Russ Lockwood is Mr. MAGWEB, and, for that organization, serves as President, CEO, Chairman of the Board, PR Director, Comptroller, Chief Bottle-Washer, and Head of the Janitorial Staff. He's located in New Jersey, and he appeared one Saturday for a day of gaming. About 5 years ago, Russ developed a Napoleonic game called SNAPPY NAPPY (SN)… he sent copies of the rules to several people, but SN never took off. Perhaps its popularity was doomed because of the name… it seemed to me that no true historical miniature gamist would want to admit he'd been playing an accurate re-creation of Waterloo with 'Snappy Nappy'… he'd be laughed out of the hobby. According to Russ, however, SN lives on. He's been using it for a number of campaign games, and, because of SN's rapidity of play, it can accommodate a lot of players with minimal effort. For example, Russ said that for a particular historical battle, he'd divide the field of battle into several separate sections, place each section on a separate table complete with troops, and have three, perhaps four, simultaneous battles going on, with each table keeping a number of gamers occupied. He can do this because his basement can hold four 4-foot-by 7-foot tables. SN's sequence is not out of the ordinary. It is similar to that of FIRE AND FURY, and the half-bound consists of 4 phases: Phase 1 Active side Moves Phase 2 Non-Active Side fires Phase 3 Active Side fires Phase 4 Resolve melee Infantry in road column move 12 inches, infantry in line move 3 inches, cavalry move around 10 inches, and so on. Nothing exciting here. But what is unusual is the make-up of the troops. The scale can be termed 'grand-grand-tactical'. The battle is fought in 15mm. An entire brigade consists of 2 stands, and 3 or 4 brigades are combined into a division of some 8 stands. With this size composition, one can have on the table several divisions, and thus produce a battle representing an encounter on the scale of corps-versus-corps. Due to the grandiose scale, musket range is reduced to 1-inch, and artillery firing range is around 9 inches, depending upon the poundage of the battery. Each division has a commanding general officer, and in the battle Russ presented, the division General's 'command radius' was 18 inches. All brigades within the 18 inch radius moved as ordered, while units outside of the radius had to take a morale test (toss a 10-sided die and score around 6 or more, depending upon the unit) to move at all. I'm not a fan of the 'magical, mystical aura' ploy to re-create command and control procedures, but for gaming purposes, it seemed to work in SN. I've never found out why a unit located 17 1/2 inches from its commander knows what it's doing, while a unit an inch further away, located 18 1/2 inches from the General, literally goes to sleep on the battlefield, despite the immediate presence of enemy troops. But them's just my own druthers. The Heart But now we come to the heart of the SN procedures, which deal with brigade status. In the battle, I commanded three British divisions, the first composed of 4 brigades plus a battery, the second of 3 brigades plus a battery, and the last composed of 3 brigades. This gave me a total of 22 stands to push around for my entire 3-division' corps'. All my units were of 'veteran' status, and, to pass a morale test, had to toss a 6 or better on a 10-sided die… giving them a 50 percent chance to pass. During one of the turns, as the active side, I marched my troops up to within 1-inch of the defending French units. This was Phase 1, and in Phase 2, the non-active side, the French, fired. Each firing stand tossed a die, looking for a 6 or more. The French unit was successful, producing and impact on my brigade. Now the fun begins. The impact is not yet effective, since my brigade must take a morale test to determine what actually happened to the unit. My brigade's morale level was a 6… and so I tossed a die, looking for a 6 or more. I failed the test, tossing a 3. My brigade, therefore, took a hit. Having failed the first morale test, I took a second, and failed again, and again, my brigade took a hit. Having failed the second test, my unit took a third test, and finally passed. The final result… 2 hits on the unit. Note that the impact scored by the firing unit wasn't conclusive… it only triggered a series of morale tests, and it was the failure of the morale tests that actually scored damage to the unit. In another instance, one of my brigades went to charge a French battery, and the battery fired canister at the unit, tossing 3 dice. All three dice were effective, and my unit's response was as follows: 1. Response to first impact: The brigade failed its first test, then failed a second test. It finally passed a third test. The result was that 2 hits were scored on the brigade. 2. Response to second impact: The brigade failed its first test, then passed the second. Thus, another hit was scored. 3. Response to third impact: The brigade failed its first 2 tests, and finally passed the third. It thus took another 2 hits. Examining the above, the final result was that my brigade took a total of 5 hits due to the canister fire. It routed… proving that one shouldn't charge a battery frontally. Remember that a brigade consists of 2-stands… what do we do with all the hits that were scored? UNIT STATUS: Bold Firm Wary Nervous Flustered Disordered Panic Rout SN keeps a data sheet for all brigades. Each failure of a morale test, registering an actual hit, crosses of one box on the above chart. Each time the status drops, the firing and melee capabilities drop. My infantry unit started out with a 'Firm' status, and because of the 5 hits it took, ended up in 'Panic'. No wonder it took off. I think the above is a fascinating way of determining unit casualties. The impact produced by the enemy sets off a series of morale tests, and, in effect, it's you, not the enemy, that scores on your unit each time you fail the morale test. Despite my fascination, I can see two problems with the procedure. First is that it requires lottsa dice throws. But I must admit, that in our encounter, the dice tossing was quite rapid. The second problem… and it may be a problem only in my own mind… is that if you're continually lucky, and pass morale tests throughout the battle, there will be no residual impact on your units… despite being fired upon time after time, and engaging in numerous melees, your units will suffer no losses. This is a type of DBA/DBM effect… your unit can bonk heads with the enemy and can emerged unscathed, not at all exhausted, fresh as a daisy, after a full 2 days battle. Our battle pitted four British divisions against (one was cavalry) against five French divisions plus one of cavalry. For a time, we Brits were doing well, when suddenly the dice began to go against us, and we failed test after test after test. Down the drain went the British force. In all, I was rather intrigued with SN… it's the type of fast moving game, using a minimum of unit stands, that appeals to me. As a game, it worked well, and for now, I'll beg the question of whether or not you can truly re-create on the field a corps-vs.-corps game for which an entire brigade is represented by only two stands. After a day's gaming, Russ went North, inviting our group to visit NJ for a similar gaming session. 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