GHQ has long been justly famous for their line of tiny armored vehicles, naval fleets, and they recently added an excellent 10mm ACW series. Well, for a couple of years they've been into mini- hexes of terrain scenery the doit-yourself way. They even make instruction videos that are extremely useful. I saw these guys demonstrate at the summer Historicon last year and they were wizards of the hex- module school. With this as a background, GHQ produces a house organ (TAC NEWS). As you might guess, they do some articles on modern combat and the Civil War, but they also have a section on their system "Terrain Maker." The issue they sent me features a well illustrated article on country roads and sunken roads made easy. The big problem is this stuff is addictive, especially if you see one of the tapes or see the "Terrain Makers" in action. When I saw them I was doomed for half a year and now besides the regular Geo-Hex bases, my Flex-Terrain roads, nvers, etc., I've got stacks of special big "Blue Board" and regular styrofoam terrain sections. So with my tons of turf foam and plastic H20 I'm set for a few more wasted hours of fun. It could be worse or maybe it is and I just don't know it. I like little battles. In many cases I enjoy the look on a lot of gamers' faces when they discover two things that most of them never encountered. The first is FLANKS. Usually, this comes into play when artillery fire reduces the exposed flank units of an attacking infantry force. Many players are never exposed to anything except a battle line that stretches securely from one end of the table to the other. In smaller battles (Divisional) you become aware of all that dangerous empty ground out there. The other shock that they are hit by is DEPTH. Many people are not aware of the advisability of attacking in depth with an adequate reserve. Even attacking troops which are successful can be sucked away by defeated forces, and if they have no support all they have accomplished may count for naught. A situation like this becomes especially evident when cavalry actions are fought. Many gamers think in the manner of a TV or Hollywood presentation -- CHARGE -- then WHAM! In reality, a cavalry charge is a leapfrog affair, with squadrons, regiments, or larger formations acting as charging, support, and reserve sections. One section goes in while the others serve to provide relief or cover when the engaged troops retreat or pull back to re-form. The theory here is that you should always have something fresh to throw in -- if you're lucky. Cavalry battles could and did go on for hours this way. This brings up another problem that we seem to have in our games. Preparation: One of the main things in our game is that once you form your troops and are within "X" distance of the enemy they must charge or withdraw. Okay, that makes sense as far as it goes. But it seems that we never get a chance to soften up enemy positions before an assault. We never get to wear down a position before we go in and that makes a big difference. I don't know why we don't seem to wheel out the guns and blow them away. And this leads to another item that ties in with the above: we're talking about full strength units. Now even in a well run army it never took long for the ranks to be down 10, 20, or 30ø/~if on active campaign, it could be worse. One of the best things about using company stands as an organization basic is that if you use a roster system and stuff the stand with 3 or 4 figures (I do because I like the "Big Battalion" look) you can have a 20, 30, or 40 to 1 ratio, too. In all my other armies I usually have a reduction factor of about 20%, except for ACW armies where the actual numbers are fairly well known or can be guessed. So even if you're not running a campaign, any gamer could easily rig a system where an army could be reduced by brigades or divisions by 10, 20, or 30%. After all, the enemy wouldn't know and he'd go through the same system, too. Yes, I adhere to the company system. It's the only way to go if you want to understand the actual historical functioning of troops -- no matter what the era. And this doesn't mean you can't have beer and pretzel games. After all, a good B and P game is a distillation of good historical rules. Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 9 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 by Emperor's Headquarters This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com