Circle your wagons! War Wagons in One-Hour Wargames

Sure, go ahead and charge your knights into this!


The use of wagons in battles has occured in many periods of history. Here, I want to put forward some ideas of how to incorporate these difficult to use but possibly effective weapons into One-Hour Wargames and its many spin-offs [like mine!]. This is meant to be a pretty quick post on how to express these in the game rules, and possible variations through history, not an exhaustive investigation of the design issues.

Generally, the number of wagons represented by a Unit will depend on the scale of your OHW, but given an effective crossbow range of 12", we can say that a 5" unit is probably composed of about 5-15 wagons.

Heavy War Wagon, e.g. Hussite
These may be mobile, and for all practical purposes, are armored. However, once engaged they can't maneuver much. I'd count them as armored for shooting and melee, but immobile for a OHW. Therefore they will be less useful in games where the set up area is less advanced onto the board. I'm OK with that. I'd also allow them to shoot but only at d6-2 since they are not a mass of shooters, but rather a scattered bunch of shooters in cover, e.g. skirmishers. I'd also say that Cavalry can't charge them, but they can't charge at all! To summarize

• Armored
• Immobile
• Shoot d6-2
• Can't charge, can't be charged by Cavalry
• no flank or rear benefits or penalties

Wagon Lager
Rather than being war wagons, these are regular wagons being used as a stockade, e.g. by Goths at Adrianople. I'd give them "integral" infantry. I'd say that they'd be the similar as above, but without any shooting ability. As the wagons aren't walled and armored [they are transport wagons] one may want to make them vulnerable to flank and rear attacks as normal. As their function is more akin to a wall than a "tank", perhaps they would only count as armored against melee attacks, not shooting, as many Soldiers wouldn't be able to get a good benefit from them as cover. Furthermore, the armor of the infantry manning them would have to be taken into account, and ancient armies weren't very likely to be fully armored, except for Roman Legions, of course. So to summarize:

• Armored [v. melee only?]
• Immobile
• Can't charge, can't be charged by Cavalry

Medieval Carraccio
These are a standard mounted on a single wagon with an elite guard, not so much a unit of several wagons. As such, I'd say they are nothing more than a heavy infantry Unit, counting as Armored. The "Armored" status takes into account both the better equipment of the defenders and their higher morale defending the Carraccio when attacked. One could make them move a bit slower, and if you use Rally rules [like I do] they could rally better.

For some of the scenarios, these armies would have some real disadvantages. I still think it'd be an interesting scenario challenge to make these work, and I have to say that I'm tempted to modify some of my medieval transport wagons and try them out - I could put on some removable fighting walls made out of balsa wood.

There are some nice models knocking around, including with the Perry Brothers. However, I'd be tempted to check out the 3D printing world, as this should do pretty well in plastic. Definitely a project for another time, but I got to thinking about chariots, elephants and camels, and this seemed like a natural progression.

LMK what you think!