Although the era of the Great War may not seem to be a particularly fertile period for gaming, the popular conception of masses of men thrown against machine gun fire in futile imitation of a sledgehammer is only part of the story. Simulating the range of warfare available in the first quarter of the 20th century is not necessarily easy, but this set of rules appears to have succeeded. French 75 caught in the act of firing. Note that the barrel is fully recoiled. The French 75 was the most advanced artillery of the period. 'Over There' is a set of rules to simulate the conflict of the period from the Russo-Japanese War, to the end of the various Balkan wars of liberation, colonial interventions and wars in Eastern Europe. The first surprise is the level of the rules. Units consist of individually mounted figures that represent infantry companies, cavalry squadrons, tank companies and machine gun sections. Wait a minute: COMPANIES to simulate the war that had casualty lists numbering in the tens of thousands!? Although it took a little getting used to, it works very well. The game scales are: 1 casting = 20 men. (Units are companies/squadrons of 4-11 figures); 1 gunner = 1 gun; 1 tank or armored car = 3 vehicles; 1 machine gun with crew = 2 guns. One inch is equivalent to 30 yards and the rules are setup to use 15mmfigures. I couldn't find a time-per-turn scale, though I didn't find this to be an impediment. The sequence of play is divided into five phases; 1. move/fire; 2. artillery resolution/plotting; 3. air; 4. morale; 5. melee. The order of movement and fire is governed by the draw of cards, similar to Sword and the Flame. Units may perform any two of the five possible functions in each move/fire phase when activated. Charging (a move intended to melee an enemy) and moving at the run consume two functions. Moving normally, firing or mounting/dismounting takes one. Thus, units can usually move and fire in each turn. Move rates for infantry are 3" normal/7" run; cavalry moves at 5"/15". Tanks and armored cars can move up to 18" at the run. Tanks and armored cars may also execute an overrun move. Fire is handled by means of a chart system that first cross-indexes the target type with the type of terrain it's in. This gives the letter of a second chart that cross- indexes the weapon firing with the range to give a percentage chance to hit for each figure in a unit firing. Thus, a single rifleman firing on chart A (the best one to fire off of) has a 20% chance of inflicting a casualty at 2" range. If the unit has eight riflemen in it, the chance becomes 160%; i.e. one casualty with a 60% chance for a second one. The use of a multiple chart system allows for a great range of interaction amongst the various factors of range, cover, target type, weapon firing and number of weapons firing. In execution, it is a very quick system. After all units on both sides have acted in the move/fire phase, artillery impacts and plots are written for subsequent turns. THere is a mandatory two turn delay between the plotting and the execution of fire to reflect the poor communications. Artillery plotted on turn two will not show up until turn four. The only option open to artillery once plotted is to cancel the fire for that turn. Target plots are expressed as a measurement up from the players "home" board edge and in from his right hand board edge. (e.g. 'up 30" and left 15"). No pre-measurement is allowed for any purpose. Artillery drift is determined by means of a 360 degree compass that is numbered to correspond to percentile dice (1 - 100). The grid is laid on the table and dice are rolled (Zocchi's 100-sided dice are good for this) to determine the direction of drift. Two D6 are rolled, with one designated long and the other short. The total of these two determines how many inches off from the designated firing point the center of the artillery grid will be placed. To determine casualties another grid is used. This grid is placed over the firing point; the grid is made up of three concentric rings, each divided into quarters. The size of the battery firing determines how many of the rings will be used. A percentile die is rolled for each quadrant to determine how many casualties are inflicted in each quadrant. I quite frankly found the artillery determination method to be confusing at first. However, once we got it on the table, the pieces seemed to fall into place and I think the system works about as well as any other we've used. It does slow the game a bit, but not fatally so. After artillery, the morale is checked for each unit that is under 50% strength. Loss of casualties seems to be the only criterion for checking morale. Morale is checked by rolling percentile dice, with a score lower than 25% needed to break a unit at 50% casualties. A unit at 75% casualties needs 50% less to break. Various modifiers, mostly dependent on the type of unit checking, are factored into the roll. If a unit breaks, another roll is taken to determine what the result is. Morale failure ranges from full rout to freezing in place for one move. Routing units check morale again in each movement phase to see if they rally or if they continue running; no officers appear to be necessary for this check. AMBUSH 1916! German East Africa. Figures are Frontier 25mm. Melees occur between enemy units that are within one inch of each other after the morale phase. One of the units must have executed a charge 'in the move phase in order to initiate a melee. Melee is resolved by pairing up enemy figures as in The Sword and the Flame and rolling a D6. Various modifiers are added in and losing figures are either eliminated or forced to retreat. Melee continues until only one side is left. Other rules are provided for the effects of gas, smoke, wind, trench effects use of aircraft in strafing and bombing, mining and engineering. The rules are rounded out by unit lists for the major combatants of the period and a couple of representative scenarios. The rules are pretty well put together, with plenty of examples and illustrations of play. As stated, the only really confusing section was the artillery determination sequence, and that may be more my problem than a fault of the rules, since we made it work pretty well once we got it on the tabletop. It is not made clear how the figures should be mounted, although various illustrations in the book seem to indicate single mounts. This would be logical in light of the company scale of the units, although multiple stands (perhaps platoon-sized) would make moving troops go a little faster. Other questions that arose during our play concern the morale. Not requiring morale checks until a unit is 50% blown away seems excessive, at least at first glance. However, it does help recreate the horrendous casualties that marked this war. There doesn't seem to be any role for officer figures to play in the game, although the unit lists talk about requiring two battalion command figures for each battalion. I have my units set up with a company commander for each company, more for show than because they are useful in the rules. (We have ginned up some requirements for using officers for morale checks, calling/shifting artillery and a quick casualty table for determining if they get shot when their company is fired on.) The fire tables work very well at showing the variables attendant upon using direct fire weapons. However, we did get a feeling that heavy machineguns were a bit undervalued on the fire charts. The absolute best chance for a kill that HMG's have is 160% at a range of 2", on fire chart 'A'. We found that they are handy things to have around, but they don't quite live up to the quote from Lidell-Hart included in the rule book ("...the ominous shadow of the machine-gun - 'concentrated essence of infantry' - began to creep across the battlefield, bringing movement to a standstill.") There is enough "chrome" to distinguish this period from the colonial era and WWII. These extras are not intrusive, and integrate well with the main play of the game. Compared to a couple of other sets of WWI rules I've seen and used, 'Over There' seems to have struck the best balance between accuracy and playability. As stated in the booklet, "it is the crowning belief at Rivertown that rules should be easy to read and learn and yet produce generally valid historical results." It would seem that they have succeeded with these rules. For those wishing to explore the conflicts, both European and colonial, of the early 20th century, this rule set may be the one. Battle of Tanga: WWI in Africa Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #58 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com