Pig Wars: A Quick Review

Recently I've been looking for some Dark Ages skirmish rules. I have two boxes of plastic Vikings from Wargames Factory sitting on my worktable. That's sixty-four angry dudes with swords, axes, and spears waiting for me to do something with them. I've been painting some up as extras for my bi-weekly Hellfrost game (more on that another time) but I thought it would be fun to do some historical war gaming with them. I've come across a few sets of rules and finally picked one up called 'Pig Wars: When Men Were Men and Pigs Were Money ' by Tod Kershner. I've given the rules a read-through and I thought I'd post my first impressions. The title alone tells you that the game is intended to be more fun than hard-core simulation. If you want to get a bunch of players together for an evening of looting and pillaging, it looks like this game will deliver.

The "physical" thing

Altogether the book is 40 pages plus a cover page. The PDF appears to be a scanned version of the original hard copy. The scan is OK for the most part although one, not particularly vital, page was difficult to read. Also, these are scanned images, so searching isn't possible. Of course it's only forty pages so that's isn't much of an issue. Also, there are only about 11 pages of actual rules, plus 3 pages of optional rules. The rest is background material, scenarios, and some very handy reference charts. The book is illustrated throughout with scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry and bits of relevant stock art. Much of this art is large, as in a third of a page, which serves to bulk up the page count.

The Rules

The rules open with basing guidelines. This is a skirmish game so models (which the author refers to as "castings" throughout the book) are based individually. Specific base size is not strictly important although he does offer suggestions. He also suggests color coding the back edge of the bases by faction and also suggests painting stripes on the base to indicate the troop type, e.g, levy, trained, or veteran. I thought this was kind of a cool idea as uniforms are rare in Dark Ages armies and it isn't always easy to tell if a particular guy carrying a spear and shield is trained or levy.

Next are suggested troop compositions for various nationalities of the period. There are no army lists for this game. The author does offer these suggestions but it's really up to the players to decide what's makes a fair game. The suggestions are a good starting point, however, and reflect the composition typical of the various nationalities.

Next up are the rules themselves. The game is played in turns where each player will maneuver and fight his whole force followed by the next player. The game supports more than two players quite handily and in that case, player order is randomly determined each turn.

Combat and shooting are resolved using playing cards instead of dice. Each player has his own deck of cards and turns over cards for each "die roll". The number on the card, +/- modifiers, determines the result and sometimes the color or suit of the card has additional effects. Each player works through his deck of cards, reshuffling when he hits the end.

Turns are played in "move-shoot-melee" order. There are options for charging on foot or on horse (lances rock) as well as "stand and shoot" should missile troops get charged before they've had a chance to fire. Also, suitably equipped troops can form a "shield wall" for added defensive benefit.
Once all the shooting, hacking, and slashing are finished, players assess morale and determine if their units fall back or rout. Falling back units can come back the next turn but routing units must rally at the beginning of the owning player's next turn before they will return to battle.

Finally, some optional rules and guidelines for playing Romans round out the actual rules section.

Scenarios

There are three scenarios included in the book. The first is a multiplayer player free-for-all skirmish with small armies of twenty models per player. Each player represents a different faction with their own goals and victory conditions. Pillaging and looting count for victory points and a looting table is included listing the relative victory point values for chickens, ale, prisoners and, yes, pigs.
The second scenario is a recreation of the Battle of Hastings and is a sample large battle with 200+ models per side. The third scenario pits Roman vs Germans in a battle involving a fort and siege engines. The three scenarios are illustrative of the types of games one can play with Pig Wars. The book is light on the specifics of scenario design but the book is intended for historical war gaming where the participants are likely to research a battle and recreate it. 

Obtaining the Rules & Support

These rules are no longer in print nor are they available through PDF sites like Wargame Vault (RPGNow). You can get the rules in PDF format for $10, payable by PayPal, directly from the author. I contacted Mr. Kershner who asked me to shoot him ten bucks by PayPal which I did. Once paid, Mr. Kershner sent me three PDF files by email which appeared to be the original scanned book in three pieces plus a quick reference sheet in Microsoft Word format. The transaction went very smoothly and Mr. Kershner delivered the files promptly. You can contact Mr. Kershner at tkershner at charter dot net.

The rule set is actively supported at the Pig Warriors Yahoo group. Players can find battle reports, scenario ideas, and all sorts of expansions and optional rules. There are also a couple dice options for those who object to the playing cards.

Final Thoughts

When I think Dark Ages, I think Vikings. Being part Norwegian may have something to do with this, so I'm predisposed to like any game that let's me raid and pillage and win victory points for doing it. The free for all scenario embodies what I think is probably the greatest strength of this game: small skirmishes with varying victory conditions. I can see quite easily staging Viking raids on monasteries with local fyrdmen coming out to protect the town. This scenario also shows what I think it another strength of the game: multi-player. The game supports multi-player scenarios right out of the box and I think it would work just as well in team games as a free-for-all. In fact, I think a large set-piece battle like the Hastings scenario would only be fun as a multi-player game. Turning over a playing card for each attack is much slower than rolling a handful of dice and I can see a large game between two players bogging down pretty quickly.

The playing card mechanic can also lead to an unintended consequence. You can find yourself in a good tactical position but if you've already turned over all your high cards you might lack the wherewithal to take advantage of it. But until you work your way through the remaining cards you really can't do anything to change the situation. That basically means you have to suffer a few rounds of ineffectual shooting or melees you're doomed to lose before you can get going again. As I mentioned earlier, there are alternative dice-based systems available on the Yahoo group which would alleviate this situation.

The lack of army lists and concrete scenario design guidelines is a bit of a bummer, but using the suggested force compositions at the beginning of the book will likely do for getting the feel of the game. Besides the game does not really differentiate factions in any meaningful way. A Viking with a shield and a spear plays just like a Welshman with a spear and a shield. The differences will lie in force composition where the Vikings will bring more dudes with axes while the Welsh will bring more bowmen.

Despite my reservations these rules look intriguing enough to try out. I'll try them out with cards as intended and if my misgivings are well founded I'll switch it to dice. Soon I'll try to con some of my gamer friends into an evening of raiding, looting, and pillaging and let you know how we make out.