- "When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."
-- The Young British Soldier by R. Kipling
Being a mind-numbingly simple set of 1:1 skirmish rules for actions in the Victorian era.
1. Introduction
This game is based on three premises. First, it shouldn't take longer to play the game than it did to fight the battle. Second, it shouldn't take longer to read the rules than it did to fight the battle. Third, if you have to stop to look something up every two minutes, something is wrong. With that in mind, these rules were developed. The mechanics are simple, the bookkeeping non-existent. Roll to your Rifle is fast paced, unpredictable and fun. I must acknowledge Mr. Gerard Quinn, whose article in MWAN #85 entitled "The Random Draw System" inspired me to convert my otherwise conventional rules to this card-based system.2. Game scale
This is a skirmish game. Scale is around 1:1, with each figure mounted individually. Unit sizes should be around ten figures, but can easily vary. There should be one leader per unit. You can have as many figures as you want per side, but anything over 30 or so will probably get pretty cumbersome. Lots of dice rolling, you know.3. How to Play the Game
The turn sequence of this game is based on drawing cards from a deck. Each card tells you exactly what to do. The twist that makes this game unique is that everything you need to know is written on the card itself. You don't need to look anything up in the "rules." There are many advantages to this system. - ease and quickness of play being the greatest. It also provides a large degree of uncertainty to the game - you never know what the next card is going to be. The addition of the 'Shuffle' card makes things even more exciting. Another advantage of this system is that extra cards can be added to handle any event the gamer wants. You can also remove cards that aren't necessary, and this speeds up game play. As currently written, the game includes the following cards:The basic game (Natives vs. Europeans)
2 x Europeans fire (Europeans get to fire twice because of their more advanced weapons)
1 x Natives fire
1 x Europeans move
2 x Natives move (Natives move faster)
1 x Both sides move (this adds a little spice)
2 x Melee
1 x Check morale
1 x Special event (this card covers, well, special events. I've included some examples on the card but the gamer is encouraged to add whatever is necessary for the battle being fought.)
1 x Recover (this card allows stunned figures the chance to recover)
1 x damage card (this card is not included in the deck, it is left out for all to see)
1 x shuffle
Optional cards to be used if required (i.e., if you don't have any boats, you don't need the Boat Movement card!)
2 x Boat movement (boats move fast, thus two cards. I like boats.)
1 x Artillery fire (this is for both sides - if fighting Europeans vs. Europeans, this is for just one side)
1 x Machinegun fire (this is for both sides, too.)
1 x Natives fire, 2 (this card is only needed if natives are equipped with high rate of fire weapons, like bows)
The advanced game - Europeans vs. Europeans
(This is dangerous territory - I haven't play tested this a lot, but it seems to work okay. These cards separate the two sides into 'European 1' and 'European 2'. Any natives are handled by the existing cards for natives. This means that all the natives on both sides fire and move at the same time. So far this hasn't caused any problems.)
For the second European side, add the following cards:
2 x Europeans fire, 2
1 x Europeans move, 2
1 x melee, 2 (with all the extra cards, another melee card is needed to ensure the random draws give sufficient opportunities for melee)
1 x Artillery fire, 2
To play the game it is quite easy. Just put the cards randomly into a deck and draw them one at a time, doing whatever the card says. When the 'shuffle' card is drawn, the cards are shuffled and you start drawing them again. Repeat as necessary until victory or defeat is ascertained (or until you get tired of it).
4. What to do with the enclosed cards:
First, make copies of the pages with the cards on them. Then, glue the pages to thin cardstock. Finally, cut the cards out of the cardstock to make a deck. Optionally, you can copy the pages directly onto cardstock if you have a copy machine that is capable of such a feat.Roll to Your Rifle Cards Very slow: 384K.
5. Design notes
I freely acknowledge that this game may not be for everyone. However, for me it provides just the amount of detail I want for an enjoyable skirmish game. I don't need to know if Lt. Blathering I. Diot is going to bleed to death in d6+4 turns from that nasty abdomen/groin wound (from a Zulu assegai, the long one, not the short one, which is +1, plus an additional roll for blood poisoning because it was rusty). I just want to know if he can fight or can't he. I also want rules that afford opportunities for heroics by individual figures, and these rules do that. Just recently OberGrupenFeldenLeutnanten Von der Lupe single-handedly killed four of the enemy while defending the bodies of injured soldaten inside a small building. This effort probably kept him from being defenestrated after an otherwise inglorious defeat.
The random system also works well for solo play, which, alas, I do a lot of. I have found that one of the best ways to do a solo game is to have the native entry randomized. I do this by placing small d6 on the gameboard and rolling each turn to see if any natives arrive. If they do, they appear at any one of the 6 locations. This way you never know from whence the next attack comes. This made for a very exciting game once when my U.S. Marines rescued, well, you know who.
Roll to Your Rifle Game Report The Rescue of Frauline Von Lebentodt
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© Copyright 1999 by Richard Brooks.
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