Your answer to the title of this article would probably be, I've been in lots of those -- there was the time where I got a company of US infantry and they got the entire Panzer Lehr Division and then the time I got two old 74's and ran into one 120, two 100's and an 80, and then ther was the time when I had.... Well, yes, we have all been in those types of games, but what we mean by the one-sided game is a bit different. Our intentions are to have all the players on the same side. "Sounds a bit O&0 to you-well, you're right." It is what D&Der's have been doing for years, and it is a concept that is slowly making it's way into our hobby. The rules BODYCOUNT, as well as a recent edition of THE NUGGET have used this concept quite well. Some games do not work well when played by both sides. After all, who wants to launch a Banzi charge if gaming WWII Japanese? Or, how does one handle Colonial forces when they are on the defensive, the area where historically they were the weakest due to their poor chain of command. Indochina/Vietnam represents a period where the Vietnamese command was such that once an action started, the troops were forced to carry out a plan, due to the inability of the higher command to change orders. Most of the actions of the American Indian Wars fall into this type of battle, with the native Indians reacting to events and not able to do things on their own. In a one-sided wargame, the role of the referee becomes even more important than usual. He may decided to move the forces under his control by a preplotted plan before the game or set up a reaction table and dice for the different options. His troops may or may not appear on the board, in fact, in BODYCOUNT, the Americans rarely see their opponents, even when engaged in a firefight. Instead they are told the area where they are taking fire, and given the choice to shoot back or to try to spot. It should be noted that one needs a trustworthy referee for this, else you will have a return to the problems of old. What about the players who now find themselves all on the same side? While the team as a whole might have a group victory condition, it is possible to assign to the different players an individual victory condition. This can be made a secret condition or not, depending on the referee's whim, and in fact, the referee can announce that some players have personal victory conditions and some do not and never assign any to the players. Victory conditions might include such situations as being first to reach a geographic point, or capture an emeny soldier, or run up the highest bodycount of the enemy, or whatever. Sometimes it might be possible for more than one member of a group to win - an interesting point when dealing with personal victory conditions which are secret. A good colonial campaign for a one-sided game might be the Little Big Horn action of 1876, as long as the players don't know who they are. Players could have the roles of Crook, Custer, Terry, Reno, etc., and the actions of the Indians would be left to chance. Victory conditions would vary from player to player, and might range from Custer's attempt for the Presidency to a troop Captain trying to stay alive. The interaction between players would in itself make for an interesting game, leg alone the Battles of the Rosebud and the Big Horn. Back to MWAN # 20 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com