Hell By Daylight

(20th Century Rules)

by Bill Rutherford

Pub. by Anschluss Publishing is a 28 page digestsized set of 20th Century skirmish rules. The scales are I model to one troop and 10 meters per inch. The time scale isn't given, though it seems to run something under a minute per turn. The player command span runs from about a squad to a platoon. The author focuses the rules on the human factors of modern combat and minimizes equipment differences - not ignoring them, but avoiding much of the minutiae of equipment details common to many other rules. There are several basic weapons types - SMG's, rifles, pistols, assault rifles, etc., but there's little differentiation within a type. As mill be seen, this is much less an issue than it first seems.

The turn sequence is sequential: A moves, fires, takes reaction tests, etc., then B does the same. I wondered about this - at this scale, opportunity fire, simultaneous direct fire, etc., would've kept alternating movement, with its virtue of not needing to plot orders, but would have allowed more player interaction/reaction during the course of a turn. Troops come in four morale classes and three motivation classes. These two classes govern how troops will perform on the table. Movement is unusual in that troops, when in potential danger, move a variable amount determined by the troops' motivation, what type of fire, if any, they're under, and a random die roll based on their morale class. This amount may be positive, allowing movement and possibly fire, zero, causing the troops to go to ground, or even negative, causing the troops to fail back.

Command control is, in this game, considered a function of leadership influence. Leaders receive variable numbers of leadership points they use to influence their troops to move and fire. This influence is range- limited, forcing, to a degree, unit cohesion. Units (fire teams, squads, etc.) test reaction under a number of circumstances; units failing this test suffer a variety of ills ranging fiorn cowering to throwing down their weapons and fleeing. Fire combat is ranged and the firing weapon type and the target's cover. Prior to fire, all troops test to see whether they fire aimed or unaimed, based on both morale and motivation. As expected, aimed fire is much the deadlier of the two. Hits cause kills and wounds. Interestingly, dead troops don't much affect friendly morale - they just lay there, while wounded troops make noise and upset their comrades during reaction tests.

Artillery, armor, and air support are all addressed adequately, though the author stresses that these are not the focus of the game; small unit combat is. Hand-to-hand combat, after several reaction tests by the participants, is a simple die-roll comparison which in most cases is resolved after the first round. The rules are rounded out by three sample scenarios. Hell by Daylight is a dean set of rules that meet, I think, their stated goal of gaming the Human factor Equipment's there, but it's not the main focus of the game. All in all, an interesting set of skirmish rules, well priced at $8.00. Available at your local game store and in the USA, at least, from the Historical Products Company, c/o Patrick Condray, 8234 Kings Arm Drive, Alexandria, VA 22308.

More Reviews

Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 59
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1992 by The Courier Publishing Company.
This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com