HISTORICON was held in Mid-July in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lots of room, lots of dealers (about 100 of ‘em), lots of games, and my one gripe had to do with the flea market. The area regularly used for the flea marketeers was being repaired, and the HMGS management tried several ways to make up for the lost space. One such attempt was to squeeze the flea market into a closet, and the resultant catastrophic pressure of buyers and sellers almost reached critical mass. All of Lancaster County could have been enveloped in a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame. And yours truly wouldn’t have survived to file this report. I made the rounds of several games, even actually participating in one. This was an exhibition of BATTLE CRY, Hasbro’s new ACW boardgame release for some $40. The original BATTLE CRY, published in the early ‘70’s by Milton Bradley, was what first attracted me to wargaming, and I was interested in seeing the latest development, some thirty years later. The new BATTLE CRY (BC) is a boxed game using 15mm plastic figures… infantry, artillery and cavalry… for the ACW. The board is composed of 2-inch-across hexes, and a hex can hold 4 infantry, or 3 cavalry, or 2 artillery. Bob Hurst and I played a couple of games and liked the changes over the original gaming set up. Richard Borg is the designer of this edition of BC, and he was very helpful… he put on a series of simultaneous demonstration BC games and guided all players through the rules. He saw me taking notes during our games, came over, and even though he didn’t say it outright, he was probably thinking I was copying his rules… and he was also probably thinking “You cheap @!#$&%!, if you’d just buy a copy of the game for only $40, you wouldn’t have to write so much!” BC is an excellent game, and the reason that I didn’t immediately scoop up a copy is that, at each of the several last conventions, I’ve bought a 40 or 50 or 60 dollar boxed board-game, played each of them about 3 times, enjoyed them all, and then placed them on the shelf with the rest of gaming items I never use. And so I’ve finally learned my lesson. There are several unique elements to BC. One of them is the deck of Command Cards (CC). Union and Confederate sides are dealt about 5 CC cards each. These cards will state such items as “Activate 2 units on your left flank”, or “Activate 1 unit in the center” and so on. When a side plays a card and acts on it, a replacement card is immediately drawn. The CC cards control the game. If you need “left flank” cards and don’t draw any, that’s tough! The current thinking on this type of sequence is that it’s representative of the “fog of war”… at least, that’s what the PIQUET devotees would shout. The thought, the explanation, behind the lack of “left flank” cards would simply be that Colonel Krimp, heading the brigades on that flank, has simply refused to move his men. And when a “left flank” card finally falls into your hand… you can envision Colonel Krimp finally awakening to the situation. I like this BC type of card system much, much better than the PIQUET ‘inert’ card system. Now, whether you believe this fog-of-war folderol or not, BC makes for a very entertaining game. Is it a true ACW representation? Certainly not. It’s got infantry and artillery and cavalry tokens, but they’re there in name only. It’s a well designed ‘game’ game. Several years ago, at the HMGS conventions, one fella continually demonstrated his own ‘game’ game called TAKE THE HIGH GROUND (TG). He said it was Napoleonics, and he had tokens for infantry and cavalry and artillery. But alas!… he could have called it Napoleonics all day long (and he did!), and that wouldn’t have made it so. The same for BC. BC uses a special 6-sided die which has diagrams of infantry and cavalry and artillery on it. When a unit fires at a target, you toss the die and look to see if the target’s picture shows up… this indicates a hit. For example, 2 of the sides have a picture of an infantryman on them… when firing at infantry, look to see if the infantry picture shows up. One of the pictures on the die is that of crossed sabers… this represents a “wild” card… the target is automatically hit, regardless of its type. To hit an infantry target, therefore, you need either a picture of an infantryman (33.3 percent) or that of a crossed saber (16.6 percent), making the total chance of scoring an infantry casualty 50 percent. When infantry fire at an adjacent unit, they toss 4 dice. Firing at a unit another hex distant, and the infantry toss 3 dice, another hex distant, and it’s 2 dice. And so on. One of the presentations at the convention was a 25mm set-up of BC, which looked much better, to my jaundiced eyes, than many an ACW set-up under other rules sets, in which the field is absolutely loaded with figures. But it’s all in the eye of the beholder. All I can say is that I found BC to be very enjoyable… it’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s easy to learn. ‘Nuff said. Some years ago, HMGS formed the ‘Legion’… a group of members which, every two years, select the recipients of the Scruby Award. As one of the Legion members, I was asked to attend a Friday morning meeting at 7 AM in the restaurant. I had to get up at 6 AM for this! For over an hour, all I heard was “We’ve got to do more for the hobby!”, and “We’ve got to expand the hobby!”, and “We’ve got to attract newcomers to the hobby!” And for this, I had to get me up at 6 AM!! I attended a lecture by Christopher Duffy on the battle of Rossbach, 1757. Professor Duffy wore a necktie, proving this was serious business. Despite his tie, the lecture was excellent, and he spoke for an hour, detailing Frederick of Prussia’s victory over the French and Austrians. In one of the side rooms was a game of AMERICAN BATTLELINES (AB), a Mexican-American War presentation. There was chaos at first… it seemed that the rules sheets were incorrect… every time the host explained a rule, someone would read from the sheet and contradict him, and he, in turn, had to correct the sheet. Finally, the game began. The Mexicans were attacking an American-held position. Gerry Lannigan was handling the Mexicans… I knew all was well for the Mexican force. When an infantry unit was activated, it moved 4 inches if it was in line. Each activated unit received, first, a move action, and then a second ‘standard action’. The ‘standard action’ could be used to fire, reload, withdraw, recover, or for another move forward. I immediately noted that all the players (6 of them) were experts on the Mexican American War. One guy stated in a very positive manner: “Historically speaking, there’s more of an impact when a column closes with a line.” This man obviously knew his subject. I wasn’t quite clear about the sequence… it appeared that a player on a side designated a unit of his, activated it, placed a marker on it to show it had been activated, and then a player on the opposing side selected a unit. This was an Alamo-type scenario… lots of Mexicans attacking not-so-lots of Americans. Musket range for the Mexicans went out to 8 inches, for the Americans, it was 12 inches. I thought the game went kinda slow… perhaps because of the participants’ unfamiliarity with the rules. And so I moved my chair about 4 feet, and switched my attentions to a nearby table. This was a micro-armor WW II game called MEIN PANZER (MP). The MP people have been pushing their rules for some time… at each convention, they set up several games and run them throughout the day. I watched the Germans and the Americans approach each other, and something looked awfully familiar. Yes, there it was. When a unit was activated, it received , first, a move action, and then a second ‘standard action’. The ‘standard action’ could be used to fire, reload, withdraw, recover, or for another move forward. Shades of the Mexican American War! The publisher of MEIN PANZER, Old Dominion Gameworks, had evidently decided to expand into the Mexican American War era. Old Dominion kept the same sequence, substituted different tokens, and he was in business. In MEIN PANZER, a tank is a tank. Every tank on the field fired on an individual basis. 20-sided dice were tossed (as in the Mexican American War) and when a hit was scored, another roll was necessary to determine if the target was killed, suppressed, etc. Next, I sat and examined a game called DESERT LAND, under which the host was presenting a Viet-Nam-type skirmish. 20mm figures were used… a light wound was indicated by a white casualty cap, a serious wound by a green cap. This was truly a Class A Abomination! The 20mm figures were not even mounted on bases… they each had to stand on their original teeny-tiny 1/4-inch-by-1/4-inch bases. The umpire ran the game… he drew from a 52 card deck, and when a red card appeared, he set out some VC forces, when a black card appeared, the players, 4 of them, moved their troops. I’m afraid I wasn’t impressed with DESERT STORM, nor why, with a title like that, the host was presenting a Viet Nam game. Next it was on to BATTLE MECH (BM)… at least, I think the title was BATTLE MECH. Here, 54mm figures were used… all sorts of robots and fighting machines and so on. There were about 9 figures per side. Bob Hurst told me that the 54mm robots on the table had teensy-weensy humans inside them as controllers. In other words, the battle robots were huge monsters, and the ‘normal size’ humans were midgets. The robots were about 10 inches apart, and, when firing, tossed two 6-sided dice. They needed a total of 10 or more to hit… I thought this probability of hit was way too small, especially for huge robots firing laser cannon at each other. And when a hit occurred, a second toss determined which part of the target robot was hit. The left and right torsos each required 20 hits to knock ‘em out, the center torso, 22, and the arms each required 14 hits. Wandering around the convention halls, I noted there were a large number of ‘big ship’ games, a la SLIMEYS AND LIMEYS, in which the ships carried little people around, who tried to ram and board and sink each other. LIMEYS AND SLIMEYS started out using 15mm figures, but here, there were a number of games with huge ships, employing 25mm figures. The biggest of the ‘big ship’ games was that of Duke Seibert’s… he had roped off an area of about 20-feet by 20-feet. At each of the four corners was a 25mm village, supported on a table some 3 feet above the ground. A buncha 25mm ships o’ sail, each outfitted with 25mm troops, sailed within the area and from town to town. The ships were mounted on top of 3-inch diameter pipes… so that they, too, floated some 3 feet above the ground. When I first saw the ‘floating’ ships and towns, I thought that the Duke was going to host a submarine game, but no, not a single submarine was to be seen. RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN (RA) is a 6mm ACW game. I’d seen it presented before, and thought I’d report on it. Two teeny-weeny figures are mounted on a base measuring 1/2 -an-inch-square. The game is played on a field of 1/2 inch hexes, a total area of about 3 feet by 5 feet. RA took a long time to set up, and I wandered off, thinking to come back when the action began. But when I did reappear, about a half-hour later, the set up was still being performed. I gave up. BATTLE FRONT (BF) is Rich Hasenaeur’s new 15mm WW II game. There were a series of demonstration games going on. Rich is a graphic artist, and the charts and sheets were all works of art. A tank is a tank, and each tank and vehicle has a data card, on which are all the pertinent parameters. I watched one game in which an Allied column was snaking its way across a snow-covered field. The table top was about 2-feet across by 5-feet long. About 10 half-tracks laden with troops were in the column, which was moving parallel to the large dimension of the field. The column reached a house in mid-field, and must have spotted the enemy, for the lead vehicle disembarked its troops… one infantry stand, one machine gun stand. At this point, I left. I returned an hour later… the column was where I had left it, but all the vehicles had disembarked their troops. Evidently, the fight was still going on at the house. I asked one participant why the action appeared to be so slow. He said the snow-covered terrain hampered movement, and the column was stuck and had to fight its way through. The guest of honor at HISTORICON was Ian Knight, of Zulu fame… he writes lots of Zulu articles for the British magazines. Knight evidently ran a game of… yes, Zulus versus Brits. This was a 54mm battle, and the troops were plastic and nicely painted. But I did have one gripe. None of the figures were based… that is to say they all stood upon the bases with which they were cast. One seminar I regretted missing concerned the ‘problem of the 200 foot tall general’. The topic of discussion centered on the fact that the table-side wargamer knows far too much of what’s going on. As I said, I didn’t attend the seminar, but I heard that participating on the discussion panel were such notables as John Hill (JOHNNY REB), Bob Jones (PIQUET), Bob Coggins (NAPOLEON’S BATTLES), and so on. And I also had a taste of WAR MASTER (WM). Bob Hurst has a collection of WM figures, and my thought was that if they’re good enough for Bob, they’re certainly good enough for me. And so, I purchased an army of little WM people. These guys are truly little people. they are 10mm in size. Game Designers Workshop is pushing WM, trying to sell their WM figure line. WM figures are not cheap. The figures come in strips about 40cm long, and the strips are kept intact and simply mounted on a base. Two strips to a base, one in back of the other. A pack of about 5 or 6 strips cost $8 or so. As all Games Designers Workshops efforts, the WM product line contains armies for humans and orcs and dwarves and elves and so on. And their huge $30 booklet has rules and army lists and beautiful photos… all the goodies you need to want to buy the products. I’m always looking for what I term ‘board-game figures’, figures I can set out on one of my table-top size area games. The 10mm figures seem to fill the bill. I played a quicky game of WM with Bob Hurst… it’s a gotcha game, using a typical boardgame 3-phase sequence. The active side (1) moves his troops, then (2) fires, and then (3) combat is resolved. Then the opposing side goes through the same routine. I believe that the only time defensive fire goes out is when a missile unit is charged and contacted. WM is much, much simpler than its Big Daddy, WAR HAMMER. Since I’m not enthralled with the WM rules, you won’t find too many battle descriptions in these pages, but I suspect there’ll be several area games which will allow me to exercise my little people. I should note that my 10mm purchase consisted entirely of humans… a sort of renaissance army… none of these dwarves or ogres or orcs for me. And lastly, I should note that the HMGS-EAST Board of Directors was reorganized. Jay Hadley replaced Bob Giglio as President. At the HMGS meeting, this gave rise to all sorts of discussion focusing on: “By what right did you have Giglio step down? I’m a member and I wasn’t consulted!” It took some time before the attendees were pacified. Back to PW Review June 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