Rules Review:

Sons of the Desert

by Richard Brooks

Sons of the Desert, Complete Rules for Miniature Figures, Including 11 Scenarios by Stephen Lawrence and is published by The Emperor's Press and Old Glory, available from The Emperor's HQ, 5744 Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL 60634 for $15.00 plus postage.

This is a thirty-two page booklet, however it's not all rules most pages are devoted to the scenarios. There are five pages of rules, a two page chart, table of contents, eight scenarios for 1:5 battles, a page of designers notes, two pages of rules and three scenarios for 1:1 battles, and a page of ads for, what else, Old Glory FFL and Arab figures.

Each of the scenarios has a map, scenario description, OBs for both sides, victory conditions and any special rules that apply. All quite nicely done with plenty of useful information. Most of the scenarios could be rewritten for almost any colonial power anywhere.

My son and I playtested these with the following observations:

  1. Way too easy to eliminate men.
  2. The better your leader is the more likely your men will panic?
  3. Only two formations? are recognized, does that mean you can or can't go from/to ranked line to skirmish line.
  4. Loss of leader has no effect on morale, what! how can this be, have I missed something?
  5. Movement - with each turn one minute it is possible, on a perfect roll, for a legionnaire in full kit to move 100 yards without running, I don't think so, movement should be more realistic.

The rules could be pretty good with some tweeking: When to rally - during the same morale phase you ran away or next turn during morale phase?; define obscure and soft cover, not just for the 1:1 game; formations; and pluses/minuses can get confusing at first, but after a few games it becomes clearer but not by much. It does make for a quick game as written. Our first game (Scenario 1) was over in four turns (four minutes game time), both sides ran away, in three turns the legion lost fourteen men out of twenty and had only fired once against the Arabs twice.

The second game, was a scenario from a campaign by mail and the game went fairly well lasting seven turns (seven minutes game time). While seven turns is a quick game the figures moved too quickly, too far and did everything they had to do. In hand to hand combat the weaker men always seem to wound the stronger, maybe it was just bad die rolling, but for the whole game?

If you won't get frustrated by what I've said about these rules so far, they are quick and a lot of fun, Recommended.

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© Copyright 1997 by Richard Brooks.

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