Recently, I was playing a game of Piquet with Bill Stewart and Mike Pierce at the hobby shop. As most of you probably know, this game involves the use of cards during a turn to enforce or allow certain actions. There are movement cards, fire/reload cards, change formation cards, "heroic moment" cards, etc.

As we were playing the game, I decided I liked the idea of cards in some ways, but not in others. As a game mechanic, the cards gave the feeling of uncertainty in battle, but they also tended to slow down the game and introduce a feeling of "disjointedness" to the action.

I began at that point to consider the fantasy card game Magic ™ . In Magic and its many spin-offs, each player has a deck of cards which allow him to do certain things. Some cards can be played against his opponents to cause bad things to happen. Was there a way to incorporate these ideas into a miniatures wargame, independent of the miniatures rules?

This method would have to be simple, not dominate the game, not contradict whatever rules set the players were using, and (ideally) not depend on the historical period in question.

After some thought, I came up with the idea of "Murphy Cards", named after the famous Murphy's Laws whose effects we all experience so often (I don't think I need a trademark symbol here, do l?). Here is the idea:

There would be a deck of 100 Murphy cards. Thirty of the cards would have some sort of effect written on them. The other seventy would be blank.

At the start of the game, each side (not each player) would draw five, cards. On average, therefore, each side would have two to three effect cards it could play. Of course, you might get lucky...

The effect cards might be as follows:

Ammo, Shortage: Play against an enemy unit when it is ready to fire. The affected unit cannot fire that turn. 4 cards in the deck.

Bonus Move: Play on one of your own units. The unit may make an extra move that turn, during the movement or charge phase. 2 cards in the deck.

Confusion in the Ranks: Play against an enemy unit at any desired time during the enemy's movement phase that turn. The affected unit suffers one of these effects (enemy chooses):

a) It only moves half the distance it was moved that turn.
b) It cannot change formation or facing that turn
c) It halts at once and becomes disordered. 4 cards in the deck.

Uncontrolled Advance: Play against an enemy unit at the start of the movement phase. The unit must move full speed toward the enemy, charging if possible. To increase the effect, the player playing the card moves the unit, not its owner. 4 cards in the deck.

Desperate Heroism: Play on one of your own leaders. Any unit to which the leader is attached automatically passes all of its morale tests that turn. But roll a die at the end of the turn: On a "1" the leader is disabled/killed and removed from play. 2 cards in the deck.

Communication Troubles: Play on an enemy leader at the start of the turn. That leader is out of play for that turn, and all his units are considered "out of command". 3 cards in the deck.

Friendly Fire: Play on an enemy unit at the start of the fire phase. The affected unit must fire on the nearest friend that turn. 1 card in the deck.

Expert Fire: Play on a friendly unit which is about to fire. The unit may fire twice that phase, at the same target. 2 cards in the deck.

Poor Morale: Play on an enemy unit which is about to take a morale test. The result of the test is one step lower than normal. 2 cards in the deck.

Perfect Maneuver: Play on a friendly unit. The unit only pays half the normal maneuver costs that turn, and its chance of succeeding in "chance" maneuvers (such as forming square vs. a charge) is doubled. 3 cards in the deck.

Panic in the Ranks: Play on an enemy unit at the end of the movement phase. The unit must recoil half a move and drop one level of morale. 1 card in the deck.

Going too Far: Play on an enemy unit at the end of the movement phase. You may move the enemy unit up to 1/2 of a normal move in any desired manner, toward your units. May not be played on a unit unable to advance. 2 cards in the deck.

Only Suggestions

The above are, of course, only suggestions; you will undoubtedly want to make up your own cards, and perhaps tailor the cards to fit a certain battle you are reproducing.

In a Medieval or Renaissance game, you would probably want cards to represent mercenaries marching off the field or even changing sides.

If doing Waterloo, you might want a special "Old Guard Panics" type of card, which the British could play once during the game.

In a World War II game, you could have cards to represent screw-ups in artillery barrages (off-target, late, early, etc.).

You might also want some sort of discard system, where a player could turn in a card and draw another from the deck, or perhaps turn in two cards and draw one. I'm not sure this is such a good idea myself, because it could cause the game to degenerate into a circus of weird events -- even more than normally happen during a wargame!

A good way to make these cards would be to have a couple of pieces of colored card stock ruled into convenient rectangles and laminated. You could then write the desired effects on the cards with a china marker, and be able to erase and re-write them when you wanted to.