Tony Figlia commanded some 15 units… 5 musketeer, 4 pike, a couple of cavalry and a battery. His men occupied two key positions… Simm Manor in the eastern part of the field, and Mill Manor in the west. His task was to retain possession of these two.
As the attacking commander, my force had 4 more units than his did… my troops started out on their baseline and moved up field. In the sequence, when troops advanced, they were given 'actions', with each action permitting a 5-inch move forward.
The sequence of the half-bound commenced with the active side dicing for the number of 'actions' it received… either 3 or 4. Actions could be devoted to either moving or firing, and I, as the attacker, used most of my actions to move up, while Tony's men used most of theirs to fire defensively.
The rules were generated after a visit, some Saturdays ago, by Russ Lockwood, Mr. MAGWEB, to my gaming room. Russ demonstrated his Napoleonic 15mm effort, called SNAPPY NAPPY (SN), to our crew, and I thought I'd try to apply one of SN's techniques to the English Civil War era.
In SN, when a unit is hit via fire or melee, the effect of the hit is not initially known until the targeted unit takes a morale test. If the unit passes, all is well and good, but if it fails, it goes down by one level, and must take the test again. And if it again fails, it loses yet another level and tests again. The test is repeated until the unit passes.
Each unit has, as I remember, some 6 levels, hence if the unit fails 6 times, it is finished as a fighting unit and is removed from the field.
If a unit takes two hits, it starts to 'roll off' the first hit as described above, and once it passes, it must now 'roll off' the second hit until it again passes. The same 'roll off' procedure applies for all hits on the unit& as can be seen, the result can be catastrophic if too many morale tests are failed. An unlucky unit, taking a single hit, yet failing test after test, can wilt and vanish after the impact of only a single volley. In my ECW version, I used SN's 2-stands-per-unit technique...the only difference here was that instead of 15mm troops, I played with my 30mm collection. Each unit had its own data sheet, on which was recorded its Morale Level (ML):
- Morale Level: 80 75 70 65 60
Whenever a unit failed a morale test, one ML numberwas crossed out. Note that the reference ML decreased as the unit took more and more hits. Whenever a hit occurred, I placed a casualty marker on the unit. As an example, if a fresh pike unit had 2 hits on it, i.e., had 2 casualty markers, the procedure would be:
- a. The unit's ML, shown on the sheet, is 80 percent.
b. It's got 2 hits, and each hit deducts 10 percent from the reference ML, so that the starting ML is now 80 - 20, or 60 percent.
c. The first test is taken, and the unit must toss 60 or under with percentage dice.
d. Assume it fails& the 2 casualty markers remain, one ML is crossed out and the test is taken again.
e. This time, the reference ML taken from the sheet is 75 percent, less the 20 percent for the hits, or 55 percent.
f. Assume it passes& the first casualty marker is removed.
g. Now the test is for the second casualty marker& the current level is the reference of 75 percent, less 10 percent for the remaining casualty marker, or 65 percent.
h. If the test is passed, the casualty marker is removed and the game continues.
Another result of the morale tests is that when a unit crossed out 3 of its 5 levels, one of its stands was permanently removed.
Note that the above procedure may result in a unit, under fire by several enemy units, taking one casualty marker after another, and yet, due to some very lucky and low dice throws, passing all of its morale tests, and thus remaining completely unscathed. Although this is a possibility, it's also highly unlikely& for how many 80 percent tests can a unit pass in a row? In our battle, after around 6 bounds, I had only one untouched unit& and the reason it was untouched was that I had placed it in the woods and forgotten about it& it never engaged in combat, nor was it ever fired upon.
I concentrated my troops in attacking Mill Manor on the eastern side of the field. The other manor, Simm Manor, had both a musketeer unit and an artillery battery to defend it, and I decided to ignore Simm manor until Mill Manor was in my hands. The defenders placed 2 units in Mill Manor, one pike and one musket. I brought up my own musketeers and traded fire with the defenders, hoping to drive down their morale levels before storming the place.
I couldn't budge the defending musketeers, and their fire actually caused 2 of my own pike units to fall back. When a unit fired, several parameters contributed to the probability of hit (POH). We summed the following:
- +15 percent for each volley (action)
+10 percent for each stand firing
-10 percent for a target in cover
-R for a range factor (10 x the ten's digit of the range measurement)
- 3 volleys (actions) x 15 +45
2 stands x 10 +20
-10 since the target was in cover -10
-10 since the ten's digit of the range measurement was 1 -10
This totals 45 percent, and a toss of 45 or under would register a hit and a casualty marker be placed on the target.
It took some 8 bounds before Mill Manor changed hands. By that time, my force was so depleted that there was no way I could attack Simm Manor. We called it a draw.
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© Copyright 2000 Wally Simon
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