Foot Soldier, by author Gary Blum, is a 35 page digest-sized set of small unit action rules with a scale of one miniature to one real troop, ten feet to the inch, and a very short (unspecified) time span. Players control several fireteams, each consisting of 3 - 6 troops. Each fireteam, (as well as vehicle, offboard battery, etc.) is assigned a playing card which is put in a deck. As cards are drawn from the deck, the corresponding fireteams move and fire. When the deck is exhausted, the turn is over. Movement is standard fixed maximum rates, modified by terrain troops may run, gaining extra movement, every other turn. Troops must spot nonmoving, nonfiring enemies before firing on them a D20 is cast on a simple range, spotter, and target dependent table to see whether the enemy, within LOS, is spotted. Troops spot for ambushes and booby traps on a separate table. Fire combat involves rolling a D20 on a table against the firer's weapon's attack factor to determine hits and morale checks. Fire is not range dependent. Fire results take place immediately. Troops and fireteams have one of four morale levels or command control levels, respectively. Hit troops check morale via D20 roll, with modifiers and will either be ok or will fall back for one or two turns. Fireteams similarly check command control whenever their troops check morale and may go berserk, may fall back, or may rout if control is not maintained. Troops in physical contact resolve melee by die roll, with modifiers; low roll wins. The rules don't say what happens to the loser, but I suspect they become KIA. The rules address, in varying degrees of detail, vehicles, arty, and aircraft. They use similar mechanisms to those used for infantry combat, even down to non-range-dependent fire for all weapons. The author recommends minimizing their use to keep the focus on infantry combat. I agree. Snipers, boobytraps, minefields, basic combat engineering (eg. satchel charges and flamethrowers), and chemicals (including smoke and flares) are all addressed as well. These all fit in well and work within the mechanics of the infantry game. The rulebook includes 10 pages of vehicle, aircraft, and heavy weapons statistics, as well as four pages of company organizations (simplified, but useful) and three pages of glossary and bibliography (good biblio). If the rules cost more than their cover price of $5.95, I'd object to so much space being devoted to vehicle stats, but, as is, Foot Soldier remains a good value despite them! These rules should be available from your local game store if not, you can order them from The Wargame Room, 3584 S. 94th St., Milwaukee, WI 53228. More Reviews Pass of the North 25mm Moros of the Philippines Garrison 25mm Napoleonics Falcon Miniatures 25mm Napoleonics GHQ 1/2400 WWII Ships and Aircraft Quality Castings 15mm WWII Landing Craft Vac-U-Cast 1/285 Emplacement GHQ 1/285 WWII and Modern Micro Armour Napoleon's Battles Module Advance to Contact Small Unit Skirmish Rules Foot Soldier Modern Skirmish Rules Osprey Waffen SS Soldier 1940-45 WRG Wargames Rules 1925 - 1950 and 1950 - 2000 The Barrett Scale for Reviews Back to Table of Contents -- Courier # 61 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 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