Operational-level Wargame Design 1: Why hexes?

The first thing I did when I began thinking about the design of my operational-level wargame rules was to decide that I would use hexes.

Why?

Using gridded terrain (squares, offset squares, or hexes) has now become a ‘given’ with all my wargame designs over recent years because it speeds up play. I got so fed up with having to measure everything and – more frustratingly – waiting for other people to measure everything, that I lost interest in playing wargames except with a very select group of friends. In fact, to all intents and purposes, I became a solo wargamer except at COW (the Conference of Wargamers), visits to other wargamer’s homes (and vice versa), and the occasional wargames show.

Then there were inevitable arguments about whether or not this unit or that unit was or was not in range. Gridded terrain ended all of these arguments. If a unit was in particular squares or hexes, it was in range; if not, it was out of range.

So why did I choose to use hexes rather than squares?

Well each type of gridded terrain has – in my opinion – their advantages and disadvantages, and these are summarised below.

Squares

Advantages

• They are simple to mark out on a tabletop battlefield.
• They allow movement in eight directions.
• Terrain maps are usually marked with a squared gird, thus making it much easier to translate real terrain onto the tabletop battlefield.
• Buildings look ‘right’ on squared terrain.
• They seem to work very well when re-fighting battles where linear formations were used (i.e. up until the early part of the 20th century).

Disadvantages

• Movement from one square to another diagonally is further than it is orthogonally.
• Trying to work out how far weapons can fire can be difficult (i.e. should weapon ranges be measured orthogonally, diagonally, or a mixture of both?).

Offset squares

Advantages

• They are simple to mark out on a tabletop battlefield.
• They allow movement in six directions.
• Buildings look ‘right’ on squared terrain.
• They seem to work very well when re-fighting battles where linear formations were used (i.e. up until the early part of the 20th century).

Disadvantages

• Whilst they look right when the battle is being fought with the main grid lines running left to right, it somehow looks wrong when they run top to bottom.
• Trying to work out how far weapons can fire can be difficult (i.e. should weapon ranges be measured orthogonally, diagonally, or a mixture of both?).

Hexes

Advantages

• They allow movement in six directions.
• Movement and weapon ranges are easily measured.
• They seem to work very well when re-fighting battles where non-linear formations were used (i.e. from the early part of the 20th century onwards).

Disadvantages

• They are difficult to mark out on a tabletop battlefield. Unless one has the patience of a saint and the skill of a draughtsman, one has to rely on using ready-made hexes (e.g. Hexon II) or ready printed hexes (e.g. Chessex game mats).
• Unless specially drawn (or ‘borrowed’ from a boardgame) terrain maps are not usually marked with a hexed gird, thus making it difficult to translate real terrain onto the tabletop battlefield.
• Buildings often look ‘wrong’ on hexes terrain.

I would like to say that after weighing up the pros and cons of the options available I chose hexes because they were the best … which is partly true, particularly as my previous experience with using them for mid-20th century wargames have been successful … however, the final deciding factor is that I have loads of Hexon II terrain – as do most of my friends – and not to use it would be very silly … so hexes it is!