I spent over a week visiting Bob Hurst for a most enjoyable and relaxing flurry of wargames. I brought along my rules sets, we set up a series of scenarios using Bob’s figures, and no matter what the era, what the terrain, what the scale of the figures, what the rules, Bob whomped me.

The Russian T 34 was a simple tank based upon the design of the American, Christie, and it worked perfectly, much to the chagrin of its enemies.

He whomped me in medieval times, he smashed me in the American Civil War, he blasted me in the Franco-Prussian era, and the destroyed me in World War 2. At the end of my visit, the statistics were: Hurst, 9 wins, 1 loss, Simon 1 win, and 9 losses. I went home with a warm feeling in my heart.

Battle Shout! Is Here

Some years ago, Bob Hurst and I first encountered Battle Cry (BC) at one of the Historicon conventions. BC was written by Richard Borg, published by Avalon Hill, and then taken over by Hasbro. The game can run anywhere from 30 to 40 dollars.

BC is an American Civil War game, a hex board game with miniatures. Plastic 15 mm ACW figures are furnished with the game, one set in blue and one set in gray. Four 15mm figures fit within a hex for movement purposes. It’s a true “gotcha” board game, in which the active side moves and fires, and then the other side does the same.

Bob bought the game and I said, “What in the world has a little boxed hex-game to do with the ACW? Surely, we can drum up a set of 15mm rules equal to or better than a boxed “gotcha” board game? Surely?”

And thus was born Battle Shout! (BS)…our answer to BC. Right now, we’re on BS version #4, as we continually perfect the rules. And when we do, we’ll offer it on e-bay to the highest bidder.

What was unique about BC was that it divided the field into a left flank, a right flank and a center sector, and each turn restricted table-top movement to certain sectors as decided by the draw of a card from an Action Deck. The card would state, for example, that 3 units on your right flank could move along with one unit in your center.

This sequence is a superior one for a 1-on-1 game…both sides are continually busy…and I’ve seen attempts to expand the game into a true multi-player game…with vast non-success. In fact, our own BS #2 was such an attempt and it rapidly went down in flames…or, perhaps, up in smoke. Due to the card-draw system, it’s a lurchy game, as, first, one sector is activated, and then another. Which means that with a lotta players on a side, most of the players on a side will be doing nothing most of the time.

BS #3 was tried out about a month ago, and both Bob and I had comments and suggested changes about the rules, and BS #4, while not perfection itself, is worthy of a description.

BS 4

Instead of a deck of action cards, I drew up a movement table which, when percentage dice were thrown, told of which flanks would be activated. The difference between the charted table and the action deck is that when a card is drawn from the deck, it is discarded until the entire deck is run through, i.e., that particular configuration appears only once. With the table, however, a movement configuration (such as 3 left flank units and one right flank unit) can be repeatedly called upon by the same dice throw. But since thee are some 20 choices on the table, this doesn’t appear to be a problem.

It’s quite difficult to simply expand upon an existing game without making significant changes. I’ve found this to be the case many times in the past, when, for example, someone shouts “Here’s a FIRE AND FURY adaptation from the ACW to the British colonial era!” These guys seem to think all you do is change the name of the rules set and your mission is accomplished.

The firing tables, the morale tables, the movement distances, the melee tables…none of that is changed despite the inapplicability to the era in question. Simply change the name, put different figures on the field, and you’re ready to play.

The BC field of hexes is some 9 hexes deep and 13 across. When we sent to BS, we drew up a large table size map of areas, some 12 feet long, with about 12 areas deep and 25 across. To fit a game into this size map required larger movement distances than those employed in BC.

Our first cut used a 2-area move for infantry and a 3 area move for cavalry. Too small. Our current draft looks at a 3-area infantry move and 4-areas for cavalry. And we’ve got two types of guns…one type moves 3 areas and is always, after movement, set up and ready to fire. The second type is given a limber. It can move 4 areas, but after movement, it dices to see if it’s properly unlimbered (70% chance) and ready to fire.

In the earlier versions of BS, we played the game until we were exhausted, whereas in BS #4, there’s a set of victory conditions. Each side gets points for knocking off enemy stands, winning melees, etc. When you reach a total of 50 points, you can call for a check for the other side to see if he leaves the field. There’s a 50% chance he does so, and if so, the battle is over. But this percentage is reduced by 3 points for every town he happens to occupy at the time he makes his check. There are some 10 towns on the field, and the fighting gets fiercer as the sides attempt to win the towns as the critical time approaches.

A second check is made when a side’s victory points reach 60 points…60% chance for the opposition to walk off the field. And so on.

We found that a 50-point threshold occurs after some 8 bounds, making for an enjoyable short game.

The basic sequence consists of Side A moving, and getting a quick, hasty fire before the Non-Active Side B can respond with a volley. Then Side B blasts away at full effect, and this is followed by a firing cycle…the Active side fires, then the Non-Active Side, and so on, until both declare exhaustion, or run out of fire points. After which any close combats are resolved.

Somewhere in sequence is what I term a “whoopee chart”…which contains around 20 “good things” for the Active Side to obtain via a percentage dice throw. He can get reserve units, or additional artillery blasts, or additional movement, or point to an enemy artillery battery and declare it’s out of ammunition, and so on.

One thing we haven’t solved is just what we do with “Generals”. Each full turn, there’s a chance these guys appear on the field…we always get new ones…and we really haven’t found a role for them to play. About the only thing they now do results from their winning a battle. In such a case, the winning General is termed “aggressive”, and in future combats in which he participates; he can add combat points to his unit.

In our first BS #4 game, Bob Hurst reached his 50-victory point level before I did, and so I tested for 50 percent to see if my force gave up the battle and marched off the field. At the time, I had possession of 3 houses on the field, and each house reduced the percentage by 3 points, so that my test actually occurred at 41%. I passed, but a couple of phases later in the sequence, having incurred more losses, I took the test at a basic 60% level, and this time I failed. Game over.

One of the enjoyable aspects about the original BC was that it was such a short game…an encounter could last from, say, 20 minutes to around a half-hour. Quick and decisive.

Our BS lasts a wee bit longer than the original BC…there are more forces on the field due to the larger map, and this requires a little bit of time to develop a strategy and set up your armies to carry out your plans.

In short, more and more do I like area games. They are simple “game games”, with no tie-ins to historic wargaming, no matter how loud the author shouts. Set out your infantry, cavalry and artillery, move ‘em around the map, and enjoy.