaming" experiences. Still got my set, though half the figures have been painted and added to my Fantasy armies.

As to the wider question. Isn't "Grid-Based Wargames" just another way of saying "Boardgame Wargames"?

 Eilif wrote:
@grot 6

Heck yeah, Battlemasters. One of my first "wargaming" experiences. Still got my set, though half the figures have been painted and added to my Fantasy armies.

As to the wider question. Isn't "Grid-Based Wargames" just another way of saying "Boardgame Wargames"?

There is overlap.

Something like Axis and Allies or Diplomacy are map based “boardgame wargames” but don’t have a grid. Just regions/countries.

Not all boardgame wargames are grid based.
Not all boardgames are wargames.
Not all gridbased boardgames are wargames.

Probably missing some combos…

 Nevelon wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
@grot 6

Heck yeah, Battlemasters. One of my first "wargaming" experiences. Still got my set, though half the figures have been painted and added to my Fantasy armies.

As to the wider question. Isn't "Grid-Based Wargames" just another way of saying "Boardgame Wargames"?

There is overlap.

Something like Axis and Allies or Diplomacy are map based “boardgame wargames” but don’t have a grid. Just regions/countries.

Not all boardgame wargames are grid based.
Not all boardgames are wargames.
Not all gridbased boardgames are wargames.

Probably missing some combos…

The first one is a good point, though I didn't imply either of the other 2.
I should probably just have said "Aren't Grid-based wargames just a subset of Boardgame Wargames?"

There may be Grid Based Wargames that aren't played on a board/mat/etc, but I can't think of any right now. Maybe someone playing on Geo-Gexes in the 80s/90s and using them for measurement as well?

Sorry, didn’t mean to imply you said otherwise. Just my brain trying to make venn diagrams and playing silly set theory games.

I’ve got a box full of styrofoam hexes, maybe 3” across (been a while since I used them) that we used to make big battlefields for battletech. Gave some nice 3D to the game with minis. We still used the hex based rules. I might be getting my wires crossed, I know OGRE had sepeeate minis rules, and I think battletech did as well. But it’s been forever…

 Eilif wrote:


As to the wider question. Isn't "Grid-Based Wargames" just another way of saying "Boardgame Wargames"?

The ones I mentioned in the opening are definitely NOT boad games. You set-up a table as normal, but you also have to grid it out too.

- To the Strongest
- For King and Parliment
- Arrowstorm
- Age of Penda
- Space Battles

There are others, but that is off the top of my head. I am not really thinking of any Fantasy ones though.

I was big into the D&D miniatures game for a while, it was great craic. I could never get anyone else interested though!

I quite like hexes for larger scale stuff where you've got big vehicles or units of troops (like Battletech etc) but find squares dont really work because of the diagonal movement issues

once you drop to smaller scales and (hopefully) have physical terrain they just tend to look bad so i'll take the inconvenience in measuring

The various games under the Heroes of Normandie name use a grid to some really nice effect. I absolutely love it and own a bunch of the expansions. It's basically everything you'd expect from a miniatures WWII game, just with tokens instead of miniatures for units.

Even vehicles that are longer than one square function really well, by simply being able to be placed diagonally when they need to be.

Battletech hexes work adequately for what they are worth but the average printed Battletech map is so insanely graphically and informationally dense it's too distracting from the gameplay for me. Oddly enough, I love the grid maps of Heroes of Normandie, but absolutely hate Classic Battletech hex maps. Give me the 3D terrain of an Alpha Strike game any day over Classic.

I got the heroes 40k stuff (missed out on the bad moonz expansion in case anyone wants to sell).

It really felt like I was playing a 15mm wargame. The rules were extremely dense for such a set up and if I have multibased models it would have felt just like a wargame, just on squares.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I got the heroes 40k stuff (missed out on the bad moonz expansion in case anyone wants to sell).

It really felt like I was playing a 15mm wargame. The rules were extremely dense for such a set up and if I have multibased models it would have felt just like a wargame, just on squares.

I've not played any Heroes games, but that agrees with what my friends have said.

"Heroes" games and -based on my experience- Commands and Colors (Battle Lore, Battle Cry, Both, etc) really do feel very much like the the miniature wargaming experience boiled down into a board game.