"War is composed altogether of accidents..."
One peculiarity often noted by wargamers authoring articles in MWAN (including our esteemed editor) is that they don't actually play many wargames. They become excited about a new era, do extensive research, buy lots of lead, paint it to exacting standards, create the proper terrain and buildings, and perhaps set up a battle, but that's about it. I've done this myself often enough that I will hazard a theory which might explain the phenomenon, at least in part.
I think the problem is that even meticulously researched and carefully thought-out rules are, we eventually recognize, so slow-moving and unlike reality that the pain of learning and applying them just isn't worth the effort. As Donald Featherstone and others have pointed out, we don't really want or expect our rules to simulate the horrors of actual warfare. But if we are fascinated by military history and the great commanders and armies of the past, we do want to participate in some way in recreating their maneuvers and emulating their tactics,
Wargame rules, whether one or one hundred pages in length, generally employ turns, phases, impulses, and many charts. When I took at most rules sets, I see something that is far more reminiscent of my old law school text on the Uniform Commercial Code than of the Charge of the Light Brigade or Leonidas at Thermopylae. The British check for command control, move all units, try to charge, conduct fire, conduct melee, check morale, and so on and so forth. The French sit and watch them do this. Then the French struggle through the same 16 phases while the British watch. One turn is finally complete. Only fifteen more and victory can be calculated. If the rules are simple enough or the players truly dedicated, the game might come to a conclusion, Otherwise, exhaustion and boredom often set in first.
One answer to this dilemma may be rules which are not only simple, but which are also drastically different from the rules which govern chess, checkers, or most board games, because they are chaotic. I took a feeble stab at such rules in MWANs 85 (the old West) and 95 (ancients). In order to encourage other, more talented and prolific rule writers, let me explain how and why we might consider changing the way wargame rules work.
I have taken Napoleon as our guide and model. According to Owen Connelly's challenging work on the Corsican Ogre, Blundering to Glory (Scholarly Resources, 1987), the key to Napoleonic strategy and tactics was not any set of logical principles at all. On the admittedly rare occasions when Napoleon was candid, he summarized his technique as, "You engage, and then you wait and see." ("On s'engage, el alors on voit") Perhaps his most complete short summary of what he had learned was the sentence, "War is composed altogether of accidents." A great commander, he said, is one who knows how to profit by the accidents which make up a battle.
Do any wargaming rules recognize these truths" Other than an occasional and usually inconsequential "random event," almost every rule set I have read minimizes or abolishes "accidents." "Accidents" and the unexpected are virtually non-existent, as every player knows the exact order battle, sequence of movement, combat strengths, movement allowances, and the effects of terrain, and can watch every event unfold from his position high overlooking the battlefield. Structured turns mean that there are no surprises or foul-ups, but rather a wonderful (if surrealistic) sense of perfect order.
There is no room for talent of the Napoleonic variety, where one can only hope orders will be conveyed, understood, and followed, and where one must always be prepared to patch up unexpected disasters, "mix it up," and look for a chance opening which can be exploited.
Maybe we can solve the problem if we don't abolish accidents, but instead abolish turns. Why in the world are wargamers content with turns? There are no turns in war or in life. No one can command his troops with confidence that his opponent will just sit there and watch, Turns are not only wholly unrealistic, but wholly unnecessary. The Sword and the Flame is a wonderful rule set which largely eliminates the tyranny of the turn, by using a random card pick to control the order of movement. But turns can actually be entirely eliminated by, for example, pulling cards randomly for each side's phases and options. A Napoleonic battle might use a deck of 9 cards: French movement, French infantry fire, French artillery fire, French charge movement, British movement, British infantry fire, British charge movement, British artillery fire, and "shuffle." When "shuffle" is drawn, you shuffle all the cards together again.
[Reader: "But that's not fair and it's not realistic, because my opponent drew a movement card, then a fire card, then we had to shuffle, and then he moved again, and my troops never got off a shot." Author: "That was very unfair and therefore very realistic."]
Indeed, even this sort of whining is itself realistic, and therefore a Good Thing, as history is replete with battles where troops did not get off volleys, despite great opportunities, or where they just couldn't hit a thing when they did fire. Most of the losing generals whined as well. On the other hand, the great generals scrambled around and made the best they could of what fate had dealt them.
My ancients rules, "The Wrath of the House of Barca," actually use turns but employ a different sort of movement scheme, which may be less chaotic, but which also introduces uncertainty. After each command is moved, the owner rolls a D6; on a "6" his movement phase ends. (A "command" is a group of bases in contact with one another, a la DBA.) Movement allowances are relatively high (12 inches for cavalry, 9 for light infantry, 6 for medium and heavy), but players never know when their turn will end. Alexander may be very unpleasantly surprised when the cavalry unit he's sent forward a full 12 inches finds itself entirely on its own, his move having then terminated with a dice roll of "6." (The prospective supporting troops apparently either didn't receive or understand their orders, or didn't like the look of those Asian elephants!) Perhaps in hindsight Alexander wishes he had moved the cavalry only 3 inches forward, where they couldn't be isolated and enveloped. Of course then they might been exposed to more galling missile fire. But that's the sort of guesswork a leader should have to engage in.
Along with uncertainty should come simplicity. They complement one another nicely, as uncertainty adds the right kind of complexity to a game - complexity arising out of the situation, not out of the rule book. A game is complex in a good way when the choices one is confronted with are difficult, not when one must re-read 4 pages of fine print to figure out how to advance a unit 3 inches.
The simplest game would have no rules or charts at all, but present complex and challenging tactical choices, somewhat like the Tactical Exercise Without Troops. (Cf Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargamingfor Fun, Chapter 8.) Absent a military professional to act as umpire, however, rules are still necessary.
My rules for colonial actions, "Victoria Cross," incorporate some of the ideas I've outlined above, I've long cherished the idea of abandoning charts for missile fire while simultaneously incorporating a much more finely tuned rangge-based firing system. Based on books such as Hughes's Firepower, it seems that there was a far more gradual failing off in fire effectiveness than the "0-6 inches is close range, 6-18 inches is long range" system we usually use. [Reader: "But who wants to look at a chart with 20 range bands? You are a hypocrite." Author- "We are all sinners. But charts are unnecessary."] My solution is to tie the distance to the target directly to the chance of hitting something. Different troop types (or weapons) roll a different number or type of dice to "simulate" their effective ranges. You must roll an amount equal to or greater than the range in inches to cause casualties. This gives a fully graduated range "chart" out to the maximum range of the firing unit, but eliminates all charts. The number of casualties is the maximum range of the firing unit minus the dice roll, but is limited to a maximum of the number of troops firing.
For example, British troops firing roll 2 ten sided dice. If the range to the target is 13 inches, there will be casualties only if the British roll 13 or more. The potential number of casualties is equal to the maximum range of the unit firing (here, 20) minus the dice roll, and can never exceed the number of men firing. So, in this example, if the British rolled a 13, and there were 6 British soldiers firing, 6 casualties would be inflicted, even though 20-13 - 7. Had 7 or more troops been firing, the full 7 casualties could have been inflicted. If the target troops are cowardly enough to skulk behind vegetation or walls, they may still survive if they meet a saving throw. If they are in the open they have no possibility for a reprieve.
Measurement technique is clearly critical to this system, as the range from one flank of the firing unit to the target might be 6 inches greater (or lesser) than the range from the other flank. You do what you like, but my practice is to use the range from the farthest man firing as the operative number. This also helps to place a reasonable limit on the number of troops firing and gives you some decisions to make concerning how to group units for fire. (There may be a group of 20 British soldiers who theoretically could fire, but including them all in the firing group may lengthen the maximum range to 20 inches, making the chance of hitting anything very slim. Limiting the group actually firing to 12 men might allow you to reduce the range to 14 inches, making it much more likely you'll hit something,)
[Reader: "What nonsense! Why in the world would 12 soldiers firing their rifles be more likely to cause casualties than 20 soldiers?" Author: "You're forgetting the possible obscuring effects of powder smoke, and the shock and confusion of a large number of troops firing in a restricted space, et cetera." Reader: "That's a remarkably lame explanation for your simplistic rules, which are neither 'meticulous' nor 'well thought out.' Further, at very close ranges, an enemy charging into melee against a large unit will be decimated by fire, making melee almost impossible." Author: "And wasn't melee actually much more uncommon than most games allow? And what if the unit being charged misses fire? Troops that sneak up close before they charge have a good chance of striking home without suffering greatly. The rules cleverly make it more difficult to hit charging units which sprint up from close on, as the defenders would be startled and unable to draw a steady bead on them. They may not even have a chance for a devastating close-range volley, having flinched at the crucial moment, and the bravery of the charging host will therefore be rewarded." Reader: "What piffle!"]
These rules assume your troops are 15 mm and individually based, but you can always use a roster or casualty caps if you have multiple figure stands. [Reader: "My troops are 25 mm. What do I do? What is your ground scale? What is your time scale?" Author "I expect you to figure some things out for yourself "] There are not any charts to speak of, and the limited information needed for firing, movement, and melee should be written on each of the index cards and referred to as you draw them. Simple, chaotic rules, with no charts. What more (or what less) could you want?
References and Inspiration: The title to this article, reflecting Napoleon's mindset, is the question he asked when advised to make use of a new general officer. The wargaming notes at the conclusion of Knight's Rorkes Drift (Osprey, 1996) are full of interesting ideas which would greatly improve any set of rules. Flashman, The Four Feathers, and all the P C. Wren novels are inspirational. The obnoxious Reader wandered over from Hilaire Belloc's wonderful The Path to Rome, which is only very incidentally about warfare.
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© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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