For those of us, who play cardboard wars all by our lonesome, such things as hidden movement and surprise invasions can be a problem. Just how do you surprise yourself? Fire in the East and the other Europa games that use airdrops, amphibious invasions, and of course Scorched Earth's partisans present this solitaire dilemma. To help you get around this difficulty, below are a few ideas and guidelines to put a little fear and loathing into invasions and sabotage campaigns.

Air/Sea Invasions

1. Plan the invasion as normal but execute it the same turn you plan ft. This is a departure from the standard rules. Do not resolve the disruption die roll for airborne operations or resolve combat for amphibious invasions until after step 2.

2. Now for the bit of uncertainty. Perform the following die rolls:

Reaction Distance: Roll one D6. This number is the "reaction distance." This defines how far an enemy unit can be, in hexes, from the invasion hex and execute a "reaction move." Subtract 2 from the die roll in poor weather.

Number of Reacting Units: Roll one D6 and consult the following table.

	Die Roll	Reacting Units
	1	one
	2-6	two

This is the number of units that may exe- cute a "reaction move" adjacent to your invading units. The units must be within the "reaction distance" defined above. Subtract 1 from the roll if the weather is poor. Note which units made this non- standard move. They may not move in the next friendly movement phase. They may move in the exploitation phase if eligible.

This method puts some uncertainty back into invasions if you are playing all alone as I do. If you want to adjust the maximum number of units or the maximum reaction distance, please do so to suit your own tastes or historical research. I admit I haven't done any research to see when and how efficiently forces were marshalled to meet an invasion.

Partisans

1. Recruitment. When you get your units, turn them all upside down and shuffle them so you don't know which ones are real and which ones are the dummies. This keeps you in the dark and thus simulates the uncertainty in two-player games.

2. Unit Placement. Before you place the units per the standard rules, assign a priority target to each. Again, you don't know which units are real or not. Place the unit as close as possible to its assigned target while obeying the standard rules. Move it towards the assigned target in as straight of a line as possible while obeying the movement rules. When the partisan unit is at its target, resolve the attack as normal. At that time you will know whether your attack is successful or not and if it is a real unit. Once you know whether the unit is real or not, you should continue trying to attack the assigned target while obeying the standard rules. Finally, you cannot assign more than one partisan unit to the same target hex. For example, if two partisan units are assigned rail lines as their target, they cannot attack the same rail line hex.

I hope these simple rules will help those of you playing solitaire enjoy partisans and air/sea invasions more. While these rules may not be historically accurate, I have fun with them. Hopefully, your security units will be used for anti-partisan warfare instead of mere garrison duties, and your partisans will not sit in your Scorched Earth box without a purpose.