The Desert Column in Square - Mountain Guns at the Corner (Photo courtesy of The University of Washington Library) In this article I suggest some modificaions to the popular late Victorian Era wargame rules, "The Sword and the Flame" (TSATF) by Larry Brom. [ED. NOTE: The Sword and The Flame rules are produced by Greenfield Hobby Distributors and are available from many sources including Modeler's Mart The modifications have to do with determining which player may take an action and the order of when actions may be taken. Prior to explaining these new procedures, let me review the action mechanics currently employed in TSATF and some other rules. ACTION MECHANICS Action mechanics are the rules which govern how and when players move (including entering melee), and fire units under their control. (Other components of rules set forth how to set up a game, how to organize the figures, how to resolve fire and melees, and how to check morale.)Action determination refers to pickingwhich units maycarryout an action. Action sequencing refers to which actions are done when. ACTION DETERMINATION Some rules have simultaneous action, some have alternate action, and others have random action. Some rules have a mixture of the three. Simultaneous action refersto both sides carrying out movement or fire at the same time and is usually done by using written orders. "Column Line and Square" requires that players write what actions are to be taken in a given turn including directions of movement and type of load for artillery; then both sides execute those orders. A simpler but innovative version (used in "Johnny Reb" for example) has players place action counters face down behind each unit, then all players expose the counters and the units carry out the indicated action. Alternate action has one side move or fire and then the other (or in the case of "The Soldier's Companion" only the winner of the initiative moves). This requires some sort of initiative determination. Some rules have each side throw dice, with the high roller deciding to take the action or let the other side do so. To keep a lucky player from always having the intiative, some rules give the loser a plus modifier on subsequent rolls so that he eventually gets the high number. This is used in the new rules "Tactica". A simpler version lets one side move a single unit, and then lets the other side move a unit, and so on, back and forth. This is the procedure of chess. Random action implies units taking an action at any time during a turn and is usually determined by drawing cards. There are currently two methods in general use: side-random and unit-random. TSATF uses the side-random method, for example, when a red card is drawn from a standard playing deck, the European side moves a unit or fires one and when a black suit comes up, a native people's unit takes an action. Unit-random would have specific cards for specific units; if the unit's card comes up, that unit takes the action. This is the system for "Chassepot and Needlegun". For example, when the card for the Third Prussian Foot is drawn, that unit moves. There are rules with combinations where there may be, for example, alternate movement and simultaneous fire. Some would argue that simultaneous action is the most realistic; but on the other hand, it requires more planning time and more honesty than the alternate action or the random action methods. ACTION SEQUENCE Besides having a mechanism for deciding when a unit or side may take an action, a rule system must also determine when the particularaction may be carried out. That is, in a turn, when does a unit move, when does it fire, when does it check morale, when does it resolve melee. Almost all rules (at least those of which I know) have a fixed order of actions. All of one action is performed, then all of another. The sequence might be unit movement, followed by fire, and then resolution of melee. Sometimes there is pre-movement fire, movement, post-movement fire, then melee resolution. Anotherversion would have all movement by one side, then both sides fire, then the other side moves and maybe then both fire again. There are many possibilities. Even the rule systems which have simultaneous action, have specific actions in a particular order. Some may try to adjudicate firing taking into account the timing of the movement. Since our little fighters are inanimate and must depend on us giving them action, there will always be an artificial nature to the sequence of events. There are advantages and disadvantages to any particular method for carrying out the action sequencing. EVOLUTION OF ACTION DETERMINATION IN TSATF "The Sword and the Flame" uses the side-random action determination method as noted earlier. It also has the sequence of events: move, fire, resolve melees, and resolve morale. Onlythe first two are determined by random. When a red card is drawn, the British (or European) commander takes an action or, if there is more than one player, designates a playerto execute a move or fire (according to whichever action phase is current). When a black card is drawn, the native people's commander does likewise. Over the years, I have made minor modifications in these rules to incorporate certain aspects of history (as I interpret it) and to facilitate playing large games at conventions. In the Boxer Episode of 1900, for example, there was little centralization of command among the allies so it did not seem appropriate to have a single person as overall commander making decisions as to who should take an action atthe draw of the red card. The Chinese were likewise less organized than TSATF would allow. The objection might hold for any historical situation where centralized control is limited. Isn't this true for most "colonial" situations? At first, I instituted the unit-random method with one card per unit. I prepared a deck of cards in which each card has the name of one unit in the game. When a card is drawn, the unit on that card is allowed to take an action appropriate to the action phase (move orfire). In the move phase, if when the "French Marines" comes up, that unit moves. In the fire phase, draw "Red Dragon" Boxer unitand it fires. While this took care of my objection to centralized command, it did cut down on flexibility too much to suit most players. There were complaints that each player should havesome optionswith the units underhis command. The player had no control of the order of units to move. My task, then, was to give the player more control over his immediate units. I therefore instituted the "player-random" method in which there were some number of cards per player in the deck. in this method, the deck consists of cardswth players'names. In the firstversion of the system, the number of cards was equal to the number of units each player had. Draw a card with "Player No. 1's" name and he can move any unit which he controls. In the fire phase if one of "Player No. 2's" cards comes up, any of his units may fire. An alternate version of this method is to allow ALL of the person's units to move orfire when their card is drawn. This too does not allow much flexibility and also does not keep the interest of the player once he has done all the actions he can do in a phase. The minimum number of cards perplayeristhe number of units underhis command. In the current version which I use, however, players start out with 2 cards for each unit under the player's command plus 1 card for every higher level unit under his command. A British player with a company of infantry would have FIVE cards - 2 for each platoon and 1 for the company. A Pathan player with three clans would have SEVEN cards - 2 for each clan and 1 for the tribe. The commander in chief of each side, will, moreover, have an extra card. In addition, the game master may assign additional cards to players according to the game scenario. For example, if the British were advancing across a large distance, the game master might assign an additional card to each British player. If an officer/leader is lost, one card of the player controlling the officer is removed from the deck. It is taken from already played cards if there are any, otherwise, the next card drawn is acted on and then removed. British NCOs are not counted as officers for the purpose of determining cards removed. Thus if a player lost all leaders, he would end up with just one card per unit. This procedure was probably enough to give both the decentralization and the flexibility which I had hoped to achieve. I did, however, want to do away with the notion that all units had to perform a particular action before they could do another. Why do all units have to move before any can fire? So, I developed the idea of "continuous action". CONTINUOUS ACTION In Continuous Action when a player's card is drawn, that player may take any action he wishes with any unit he wishes. There is no "move phase" or "fire phase" or "melee phase". When a player's card is drawn, he may move, or fire, or charge into melee. Moreover, a unit may fire or move continuously in a turn. A turn is one pass through all cards. A player has a limited numberof timeswhich he maytake an action (as noted above, for example, 5 for a British company), but in a turn he could give all the actions to one of his units and no actions to another. So, if a player had two units, he could let one fire when his first card is drawn, and fire again on his next card and then move on both of the next two cards while his other unit did nothing forthe entire turn. It is also permissible for a unit to fire some figures and move others but I do not permit a unit to fire into and charge into the same target. There is a strong urge fora playerto allocate all cards to one or a couple of units and leave the others actionless. The tactical problem for players is to allocate the cards among all units rather than use the units piecemeal. Morale checks are made whenever the need arises. If a unit is shot or meleed to below half strength, it checks before another card isturned. If a unit is shaken or pinned, it checks before taking any action. Ashaken unit may be left in a shaken state if its player allocates all cards to other units. The commander in chief of a side may execute the "Brom" rule and attach his personal commander to a unit and take command of that unit. He then uses his cards to make actions with that unit. The original commander of the unit would use his cards for his other units. (This rule is so named because in play testing at Historicon 90, Pathan comander Larry Brom so used up his own units, he had nothing of his own to command.) Hold Card There is a circumstance when a unit may perform action "out of sequence" using a " Hold Card". A Hold Card is a card drawn earlier in the turn that the player opts to hold onto for later use. A player may have no more hold cards than units under this command. If a unit is charged it may try to move away or it may try to fire using the Hold Card. The procedure is as follows. A player whose card is drawn opts to charge an enemy unit. He makes his movement roll using the appropriate number of dice for a charge. He then rolls for stragglers and rolls to see if he will close. The target unit may now try to either move away or fire using a Hold Card. The defending unit makes a "Stand and Fight" morale check andif it passes, it may either fire or move away (and return the hold card to the deck). The hold card may be used to change formation or turn to face a rearorflank attack. The attacked unit may eitherfire or move, not both. If itfails the morale check, it suffersthe usual consequences and returnsthe hold card. I also make another slight modification to TSATF by allowing the charging unit to continue moving if the target unit chooses to move away or if it flees due to bad morale (thanks to Jay Stribling for nothing that this idea fits in well with the continuous action concept). The charging unit must continue to move in a forward direction and charge some unit (including the original target) or it may stop and deploy at the point where the original contact would have been. The hold card may also be used to make a counter charge by making a "Close into Combat" check instead of "Stand and Fight" check. It must, of course, check for stragglers. The hold card may only be used to respond to an attack and any left at the end of the turn must be returned to the deck. Example 2 British players, (Chris and Jim) and 2 Pathan players (Pat and Bill). Each British player has a company of infantry and each Pathan player has atribe. Thus, there would be 5 cards with Chris' name and 6 with Jim's (he is the commander). Pat has 7 cards and Bill has 8 (he is the overall Pathan commander). All 26 cards are shuffled and drawn one at a time. The first card is Chris. He chooses to move his first platoon. The next card is Chris so he moves the same platoon again. Say the next 2 cards are Pat's. He fires with one unit and moves another. Bill comes up next and fires. Chris is next and he opts to hold the card. Chris is next so may move the same unit which moved orfire it or take anyaction hewishes with the otherunit. Bill comes up to bat (to speed up a convention game, I will turn over the next card and if the player is away from the action I will announce him to be "on deck" so he can think of what he will do). Bill charges one of Chris' units and passes his close into combat check. Chris plays his hold card and chooses to fire prior to the melee. He passes his morale check and fires. Melee is then resolved as normally. Jim is still waiting but he knows his cards will come up eventually. This is the one flaw with any random-action method -- players are standing around waiting for their chance. Larry Brom has a solution to this which I will describe next time my card is drawn! COMPILING VARIATIONS FOR TSATF (Let me start with a little name dropping.) At Historicon 90, Larry Brom and I were talking about how, during the past 10 years in which "The Sword and the Flame" has been in wide circulation, there have been many variations and modifications suggested. Indeed, I think of TSATF as a "rule kit" in that it gives players various pieces with which to build a more detailed set of rules or apply them to episodes not covered originally. It is such a diverse and flexible system that it even had a newsletter - THE HELIOGRAPH - established to facilitate communication among the many players. That publication, begun by Tony Adams and continued until just recently by Milton Soong, contained many suggestions for modifications and additions to the basic rules. There were suggestions for artillery, medical services, wagon and mule transportation, boats, balloons, engineers, buildings, desertion, and heliographs. There have been ideas for changing the card draw system, for adding random events, formodifyingthe casualty charges. Have any rules offered so much opportunity for innovation? Not only have there been suggestions for changes in the rules, a myriad of historical episodes other than the original ones have been fitted to the rules. I have read of or seen TSATF being used for a wide variety of historical episodes from Aztecs and Conquistadors to the U.S. Intervention in Mexico in 1914; and embracing the French and Indian War; the Sikh War; The Boxer Uprising; the Dutch in Indonesia; the U.S. Frontier Wars and the fight against the Moros; Germans in Southwest Africa; the French involvementin Mexico; Indo-China, and North Africa; and most recently (THE COURIER, IX-4) rules for Lawrence of Arabia. I even once tried it for a colonial game where the British were the native people and the Romans were the imperial powers. After all, colonial is not a time period but a form of warfare. Colonial war is one that pits a techologically advanced army against a more primitive one, in the homeland of the more primitive one. I personally feel that the British intervention into Egypt in 1885 and the various Boer Wars are stretching the definition of colonial war because of the almost technological parity between the forces. Anyway, that is another subject. Larry and I were wondering about all the various TSATF historical variants and about all the various modifications to the rules and thought it might be interesting to compile a listing of all of them. To that end, I am asking all of you TSATF players out there (may I coin a term for us -- "Bromheads"), to send me your house rules, favorite modification, off-beat conflict adaptation, or other variant. I willtryto compileall of this info into a booklet or something that will put all of this into one place with an eye to having the present publisher publish a variant companion book to the rules. 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