Chgowiz's Games

Sharing the love of TTRPGs and other gaming

Learning Chaos Wars, Part 1.5 – A (kind-of) Quick Starter

By Michael / Chgowiz #Chaos Wars, #wargames

Over on the Ral Partha forums, “SonofThor” posted about an older rule set formerly published by Iron Wind Metals called “Iron Winds of War”.

I am always a sucker for quick and dirty rules and my curiosity got the better of me so…

A bit of Google searching later and I managed to snag a copy of these old rules. At 3 pages, they are very abstract!

(Click on the image to view the PDF or go here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwiMsojGKI2KUFMxVmp4c0lhakk/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-1gEA4qinrlJm0KzLLIrnPg)

The rules are an extremely simplified version of Chaos Wars, for sure. The game is broken up into turns consisting of 5 “events”:

  1. Personal challenges by leaders
  2. Missile fire
  3. Move
  4. Melee
  5. Morale
The game can be played with only 2d6 and whatever figures you have on hand. The combat rolls and melee rolls are very much based on how Chaos Wars works and the figure types are similar as well in being grouped into three types: levy, infantry, knight (where in Chaos Wars, they are peasant, yeoman, knight). 
I love the victory conditions: “Continue until one player begs for mercy.” 
This is a great introduction to wargames for kids to play! They are a perfect way to learn some of the concepts that Chaos Wars is built on. They do leave quite a bit out that is in the full Chaos Wars rules: there is no magic, there are no war machines/siege weapons, no creatures and no campaign rules. Still, for a pick-up, quick-play or even convention game, these are wonderful. 
Give them a look and tell me what you think.

N.B. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out the Quick Reference Guide that Ral Partha has been using for the past two years at their convention games and demos. It is a very packed-full 4 sheet summary of the republished Chaos Wars. This also is an excellent quick-start guide or convention game guide.

By Michael / Chgowiz

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