Friday, April 1, 2016

Murphy's Rules of Wargaming

Being April 1st and all, I thought I would post my (Murphy's) Rules of Wargaming.  Or at least some interesting observations made over the years:


Gaming Truths I Hold to be Self-Evident:


The performance of your table-top Army is inversely proportioned to the quality of the paint job.  Therefore the coolest looking minis will always die first.


Also see the time you spent preparing an Army for a game is inversely proportioned to the amount of time that Army will actually remain on the table.


You will always roll a "1" when you "absolutely have to roll a "2+"


You're reading the rules wrong.


Special rules never apply to your force.


Good dice will, eventually, run out of luck.  They're made that way.


The cuffs of your 15mm Napoleonic French Light Infantry have the wrong piping color...


The flight stands of your meticulously painted and prepared flyers are made by the lowest bidder.


The floor kills 100% of your minis, 100% of the time.


You won't make your reserve roll until turn 5.


You will not dislodge British infantry with French infantry.


You will take your hand off the mini before realizing you didn't move it where it needed to go.

Additions from the Comments Section:

"you should have charged"

"All metal pikes/spears/pointy bits will find that spot under your fingernail."

And a late addition:  "Pewter and lead bayonets....break"

When removing miniatures from their bases with a hobby knife, you will injure yourself.


18 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Glad you liked them sir. each one has happened to me, in some way shape or form and I hope they jogged some memories for you!

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  2. Great stuff. I can only add "you should have charged"

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  3. Excellent analysis of tabletop reality. However, you forgot "All metal pikes/spears/pointy bits will find that spot under your fingernail."

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    Replies
    1. YES!! That most definitely happens! How about also "pewter bayonets...break"

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  4. Definitely made me chuckle. All are so sadly true! :-P

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  5. Nice to see Murphy's laws of combat turned into something more useful for us LOL
    Great post. I would only add:
    'Be assured that if you are performing a re-basing exercise, and hacking minis off their bases with a penknife, you will get thumb injuries.'
    (Bit of a personal one for me right now...ouch...LOL)

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    Replies
    1. Very good, Darren. That has happened to me, many, many times.

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    2. Well...not good! You know what I mean! :)

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  6. HAH...yeah I know.
    I've also reached that stage in re-basing where I'm beginning to think... 'maybe these were ok with the basing regime I had...no...NO, don't think that way...just keep going GRRR...'

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