I hadn't taken the 25mm figures from the BEASTMASTER (BM) box (Milton Bradley) for some time, and so, during the week, I set up a solo game pitting King Morgood, defending light and beauty and goodness, against Prince Evilian, defending nothing.
The BM set comes with a 5-foot by 4-foot vinyl map, composed of 6-inch hexes. BM stands are around 3-inches by 4-inches (one stand per hex, and they each contain 4 or 5 figures… halbardiers and archers and wolf-riders and beastmen and goblins and heavy cavalry and so on. Over the years, I've augmented the armies with different types of creature-thingies that I've picked up from the bargain box at the various conventions.
The figures are large, so large that King Morgood and Prince Evilian are 40mm Elastolin figures, mounted knights, and they fit right in with the rest of the figures.
In my game, I didn't lay out the map, but simply arranged thetroops on the table, complete with hills and woods and so on. Prince Evilian's lair, the Castle Of Ill Repute, had red lights hanging by the main entrance, and it was King Morgood's task to put the Prince's lights out.
The King attacked to the north, and on his right flank, the east side of the field, he was somewhat outnumbered. He had only 4 infantry stands and 2 cannon to oppose 9 of the Bad Guys. Each side had around 20 stands on the field, and so the major part of Prince Evilian's force was on the eastern side. Part of the Prince's eastern contingent consisted of 4 super-heavy cavalry stands… a huge, imposing block of troops.
As the cavalry came forward, the King's cannon spoke… but, unfortunately, not too loudly. When a cannon fired, I tracked its trajectory, assuming that every 10 inches, the ball hit the ground and ricocheted, and bounced off. The first 10-inch increment out of the barrel of the cannon, the roundshot went as ordered, straight ahead. But at this 10-inch point, I diced to see in which direction the ball took off… it could continue to go straight ahead, or it could diverge 30 degrees, left or right. And so, every 10-inches, I'd toss the dice to see which way the ball bounced.
Rarely could the cannons hit the target at which they were originally aimed. The roundshot whizzed around in huge arcs, and it was only when the advancing troops approached to less than 20 inches, that the cannon actually hit what they originally aimed at.
The trajectories sometimes surprised both sides… a stand in a column of troops, say fourth in line, thinking it was fairly well shielded, would suddenly see a huge cannon ball whizzing right at it from some weird angle, and POW!… a hit was scored.
Each time an impact was received by a stand, I placed a marker on it. Sad to say, but this reduced the presentation to a Class B Abomination. Here were all these good-looking troop stands, and each was accumulating a bunch of messy casualty markers, dangling from pennant staffs, from swords, from halbards, etc. This was truly horrible, but I could have made it worse (a Class A Abomination) by using casualty caps.
Impacts occurred from 4 sources... archery, cannon fire, melee, and ogre strikes.
The Prince had 2 ogres, really dangerous thingies. Thinking his right flank force was more than adequate to crush the opposition, the Prince had placed his ogres in the center and on the western part of the field.
In the sequence, when an ogre approached to within 5 inches of the enemy, he went on a rampage, an unstoppable rampage. The BM game box furnishes a small deck of 'ogre cards'. There are 3 'move' and 3 'strike' cards. He starts drawing cards, and a Move card permits him to advance 5 inches, while a Strike card permits him to smash the enemy (60 percent chance of success). The ogre continues smashing and bashing until all of his cards are drawn.
But I think I over-did the ogre ploy. I had 2 ogre decks, from 2 BM games, and I put them together, giving the ogre 6 Moves, and 6 Strikes... too much of a good thing.
The ogre would move into contact, and strike. The affected stand would take a morale test. Each hit subtracted 10 percent from the base Morale Level of 80 percent. If the stand stood, the ogre drew his next card, hoping for another strike. If the stand failed the test and fell back, the ogre drew his card, looking for a Move to keep on advancing.
With a total of 12 cards, the ogres were beasties to be feared.
On the Prince's right flank, the ogre wandered into contact with the heavy cavalry of King Morgood. During the rampage, while the ogre struck, the targeted stand had to remain immobile and take it on the chin. Its only reaction was to take
On the Prince's right flank, the ogre wandered into contact with the heavy cavalry of King Morgood. During the rampage, while the ogre struck, the targeted stand had to remain immobile and take it on the chin. Its only reaction was to take a morale test.
Drawing from its 12-card deck, the ogre made mincemeat of the cavalry... the pride and joy of King Morgood's army was decimated. Three stands of the 4-stand unit were hit, failed their morale tests, and drew back, replete with casualty markers.
The only way to defeat the ogre was (a) to prevent it from coming into contact on its own movement phases, since this activated the rampage, and (b) charge it during the regular melee phases, so that it would have to engage in the normal combat procedures, and take losses like every other stand.
And so the King passed the word throughout the army: 'A Flagpon of wine for he who gets the ogre!'.
The sequence for the half-bound permitted the King's forces 2 opportunities to contact the ogre. Note in the listed phases, there ins no distinct pahse for melee... combat was resolved immediately upon contact.
- 1st Phase Here a 10-sided die was tossed. The number was recorded, and if a cumulative total of 12 was reached, this was the last half-bound of the cycle.
2nd Phase In this second phase, Side A moved or fired. If contact was made, a melee was fought.
3rd Phase In the third phase, Side B could react to specific situations, using Reaction Points (RP). A reaction cold be a move or fire. Each side was given a number of RP, and they were replenished every turn. If a contact was made, a melee was immediately fought.
4th Phase The fourth phase now let Side B move or fire all his troops
5th Phase The fifth phase was the reaction phase of Side A.
6th Phase If the previous clock total was 12, the effect of all the casualty markers that the units on the field had accumulated, were assessed. Then new RP were diced for the next half-bound.
Note that in the second and fifth phases, Side A could move its units. This gave the King's cavalry an opportunity to close with the ogres.
On the second phase, movement was 'free', while on the fifth phase, RP had to be used. It took 3 RP to order a stand to go into action. Once the RP were allocated, i.e., the order was issued, then a dice throw of 80 or less indicated that order arrived successfully. And if the order arrived in timely fashion, off went the cavalry to hit the ogres.
Each turn, each side received about 6 new RP, so there was a limited number of responses that a side could make. Most of King Morgood's reactions were devoted to getting the cavalry going to impact upon the ogres... he devoted few RP to his other units. In contrast, Prince Evilian used most of his own RP to give his missile units additional opportunities to fire.
If the 3 RP were available, a dice throw of 80 or under activated a stand. But there was another option... a side could declare it was trying to 'energize' two stands... in this case, a dice throw of 60 or under evidenced success. If the toss was above 60, the 3 RP were lost, and neither unit could move or fire.
After trying the 60-percent ploy for both sides, I chose the conservative approach. There weren't that many RP available, and too many RP were going down the drain too many times.
In the 6th phase, casualty assessment took place. Here, each casualty marker counted 15 percent toward destruction of the stand.
If a stand had only one marker, a toss of 15 or below, and it was taken from the field. If it passed, the marker was removed.
If a stand had more than one marker, and it passed and lived to fight again, then all but a single marker was removed. Hence, most of the time, a stand always carried a residue of one marker.
Most of the King's right flank stands, the heavy cavalry, carried residue markers... thanks to the ogre. But they finally battered him down. Stand after stand of heavy cavalry charged. In the melee, a stand could bring in one support unit. If both sides brought in a support, the melee was divided into two separate combats.
It took lots of charges by the cavalry and lots of RPs to take the ogre down. What was surprising was that in midfield, the other ogre had taken one hit, i.e., had only a single marker, and when the casualty assessment phase occurred, the ogre failed his 15 percent test, and keeled over! The same thing happened to the one stand unit of King Morgood's Imperial Guard. With only a single casualty token, the Guard gave up the ghost.
Casualty strikes, both in firing and melee, occurred on a 10-sided die toss of 6 or under. In some instances, such as the charge of heavy cavalry, a plus modifier' was used, but the die tossing was kept to a minimum.
On the eastern side of the field, pressing their advantage, the Prince Evilian's troops advanced, finally halting at a rather thin line composed of 4 of the King's units... two infantry and two cannon. The King's men had lost three quicky melees because (a) the stands refused to support each other (70 percent chance), and (b) the Prince sent in his super-heavy cavalry.
At close quarters, the cannon were actually able to hit their chosen targets, and a charge by the Bad Guys was beaten off... the line held firm.
The battle took 3 full bounds, i.e., 6 half-bounds, divided into 2 cycles. Thus casualties were assessed twice... once at the end of the first cycle and once at the end of the second. At this time, Prince Evilian had lost 13 of his 20 stands, while the King had lost 10 stands.
Since I noted that the King's troops had beaten their way to the gates of the Castle Of Ill Repute, I deemed the battle a semi-tactical success for the King. The entire battle took around 3 hours, a little longer than I usually play in solo style. Due to the large size of the stands, it required use of the entire ping-pong table. And this, in turn, resulted in a lot of walking around the table for yours-truly. But all for a good cause.
Back to PW Review February 2000 Table of Contents
Back to PW Review List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 Wally Simon
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