Control Mechanisms

Over the years, I've looked at mechanisms that take control of a player's units away from him ... and discovered that, for the most part, most gamers don't like this approach. They want a specific movement phase in which all their foes move, and then a fire phase in which all their forces fire, and so on.

Way back in the early 80's, Larry Brom's The Sword and the Flame made the first breakthrough, in terms of public acceptance, in presenting a sequence in which a player could not, during a turn, have one of his units move or fire when he wanted. He had to wait until an appropriate card was drawn. Then came DBA/DBM rules, with their dreaded pip movement procedures, restricting a side, during a turn, from maneuvering all of its troops as desired, and, for some reason, these, too, were fully accepted.

And from these two humble beginnings, others clambered on the bandwagon. Age of Reason uses a single deck of cards, on each of which is annotated one of the units on the field, activated when its card is drawn. The western gunfight rules, Desperado, seem to be in vogue, wherein there's one stack of cards (one or two cards per figure) assembled in one huge deck, and you wait until your man's card is drawn to move. But note here, for these two rules sets, that even though the wait may appear infinite, you will eventually get to move your units during the turn, since the entire deck is always run through.

In contrast, Piquet breaks new ground. Here you've got the card deck, and the waiting, and you may never get to move anyone at all, should you be the viotim of a series of unlucky activation dice throws.

My own druthers focus on my audience. When I, myself, am the audience, and I engage in a solo game, it doesn't matter at all if a unit on one side or the other does or doesn't get to fire or move, as dictated by the sequence. In contrast, when the audience consists of 4 or 5 gamers gathered around my table, I'll try to ensure that everyone moves, and everyone fires. My fire tables may be unbalanced, and my melee tables out of kilter, but when Simon shouts, "Move!" everybody moves.

Next issue, Uncle Wally takes on CLS. With casualty caps.