A Game of Two Halves (Obscure Blindnesses of the Bourgeoisie) How often have you seen a perfectly sensible and innovative design philosophy married to a set of rules that look just like every other set but without the designer noticing the difference? It is almost as if writing a set of rules causes a strange glamour to surround our chums leaving them a victim of the bad-drafting fairies. This strange blindness can extend into putting together a good-looking set of rules that seem at variance with history. It is like the Emperor's New Clothes and finding Reeves & Mortimer funny all rolled up into one. Those of you who have played Phil Barker's DBA will know that this simple game attempts to do much of a more complex system by what amounts to a narrative system. Combat consists of factor + modifiers + dice for both sides. If one scores is less than another the loser tends to retreat, unless the interaction of the two types of troops is "special" so, for example, infantry trying to retreat before heavy cavalry will tend to get destroyed, but this would not apply on the reverse. If the higher scorer has more than double the other score them much more horrible things happen. Vae Victis have produced a set of DBA inspired rules for the Franco-Prussian War, and they combine brevity of drafting with interesting ideas BUT unless I miss my mark the glamour has descended. Take a unit of French line infantry assailed by Prussian cuirassiers (say a unit of Canrobert's command attacked by von Bredow). The cuirassiers (4 factor) are fired on before combat by the infantry (3 factor). I note in passing the rules appear to have forgotten the impact of the Chassepot was in rate of fire as well as range. The infantry get a +1 for firing at a cavalry target so it is 4-all going into the dicing. The 36 dice combinations give one combination which would kill the cuirassiers, and 14 which would cause them to recoil (and of course leave them outside melee range), that leaves 21 combinations with the cuirassiers breathing heavily on our Red-Trousered Chums. In the second dice-rolling the factors are equal, however recoiling infantry before cuirassiers are destroyed (whereas the cuirassiers just recoil if the boot is on the other foot) so that there are 6 draw results, 15 infantry eliminated, 14 cavalry recoils and 1 eliminated cavalry. That means even in the era of the rifled, breach-loader in 25% of combats the infantry are going to be dead dead dead, but the same applies to our horsey friends only 4% of the time. Eeeeh Mother, they're not all locked up yet! [If you can find the logic error in the above from Les Kepis Rouges do let me know]. La Guerra de la Independencia : Vimiero A new DTP game currently in testing by Rob Markham. Rob has some very good ideas indeed here. The combat system is quite busy but nothing that will trouble most of you. It is also quite bloody so that the Berg Rubber Routers will not be a problem (but you will find yourself with a wrecked army). The Combat System tested (by Our Man With His Bicorne on his Sword) The 36th Foot is standing in line to receive the 3/15eme Legere that attacks in column. The defenders have 4 strength points and the attackers 8. The defenders fire using 1D10 (for line). A column uses a base defence value of 3 but with 8 SPs this reduces to 2 to reflect the size of the target. The fire score inflicts Cohesion Hits depending on its excess over the defence value. 4 defenders are not enough to modify the fire dice. The Hit Table inflicts Cohesion Hits such that the range of results is between zero and four Cohesion Hits. That is quite a range something a bit tighter might be better. The effect of Cohesion Hits is to remove strength points but not to affect morale. However, some Cohesion Hit markers do require a morale check. In this case 40% of the time no morale check will be required, in the other cases the 3/15eme Legere will fail 40% of the time. So as the smoke clears I reckon 76% of the time the French column will still be there. The 3/15eme Legere now fire back, probably with a +1 modifier for size (depending on losses), but being column only use a 1D6 against a line defence of 4. Let's say up slope for a further 1 giving a defence of 5. At the most the French will cause one Cohesion Hit and no morale checks amongst our plucky Boys. Its combat time now, the French will (even with a few losses) still make 1.5:1. In this case the Brits have better morale and are up slope but this is neutralised by the advantage of the French in column attacks ("Hills, we laugh at hills"). The French are going to take losses 50% of the time but retreat only 17%, the British though will do a runner 50% of the time. So if my maths is correct, 24% of the attacks did not get home due to morale, 38% caused the British to retreat, 13% saw the French fall back and 25% leave the two in situ. Depending on Cohesion Hit losses there may be further morale checks. Let us now posit the attack had been by two big battalions with 7 morale on the flat. Then the losses from fire would rise to 1.5 Cohesion Hits per volley with a maximum of 5. The morale dice will break the French 30% of the time with a morale check be called for 70% of the time. So despite the target size and losses the attack will survive 79% of the time. We will disregard the French return fire. In the combat it is very likely at least 3:1 will be achieved with a +2 modifier for the French Column. The British will break every time at these odds. This is too good for the historical French performance. If (using a Vasey Proposal) one uses the Cohesion Hit SP loss figure to modify Morale (of the first attacking unit and any one accompanying it) then the situation becomes rather different. Looking at our Big Two Attack faced by really good shooting the chance of each French battalion avoiding a retreat for morale purposes is only 30%. Some of you may object to the British ever being broken (go on you admit it you do) by at least 30% is better than 79% and slightly closer to history. I also regard the French in Column modifier to be unnecessary and to be balanced by a British in Line rule. Of course faced by big column attacks try some artillery support, at close range with heavy units a 1D6 and 1D10 are used. The two big columns are going to suffer 5 Cohesion Hits a lot of the time. Rob responded with changes as follows: "In response to your question about the French, institute the following changes. First, eliminate the French +2 in column aganst the British but not the Portugese. Next, all units defending against a column attack must check morale before the Shock Combat occurs. Third, the French and Portugese units have their morale reduced by one for each strength point lost. This should put things in order. This was in the original rules, but I felt that it made the British too strong. See how it plays. Also, make sure you check the rule whereby a unit can not inflict more cohesion hits than it has strength points." The really neat piece of the system is a use of cards to cover the limited capacity for activity in each army. Each Player has nine cards running in Initiative Value from 9 to 1. Actually the British have a "Wellesly" card for 21" which trumps everything. Each turn is one Player turn only. At the beginning of each Turn the Player with the Initiative (that is the Player who moved last Turn, or the French on Turn Two) plays a card. The other player may then trump the card with a higher card, or let play remain with the Initiative Player. The card that "wins" the turn is lost. One cannot have three turns in a row so a quiet defender may play the lowest card to win the third card. Well almost because the higher initiative cards are the equivalent of maximum activity. So if you want to do a lot of attacking then you will need at least a 6 card, but if you want to retreat units then you will need to play a low initiative card. This means that you cannot break contact with an army throwing in its main attack, of course you can start your retreat providing you are prepared to let your opponent have two turns in a row. In this case you will play a low valued card as you automatically win the Initiative. As there are only 14 turns this means each Player will have two unplayed cards. There is clearly going to be a lot of thinking as cards are played. I did recommend that the explanation behind what these cards represent be given so that people can rationalise events. Thus playing a 9 and an 8 card in succession without the enemy responding is "a major French attack was thrown in with rising intensity before the enemy were able to mount and effective counterattack/withdrawl". This looks to be a very interesting DTP development. Back to Perfidious Albion #98 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com