What's in a game?

I read with interest Tony Teal's review of Piquet in the May/June issue, and couldn't help but notice a very interesting comment he made when summing up his impression of his first experience with these rules: "Certainly Piquet isn't a solid rules set for accurate battlefield simulation, but it was...a fun, playable system very different from most rules." Unfortunately, Mr. Teal did not expound on his reasons for dismissing Piquet's realism. I hope a fuller explanation of the philosophy behind Piquet (as I understand and interpret it) might be helpful to those readers looking at these rules with a curious eye.

Piquet combines two interesting mechanics in an effort to structure combat, command and control. One mechanic is the sequence deck. This sequence deck is comprised of a series of cards with actions and/or events described on them. In and of itself, this idea is nothing new. Several wargame designs have turn sequences dictated by a shuffled card deck, resulting in uncertainty as to when fire, melee, morale checks and movement will occur. Piquet takes a quantum leap forward from this system by using cards to dictate opportunity, but not action. Most games that use card decks do so simply to shuffle the order in which a traditional turn sequence is played out; events may not happen in the same order, but they will happen no matter what. In Piquet, a turn can end (causing the deck to be reshuffled) at any time, therefore it is essential to act upon a card at a propitious moment. You become not only a general, but a gambler: Will I get another movement card before the turn ends, or should I move now just in case? Should I fire my artillery now at long range, even though I may not turn a "reload" card before his infantry closes on my battery's position? If he closes before I can turn a reload card, I may be unloaded and unable to fire at close range. What to do? (The "loaded" and "unloaded" mechanic is a brilliant piece of design philosophy, and is best explored and explained by the designer's notes included in the rulebook. One can fire at any time (impetus permitting), but "reloading" takes a card. Space prevents me from exploring this concept here.)

The random sequence deck also serves as a mechanic by which the capabilities of various armies can be modeled. For example, an Austrian army in 1805 does not enjoy the same maneuver flexibility or command and control benefits as its French counterpart. In traditional wargames, such national differences are usually limited to officer command ranges and morale, because turns are structured and everyone -- no matter how bad the army -- gets a structured opportunity to fire, move and rally troops. This is unhistorical. The gamer who plays Piquet will soon find that the 1806 Prussians are just as determined to fight as are the French, but that the armies themselves handle differently. One must have detailed knowledge of the capability of his army to succeed. What can be more historically accurate than that?

Without question, the most controversial aspect of Piquet is its initiative system. To determine the manner in which cards are used, each player rolls a D20, and the net winner receives that number of "impetus points" with which to turn cards and/or perform actions. This mechanic serves a number of functions, but high on that list is the idea of unpredictability. You are not guaranteed that you will receive impetus when you want or need it. In order to succeed in Piquet, a victorious general must possess a good plan, keep reserves close at hand and have a good sense of timing. That sounds like a frightfully accurate description of history's most successful generals.

Gamers used to a move-countermove model hate the idea of Piquet's initiative system because it takes away their ability to directly control all events. In MCM games, a wargamer knows exactly when his opponent will fire, move, conduct melee and check for morale because this sequence is printed in the rules manual and governs play. To paraphrase Piquet's designer, Bob Jones: "Whoever heard of a battle report that read like this: First I moved my infantry forward, then my opponent moved his forward to meet it. We both fired our artillery. I then pushed some cavalry forward, then he did the same; I ordered a charge, and he did the same. We then meleed. Both armies saw units run away, and both commanders then proceeded to rally several units. We then repeated this same sequence for the next eight hours." It doesn't sound like any battle report you've ever read, does it?

Unfortunately, gamers across this country paint thousands of miniatures, place them on carefully flocked and manicured bases, build beautiful terrain and set aside time to play a game, only to be greeted with wargame systems that are unimaginative, boring and totally devoid of the feel of real battle. In Piquet, battle is modeled as unpredictable, chaotic and full of surprises, momentum swings and the fog of war. Rather than be a master of charts, graphs and rules, a Piquet player must master himself. Ulysses S. Grant once said that all battles ultimately came down to a test of wills between opposing commanders; in my experience, most Piquet commanders are beaten psychologically long before their armies disintegrate. This is history at its most realistic level.

Piquet is flexible and easily structured to suit an individual's tastes. I routinely change the sequence decks and resiliency of certain armies to suit my own impression of what those armies were like. Piquet not only allows for modification, it encourages it. Piquet encourages a player to be creative, imaginative, resourceful and knowledgeable about the period he attempts to recreate.

I have collected figures for 20 years, and painted for 18. I own hundreds -- yes, hundreds -- of sets of rules and thousands of figures, but only Piquet has kindled within me a real love for playing games. In the past, I'd purchase a new set of rules and dive in, only to find that the games didn't make me feel like Napoleon, Hannibal or Brennius, but like a librarian or statistician. Battles weren't fast and furious; they were boring. Now my games are tense, nail-biting affairs accompanied by a cacophony of sound: fist-slamming, gasps, moans -- the groans of defeat and the cries of victory. Battles are exciting, tense affairs, and my armies beat down their foes for real, tangible, historical reasons.

If you like range bands, combat results tables, endless lists of modifiers, rules divided by chapters and sub-rules to cover the cuirass worn by Napoleon, then you probably already have rules to handle your games. But if you want to feel the sweat and sting of battle, then Piquet can open a whole new range of possibilities to you.

Now go forth and conquer.