Dear Mark As you will know I am very impressed with the rules you produce. The two sets sent are excellent (ELAN & Cross of Iron) - so full of atmosphere. However I was not prepared for the quantum leaps in quality of Gauntlet No.10. The content of the magazine was both stunning and detailed. In fact when I also compare the quantity with the glossy mags there is no competition - you win. Keep up the good work Yours sincerely, Alan Barker Dear Mark Many thanks for Cross of Iron it`s excellent ! The sort of stuff I`d like to see in The Gauntlet is : 1) Unusual small wars / campaigns. US Banana Wars : the Rif Wars ; Russo-Finnish Winter War, WW2 East Africa ; Russian expansion into central Asia in the late C19th (my current favourite). 2) "General" rule sets, but with specific supplements for particular campaigns. Especially solo rules or scenarios. 3) Scenarios that allow us to get our favourite figures on the tabletop. Someone brings out a range of "must have" figures for the ............. war, you buy some and think "now what am I gonna do with these ?" `Bye for now Cheers . . . . Geoff Barker Dear Mark, Well, talk about a comeback. The very day I finally decide to put finger to keyboard to see if the "The Gauntlet" was still out there somewhere, issue 10 thuds onto my doormat. Bad year or no, 1997 clearly hasn't affected your ability to put together what is 'to my mind' the best warnaming magazine currently available. Issue 10 has been an inspiration, with something of use to me in pretty much all the articles - of course the fact that six of the articles covered one of my main areas of interest helped. But enough of blowing sunshine up your arse, to business. Having pretty much slipped "The Odd Angry Shot" straight into my own COIN campaign I had my first chance to try them out a couple of nights ago. As my company of (fictitious SE Asian) Gendarmes have a rather smaller TAOR than I think probably applied in Africa, I used the idea of a limited running deck. My Gendarmes picked up some guerrilla tracks about 3 hours cold. A quick bit of rule R&D decided that the pick-up point would be D6+4 hours from wherever the guerrillas were going. A roll of 8 and we were off; with 5 hours to track the guerrillas down before they blew something up or exited the TAOR. The first three hours (played in about 20 minutes) were a smooth playing, but frustrating experience. Despite having my best platoon in pursuit, the "sluggies" resoundingy failed all attempts at a fast follow up. Meanwhile the main tracking group had somewhere managed to lose 15 minutes. Suddenly, however, things began to hot up. The main group rolled a double one and identified the guerrillas intended target, whilst the guerrillas first got a weary on and then a turn later stopped altogether for a rest. As the Reaction Force platoon scrambled towards a suitable ambush point the pursuers were now only two hours behind and finally a fast follow up roll succeeded. On the very next roll however, the guerrllas came up with a double one and dispersed on meeting a group of peasants. Some fairly aggressive questioning of the civilians resulted in a decision to set another ambush that night, but nothing came of it. All in all' top marks for the operational phase - pity I didn't get the chance to try out the tactical phase rules. I did come up with a couple of questions though. First, the BUSH roll results table gives results for odd numbers above or below BUSH, but not evens. Was this a typo (as I assumed) or are there different results? No effect (Mark). Second' in the tactical rules you make mention of critical successes and failures for BUSH rolls. Is this a double below or above BUSH? In most EDNA based rules a Critical Success is a double equal to or below, in this case BUSH, whilst a Critical Failure would be doubles above BUSH (Mark). But then why under "Ambush!" is 6,6 (surely always a failed BUSH roll) apparently a critical, critical success? Now that`s a typo - should be 1,1 - thanks ! (Mark). One final thought; how accurate is the assessment of objective when the pursuers roll 1,1? If you have a large or perhaps very mobile blocking force available it may not matter, but in my campaign I only have an APC mounted platoon on call, so I need to put it in the right place. It seems to me that the further the pursuers are behind the greater the degree of educated guess involved, so how about a 10% chance per hour the pursuers are behind of the ambush being placed across the wrong trail ? Thus in my game above there would have been a 20% chance of the guerllas avoiding the RF deploying to cut them off. Just a thought. And a good one too. The rules were meant to be a brief introduction to the subject for which no-one, to my knowledg,e has written a dedicated set of rules before. See my forthcoming rules booklet L.R.R.P. for more detailed patrolling and ambushing systems. On a parting thought I agree whole heartedly with Chris (Graham) Minshaw (last issue`s Chainmail). My COIN security forces are para-militaries (no FSBs or helicopter gunships for me) and my TYW armies tend to be a pretty shabby bunch. Perhaps there is scope for some sort of 'Society of Duffers' - a group dedicated to championing the cause of the conscript, militiaman and levee en masse throughout the ages! I've lost it; time to sign off. With best regards Dave Woollcombe-Gosson Thanks both for your kind comments and input Dave - Society of Duffers ? Sign me up ! . . . Mark Dear Mark Good to hear from you again. Could you answer some queries thrown up whilst playing Sunne of York down the club. Please don't see these questions as criticism of the rules, they have some great ideas in them and perhaps we were a little worse for wear that night to think straight anyway. Still thinking of pinching the command system for dark age games where battle appear to have been won by leadership (leading by example and exhortation) rather than by maneuver, for the next game we are going to use lots of those free flags from the website for keeping track of balders. 1. Game sequence? Is it alternating or simultaneous ? and if its alternate move is it by command or army ? (our solution was to roll for movement by command and melee etc was simultaneous) As you like - not cast in stone but suggest those with more Balders move first(Mark) 2. Can troops shoot twice per move ? i.e in move phase and melee phase ? Mmm I only shoot once but suppose Longbows could fire twice due to thier rate of fire (Mark). 3. Any ideas for moving in rough ground, we didn`t actually get that far but we intended to inflict stragglers on units in these areas, probably one for archers or irish types, two for pikemen or mounted or MAA on foot. Sounds good to me - I wing it according to the scenario (Mark). 4. Balders tests; do battels that do not move avoid the test?... To my mind this penalises the moving battel only and I saw this test as not just of coordination but as a morale test too. Shire levy types might suffer more when moving but they might be a little unstable and try to sneak off even when stationary. Good idea I hadn`t really thought of that to be honest (Mark). 5. We were a little confused by the shooting/melee factors. If a contingent is supposed to be a mix of bows and bills and MAA etc. then which factors are used in combat (melee) and is the archers melee factor only to be used by units made up of archers only (such as welshmen or what have you ) The scale of the game is larger than most - I don`t believe in figure to man ratios per se. A typical WoR battel is a mix of troop types, bow, bill & Men at arms. But predominately bills in melee. My idea on Men at arms was really French at Agincourt, but it`s not wrong to have the command base with all those lords and their personal retainers fighting as Men at arms. Yes, Welsh archers at Agincourt or Crecy etc.(Mark). 6. Can balders be used to boost archery or only in a melee? If they can be added to archery its a bit too effective and also whilst I can envisage the bold 'Sir whatever' leading his men in a desperate charge I cannot see how he could actually influence the shooting in a similar fashion. I`ve had a think about this one and say - Yes, they can effect archery. But, archers can only fire once per turn. turn. The use of Balders in this case represents a fast and heated arrow exchange - tiring the men, using up the limited arrow supply etc. (Mark) Craig: Played a computer moderated English Civil War game today, it was pretty interesting, very little arguement. I had two regiments of lowland Scots. I didn't get to do much but advance, stand, give, and receive fire. Until my regiments decided they had enough and left. I'm working on building the forces, and terrain for Pegasus bridge, and Stalingrad. There is also discussions about doing some sort of campaign, but no decision on period is even close. Jeff Mattes Dear Sir My name is Luis Sevilla Somoza, nephew of the late President Anastacio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua. Presently, myself and one of my youger brothers are doing legal battle with the remains of the illegal Sandinista judicial system for the recouperation of our properties. My family is starting a Non-Profit Foundation for our dad who past away last December - Ambassador Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa. One of the projects we have is to construct the "The National Nicaraguan Arms Museum" which would have the complete history of our nations wars, vehicles, and personalities. The idea for this museum is not only for historic value and tourist dollars, but also to show some interesting vehicles, and airplanes. The Sandinista army at one point had over 50 Hun helicopters, and presently have every Russian tank, armoured vehicle etc. which the Russian army gave them during the early '80's. How about 150 Russian tanks!. Our National Guard army had 5 Shermans and 5 British tankets (with tires), a dozen Israel troop carriers, 2 WWII half tracks, and a lot of other WWII stuff. Presntly I have my hands on one British Tanket, a small one man Italian WWII tank, which Musolini gave my grandfather General Anastasio Somoza Garcia. I'm looking for sources to eventualy replace some of these National Guard vehicles. A Sherman, a half track, WWII items. Also, Im still locating one of the two T33 trainers we had, that eventualy were sidelined, and a Cessna push-pull. Can you help. The items we are looking for donot have to run at all. They will sit in an indoor museum the rest of their lives. Can you help me find sources for the above for the future museum? You place looks great. I hope to visit one day. Sincerely, Luis Sevilla S. "Grupo SeSo S.A" (javi@ibw.com.ni) -ed note: an interesting little e-mail from Nicaragua. I publish this for information purposes only and not because I support or am against the former President of Nicaragua. Hey everyone, Battleground is changing host providers in the next couple of days. If you use midnight as your email for us please us M4A3E8@battlegroundwwii.com The midnight@unicom.net will not work in the near future. If you use the other it should still work. If you have problems check back with us, we will be up an going soon. Thanks All Brad Sanders thanks for the update from Battleground WWII, one of the hottest rules sets going right now... Dear Craig, I am back in business after long vacation and trip to the US. New Gauntlet arrived in Moscow safely. Thank you very much. During my trip I met Mike and we refought a small battle of 1805 campaign. Very interesting Rules and very great time in Florida! It is a pity that I could not meet you there. It was my first experience of wargaiming over the ocean! Really great!!! Thank you very much for this great contact. Best regards, Nick Hi Craig All's well on this side of the world. I knew there were problems with the floods over there - someone at work came back from hols in China where they were washed away. I have finished Panzerknacker - hooray - it's 56 pages with 2 A4 folded play sheets - one for the tanker, one for the panzerjager (cool huh). Unfortunately it runs to 35 megs but we may have the cd-rom fixed. I'll have Congo Commando to you this week and Pusan at the weekend - blame all the Piquet modifications. What are your thoughts on individual skirmish rules - I have been sent a fuck-off good set called combat patrol - but even better I've come up with my own system based on SLA Marshall's Men Against Fire with rules are based upon the actualities of combat rather than the usual weapons. Hope you are keeping well Mark -ed note: I threw in this letter from Mark to me just so you see how Mark and I conduct business. The internet and digital technology makes it all possible... Thanks Mark for bringing me along on this ride! Back to The Gauntlet No. 13 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Craig Martelle Publications 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