I set up a solo encounter between Sir Ripp de Beauvoir and Lord Walte, with Lord Walte's forces all on the south side of the River Grey. There were only two bridges across the Grey, the river was non-fordable, and it was Lord Walte's two-fold objective to cross the Grey and capture the towns of (a) Bridgetown, and (b) Platt. Under Lord Walte there were five contingents, each headed by a noble, and each noble had a retinue of 5 stands, one stand each of Mounted Knights, Archers, Foot Knights, Men at Arms, and Untrained Foot. Sir Ripp had a similar army of five nobles, each with his contingent of stands. Lord Walte moved first, and I went to the deck of action cards for his side, and drew one. There were 5 cards in the deck, one for each noble... and the first card I drew was that of Sir Brog, whose contingent was to move 15 inches forward, across the River Grey. Sir Brog would be the only force that Lord Walte had on the north side of the river. It should be noted that there were only two bridges across the Grey, hence the river crossing was fairly restricted. Having selected the card of Sir Brog, I diced to see (50 percent) if another of Lord Walte's cards should be drawn. No such luck. And so Sir Brog would remain unsupported on the north side of the river. When a side became active, one card was drawn, and there was a chance (50 percent) that a second contingent would also be activated. Sir Brog wasn't finished, however. Even before his entire force was permitted to advance, there came a phase in which mounted knights may charge out. Sir Brog had a "control" parameter of 80, and thus there was an 80 percent chance he'd send out his mounted knights, looking for a target within a distance of 30 inches. Brog's dice throw was low, below the required 80, and out charged his single stand of knights. The mounted knights were placed at the half-way point, awaiting the target's response. The target contingent of Brog's knights was that of Sir Ewan. Ewan's "control" parameter was 75, and he did, indeed, send out his own mounted knights to intercept the advancing stand... they met at the half-way point. A stand of mounted knights was worth 60 Combat Points (CP), and both Brog and Ewan tossed percentage dice, adding the toss to the 60 CP. They were each looking for a high total to inflict maximum casualties on the opposition. Each stand had a certain CP value: Mounted Knights 60 CP Foot Knights 40 Men at Arms 30 Archers 10 Untrained Foot 10 When the CP of the engaged stands was added to a dice throw, the following chart was looked at to find the resultant hits on the opposing unit. Over 200 4 hits on the opposition 176 to 200 3 hits 151 to 175 2 hits 125 to 150 1 hit Below 125 No hits Note that in this first melee of mounted-knights-on-mounted-knights, with each stand's CP of 60, the greatest number of hits that one stand of mounted knights could inflict on the opposition would be 2 hits... a dice throw of 91 or over. Here, in this even melee, one stand on one, Sir Ewan's knights scored, while Brog's didn't. Determination of the winner of the encounter was decided by taking the sum of (a) the number of stands, N, in the combat, and (b) the number of hits, H, on the opposition, and multiplying the sum by a 10-sided die roll. For Sir Ewan, N was 1, and H was 1... he multiplied his die by 2. For Sir Brog, N was 1, and H was zero... he multiplied his die by 1. With a 2-to-1 advantage, it was no surprise that Sir Ewan's knights won... both stands of mounted knights, loser and winner, retreated to their respective contingents to await further orders. With the impetuous cavalry charges disposed of, the rest of Sir Brog's retinue moved up a total of 15 inches. All that I've described above happened on the very first draw of Lord Walte's card. It was now Sir Ripp's turn to draw a card... his first card was that of Lord Ipswitch, and when I tested to see if a second card was drawn (50 percent), I discovered that Sir Chat's contingent also moved out. Sir Chat was located on a hill, and when he diced to see if his men could negotiate the steep slope (70 percent chance), he discovered that his troops wouldn't move... he remained on the hill. Lord Ipswitch's then diced to see if his cavalry would charge out. His "control" was 85, and unfortunately, due to a very high dice roll, the cavalry didn't budge an inch. After cavalry charges, comes movement, and Lord Ipswitch's men moved up their 15 inches. And so it went for about 5 card draws for either side, as the initiative switched back and forth, when I drew a card for one of Lord Walte's nobles, Sir Douglas, and yet a second card for Sir Brog. Walte now had two activated contingents, and they both set their sights on Sir Ewan, whose retinue was set up in the town of Bridgeton, one of Walte's objectives. First, before movement came the cavalry charges, and these were disposed of as described above. Then, second, there was infantry movement, and both Douglas and Brog advanced on Bridgeton. The combat here was to be within a town, and mounted knights are not permitted to engage within the town proper... they must dismount and fight as foot knights. Dismounting is automatic... once dismounted, however, there's only a 40 percent chance on their movement phase, that the armored troops mount up again. Facing two contingents, Ewan need as many points as he could get... his mounted cavalry dismounted to help defend Bridgeton. Both Brog's men and Douglas' men also dismounted. Initially, therefore, each of the 3 nobles had 5 stands in his force, and each would strike separately. But before the CP's of each force are totaled, there's a pre-melee percentage dice toss to see if all 5 stands of each noble will participate. A low toss, and all 5 will enter the melee... as the percentage dice toss gets higher, a stand will back out and refuse to participate. Here, a stand of foot knights in Sir Ewan's retinue refused to engage. One stand of Brog's men at arms also balked, while, in contrast, all of Sir Douglas' men joined in. Looking at the CP tallied on the first page, note that the total CP, if all 5 stands participate, is 150, guaranteed to inflict 1 hit, and more when the percentage dice toss is added in. Ewan, because his foot knights didn't join in, was down by 40 CP to 110, and Brog was also down because of the absence of his men at arms. Dice were tossed for each of the participants, and Ewan scored 4 hits on the opposition, and chose to give them all to Sir Douglas. After the casualty phase, comes the determination of the winner. As explained, it's a function of the number of stands, N, involved, and the hits, H, on the contingents. Here, the combination of Brog and Douglas had a total of 9 stands in the combat to Ewan's 4. And, after totaling the hits on each party, Ewan had 6 hits on him, while the combination of Brog and Douglas had 7. For Ewan: (4 stands + 7 hits on enemy) = 11 x die roll For Brog & Douglas: (9 stands + 6 hits on enemy) = 15 x die roll That dynamic duo, Brog and Douglas, tossed low, producing a 3, and 3 x 15 is 45. Ewan tossed high, a 9, and 9 x 11 is 99. Ewan had beaten off his attackers, Lord Walte had failed, and Bridgeton remained in Sir Ripp's hands. All this happened on Lord Walte's right flank... and he hoped to do better on his left. Alas! Sir Ripp was riding high and Lord Walte could not do anything right! Sir Ripp's noble, Sir Jason, drew an action card and attacked Walte's retainer Duke Hewitt. Jason called in Sir Chat for support (70 percent chance) and succeeded. Not to be outdone, Hewitt, too, called for help and in to the combat marched Lord Grill. What started out as a single 2-contingents-on-1 melee was now broken up as 2 separate combats: Jason versus Hewitt, and Chat versus Grill. The first phase was to determine which stands participated, and which stood apart. Then CP were added up, dice were tossed, hits were inflicted, the winner of each combat determined, and unfortunately for Lord Walte, his men lost both battles! Lost rather decisively, I should add, and the retinues of both Grill and Hewitt fled across the River Grey. A sad day for Lord Walte. This double defeat, coupled with the defeat of Brog and Douglas at Bridgeton, ruined Walte's chances of success. A couple of notes on the rules. First, after movement, there was a firing phase. Remember that in each noble's 5-stand contingent there was a single archer stand. Range was 15 inches, the probability-of-hit was 50 percent, and, if hit, the target received a hit marker. If a crossbow unit hit its target, the target received 2 hit markers. Initially, forces would take a morale test if hit by missile fire, but after a few turns, I abandoned that, and simply let the target units carry around their hit markers... if they engaged in melee, the marker would count against them. After awhile, a lot of units (retinues) would be toting a lot of hit markers, and there came a phase during which the actual effects of the markers would be assessed. This phase occurred when all 5 cards in the action decks had been drawn. At this time, percentage dice were tossed for each unit with markers and the following table referred to: 01 to 33 Each marker counts as 1 Loss Point 34 to 66 Each marker counts as 2 Loss Points 67 to 100 Each marker counts as 3 Loss Points A retinue with 7 hits on it (as Sir Ewan at the fight for Bridgeton) could tally as little as 7 Loss Points (a low dice throw), or as high as 21 Loss Points (a high dice throw). When Lord Walte's men gave up the ghost, their total Loss Points were more than double that of Sir Ripp's force. Another item... this one concerning cavalry charges. Before movement, each noble checked to see if he sent out his single stand of mounted cavalry against a nearby enemy contingent. The target noble then tested to see if his own knights would countercharge. But what happened if the targeted retinue's knights did not counter charge? In this instance, the charging cavalry would simply slam into the retinue itself. I considered this a 'surprise' attack of sorts. After all, the men in the retinue being charged had a right to expect that their own mounted knights would ride out and protect them. And so, if a countercharge did not take place, the charged contingent was taken off balance. In this case, only one stand of infantry would be assumed to be ready for combat, and dice were tossed to see which particular stand in the contingent bore the brunt of the attack. The powerful 60 CP attack of the mounted knights won most of the combats in which they engaged, but occasionally, a lowly foot unit would toss lucky dice and send the armored knights fleeing. The game described above took a little over 2 hours to play before, due to the accumulation of Lord Walte's Loss Points, it became evident that he was going nowhere. Two to three hours is my idea of a solo game... and this one seemed to fit. 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