At a recent PW meeting, I was surprised when a grand total of 4 people showed up at my house… the weather was miserable, it was rainy, and it was freezing. And here I thought that these good people attended the meeting because of their inherent love for my rules systems. I soon found out that I was dreadfully mistaken… they had come to mock, to taunt, to cast stones, to shout me down. I had set up what I termed an ACW game with my 15mm figures. One infantry stand represented an entire brigade. I grouped three such stands together and called this 3-brigade unit a division. Attached to the division was a single stand of artillery and the division's long range weaponry. Sometime around Bound 3, the cry was heard: "This isn't an ACW game. It has nothing to do with the American Civil War!" At the time, I had no answer to the accusation, nor do I have any now. Looking at the tiny 4-stand division (3 infantry stands and 1 artillery), the unit would have been equally at home in a game representing an engagement between Oliver Cromwell and the King's forces in the mid-1600's, or a French division fighting a Prussian division during the Franco-Prussian War, some 200 years later. The prime link to the ACW era was the fact that I had set out ACW figures on the table. Let's look at what the division represents during the ACW period. A brigade, we'll say, is composed about ten regiments, each (to err on the side of conservatism) with 300 men. The brigade strength, therefore, represents around 3,000 men. Put 3 brigades together, and we've got a divisional maneuver element of about 9,000 men, plus its artillery. Right here, we're in trouble. In combat, if a division takes a hit, should we immediately remove one of its 4 stands, an entire brigade? Does the hit eliminate 3,000 men? That's not a "hit and that's a hydrogen bomb blast. And so, I used data sheets for each division. Each stand, i.e., each brigade had its own record column and we kept track of the 'loss points' taken by the brigades. It was up to the owning player to distribute the divisional losses amongst his brigades. When a brigade accumulated 60 loss points, it crossed off a 'box' and each brigade had 5 such boxes. When all 5 were crossed off the brigade was gone forever. For example, assume the division had just suffered a loss of 75 points. The owning player could distribute his losses amongst the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Brigades by giving them 25 points each. Or, if he didn't like the 1st Brigade, he could assign all 75 points to it which would result in (a) one box crossed out for the first 60 points, (b) a 'residue, or carryover, of 15 points, and (c) the 2nd and 3rd Brigades remaining untouched. Howls Sounds simple to me. But you should have heard the cries and moans and shouts and yelps and howls! "This is too complex! This is too complicated! I have to juggle the numbers amongst my brigades and it's confusing! Why go to the trouble of using all these percentages and numbers? Why can't we simply toss a 6-sided die and if a 6 comes up, it's a hit! Alas! The dark and arcane complexities of the data sheet were not the only procedure with which fault was found. Take the dreaded Reaction Point (RP) concept. What's an RP? I'm glad you asked. In the sequence, the first phase had the active side moving and firing. The second phase had the non-active side firing defensively. In the third and fourth phases, both active and non-active sides were permitted to react to each other with what might be termed 'special actions'. Thye could attempt additional movement, or additional firing. For example, if one of the active side's divisions, on its movement phase, closed with one of the non-active side's weaker divisions, the non-active side could, just prior to melee, attempt to withdraw. Note use of the word 'attempt' for nothing was automatic. The reaction phase for this attempted fall-back employed a two step procedure: A: First, the division attempting to react had to have a couple of RP. If, say, 2 RP were required to react (the required number changed from bound to bound), then the division commander crossed off his 2 RP. This was symbolic of his having sent the order out to his reacting division. No RP meant no adjutants to carry the order off. B: The next question was and did the order arrive? This was determined by a percentage dice throw. There was an 80 percent chance of the order being successfully delivered. If the dice toss was 80 or under, the division gracefully fell back. A toss over 80, and the order was never received, and the division stood in place. This procedure entailed keeping track of each division's RP. As RP were used up during the bound, new RP arrived. Once again, the hounds of hell were unleashed! "This is too complex! This is too complicated! I have to juggle the RP numbers amongst my brigades and divisions and it's confusing! Why go to the trouble of using all these percentages and numbers? Why can't we simply toss a 6-sided die and if a 6 comes up, the reaction takes place!" In addition to the movement and firing phase for the active side, the sequence contained the fring phase for the non-active side, two reaction phases, one morale phase, and a melee phase, plus a phase during which RP were distributed amongst the divisions. "Too complex! "Too complicated! shouted the crowd. "Kill him! He's allied with the Devil! Tear him to pieces! Off with his head! One fellow at table-side, after about two hours into the game, exclaimed: "I have absolutely no idea of what I'm doing or what I'm supposed to do! I don't understand any of the procedures! It's really tough to present a game, these days. Let's ignore the sounds of the unruly crowd for a moment, and look at the melee procedures. Here, I thought I had worked out an interesting method enabling the opponents to choose their strategies in the unit-versus-unit combat. When division met division, two of the three brigades were automatically defined to participate in the combat. I represented each of the brigades by 5 combat tokens, 5 combat stands. This gave each side 10 combat stands. Did the third brigade in the division participate? This was answered by a dice toss and the third brigade took a morale test, and if it passed, it contributed another 3 combat stands to the fight. That makes for 13 combat stands. Additional combat stands were given a side for defending a town and here, the defenders were given another 3 combat stands and and so on. Now, what do we do with all the combat stands? A: First, we set them all out on the 'Battle Board'. The Battle Board had three rows on it, one for front rank troops, one for a second wave of reserve troops and one for casualties. B: If a division had 13 combat stands, its stands might have been set up as shown in the sketch below. In the picture, each '0' represents a combat stand. Front rank 0 0 0 0 0 Reserve 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Casualties C: In the first round of combat, only front rank stands engage, and each front line stand contributes 30 points to the probability of hit (POH). Stands fire in pairs and on the above layout, the division gets 3 strikes: POH's of 60, 60 and a 30. D: Casualties are removed. Let's say that when the opposing side struck, it succesfully hit three 3 times, hence 3 of the front rank stands are placed in the casualty row. This leaves 2 survivers in the front rank, and the reserve is untouched. Front rank 0 0 Reserve 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Casualties 0 0 0 E: Now, it's the second and final round of combat. Surviving front rank stands are deemed exhausted, and their striking power is reduced to 20 points per stand, given one strike at a POH of 40 percent. And now, the Big Guys and the reserve and come in. Each of these stands contributes 40 percent to the POH. They fire in pairs, hence the above division gets 4 strikes, each at 80 percent. Looking at the above 5 phases, you'll note that the division commander has to decide if he wants all his troops in the front line, with their 30% POH (60% per pair), or in the reserve, with their 40% POH (80% per pair). Putting your troops in the front rank, even though you get your 60 percent tosses, deprives you of the reserve, and it also limits you in the second round, when the former front rank stands now strike at a lesser percentage. Now, fellas, I thought this type of melee resolution was pretty darned clever and requiring the player to decide upon the tactical line up of his combat stands. But what about my audience? Yes, you guessed it! "This is too complex! This is too complicated! I have to juggle the combat stands in my brigades and divide them into front line and reserve units! It's confusing! Why go to the trouble of using all these percentages and numbers? Why can't we simply toss a 6-sided die and if a 6 comes up, we score a hit?" After the battle, we sat around for a while, and I stated that I had noted everyone's likes and dislikes, and wondered just what kind of a game would please everyone. It seemed that the most vociferous protesters seemed to shout about this magic item called a '6-sided die'... this seemed to be the be-all and end-all. Two of the participants went home, leaving two hardy souls plus me, and so we set up a small encounter which would incorporate a sequence and procedures which all the wargaming players of the world would enjoy and clasp to their respective breasts. I sort of sat back and let the other two guys discuss and design the procedures. The game turned out to be the most simple you-go/I-go affair. We used the same sized divisions as in the original game. Side A moved up... no firing... and if contact was made, we resolved the combat. Then Side B moved up... no firing... and if contact was made, we resolved the combat. And so on. When one side made contact, it was permitted to attack with as many units as it could cram into contact, and the non-active side had no chance to respond. Gotcha! Was this what the wargaming world awaited? The procedures, in a rather suspicious manner, seemed to emulate those employed in every boardgame ever published... the ubiquitous 'A move-combat-B move-combat. I guess I've got to scrap my clever melee procedures, and my reaction points and my data sheets and start again. Back to PW Review January 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