I’ve been interested in a table top squad level wargame for awhile. ASL is of course the big gorilla, but the Starter Set was Out of Stock so I had to browse elsewhere. Lock N Load had some cool looking stuff, but according to the GrogCast they are reworking the product line. So… Out of Stock. (Also LnL, your website really needs a usability overhaul.)

That left print and play. Somehow I managed to stumble into Old School Tactical from Flying Pig Games.

I watched some Youtube videos, read some forum posts, and liked a quote from the designer.

Clunky, overbearing rules is a major turn off for me. If I look at a wargame table and the players have their heads buried in rulebooks, I think the design is flawed. Simply put, play the game. If you put so many layers of rules on top of other rules, the game play suffers. And if someone says that all of these rules make a wargame more realistic, I say it only makes the game more complex. My opinion only and a thought that went into the design. You can achieve realism without adding all kinds of additional rules and that was a challenge from the start. What I refer to as ‘Rules Creep’ I think affects every design. At every turn you think you should add another rule. Just a little one this time, I promise. But this leads to another extension of the rules and before you know it the rulebook has ballooned to 50 pages. So keep this in mind when you read the rulebook and think ‘well they should’ve added so and so to that mechanic’. I’ve thought the same thing and made a ruthless decision to discard that so and so. Sorry. The rules were designed to feel natural to the player and give realistic results. After a couple of plays, you shouldn’t need to refer to the rules at all and you’re then free to just play.

Nothing is worse than trying to get into a game and waiting while one person or another reads the rules. Especially when you have special cases, caveats, oddballs, addons… I want to play a game, not read the rules the whole time.

What I have is a beta rule set. The counters and map both look great, like exceptional. The map is really impressive. I printed the counters and stuck them onto Foamies. I left the cards and scenario sheets on the PC.

The rulebook feels like a legal document. Line items. Lots of them. Though I’m assuming this will turn into a manual that’s as visually nice as the map and counters are. So for the time being it’s some dry reading. There’s a few examples in the book, but not many. On the plus side it’s a really short manual coming in at 22 pages. I like that.

This game was short, more of an explanatory round. Lay out a few pieces, move them around, shoot. I wanted to get a feel for everything. And my opponent was 5 years old.

I only dove into the rules once or twice. It flowed quick. The impulse system is really nice. I’ll be making up a quick rules sheet, even if it’s just turn order and basic rules.

One thing we discovered early on, tanks are tough! Even at a fairly close range the armor survived pretty well. The map had enough variety that we could zig and zag units about, stay in cover, engage on our terms, and still not feel bottlenecked. Both sides had freedom of motion, and it didn’t feel like a long range slug fest.

It was interesting how well my son took to it. In his rounds he moved his armor up quickly, using a road instead of pushing through a forest, and managed to bring in his KV-1 while the infantry caught up. My tank got bogged down and my infantry had a tough time moving ahead without the armor support. Eventually the two lines met and his KV-1 managed to keep my tank either Shaken or Broken until it finally penetrated. He grasped the concepts of the counters almost immediately.

At the end of his turn I’d do a “cinematic” explanation. Once he understood that his decisions led to actions then he really got into it. I probably should have recorded that, as the stories that come out of these games are the most interesting part about it.

The art and availability was what sold me on Old School Tactical. I’ll be digging into a scenario in the future. Though I’d love some smaller maps, I usually don’t have time to lay out some big scenario. Maybe I’ll recruit my cartographer brother in law to work something up…

Once I get a few scenarios under my belt I’ll add a better review.

Artwork 9/10

Great looking maps. Crisp, easily readable counters. High level of production value.

Rules 6/10

(Beta rulebook, a bit tough to piece through. Read more like a legal brief, or a technical manual. Once this is clarified it’s a pretty crisp system that is easy to explain.)

Value 10/10

Print and Play. $25. Not bad eh?

Overall 83%

It’s a lean war game. Simple enough at it’s base that a 5 year old can understand what’s going on. Yet can add enough nuance and complexity to keep me interested and eager to try things again. The rulebook needs some work, but as I don’t have a finished version, I can’t properly comment on this. I liked being able to print it out and play, an option I didn’t have for the competitors. And, in both cases, I couldn’t even buy them if I wanted to.

On the downside it’s a new system. Will it shrivel up in a few years? ASL has a very established base with a ton of maps and accessories. But if it comes out as a viable competitor that’s more fun, and more accessible… Then we’ll have a winner.

But please, Flying Pig Games, keep it in stock or at the very least let the PDF version remain. And to other manufacturers, a print and play PDF version to introduce players would serve you well…