There were only four pieces of terrain on the field… a small town of four houses. John Shirey and I defended the town with 2 Fire Teams. Each Fire Team consisted of 2 men. Both of the men in my Fire Team had rifles, while one of John’s had an SMG, the other, an LMG. The basic probability-of-hit (POH) of the weapons varied… SMG 40 percent Rifle 60 percent LMG 70 percent The opposition outnumbered us… Mike and Pat Byrne commanded 4 Fire Teams, also each of 2 men. Initially located off-board, their job was to drive us out of town. On the first turn, 2 of their Fire Teams were active, and the men dashed onto the field, moving 10 inches in from their baseline. The sequence was card-driven. Each side had a deck of 5 cards, and on each card was noted the number of a Fire Team. When the active side had the initiative, it drew 2 cards, and looked at the 2 designated Fire Teams (FT). The sequence permitted an immediate response by the opposing side: (a) The active side drew 2 cards at random, and all the men on the FTs could move and fire. (b) The non-active side could then select a FT, and have its men respond to the actions of the active side. Note the difference here… unlike the active side, the non-active side didn’t go to its deck, but chose one FT to react. (c) Melees resulting from the contacts in (a) and (b) were resolved. Note that the attacking side, with 4 FTs, had 5 cards in its deck. Our defending side, with only 2 FTs, also had 5 cards. This meant that the attackers had one ‘buffer’ card in their deck, i.e., a total of 4 active cards and one buffer card, which, when drawn, simply indicated no movement or firing... in essence, a ‘dead’ card. In similar fashion, our deck only had 2 active cards, and 3 ‘dead’ buffers. On the first turn, when the attackers drew 2 cards from their deck and appeared on the field, John and I, as the non-active side, selected FT#1, my FT, to respond. Both of my riflemen fired. They started out with their POH of 60 percent, and modified it. In this instance, there was a range modifier. If the range measured anywhere in the twenties, the modifier, R, was -20. If the range was anywhere in the thirties, the modifier was -30, and so on. In this instance, the target was 24 inches from Corporal Blueson, giving him a range modifier of -20, and a net POH of 60-20, or 40 percent to hit. He missed. His partner, Wayne, didn’t miss. The target was Baldy, and a 10-sided die was tossed, and multiplied by 3 to determine the extent of Baldy’s injury. The toss was a 3, and 3 multiplied by 3 is 9, hence Baldy lost 9 Efficiency Points (EP). All men started out with 100 EP, so that Baldy was now down to 91 EP. Note that the maximum injury to Baldy could have been a loss of 30 EP, which would have occurred if the die toss was a 10. There were two ways to knock Baldy off. First, if his EP was down to zero. Second, if, on the “to-hit” percentage dice throw, any doubles were tossed. Now that Baldy had recorded his injuries, we checked his reaction to getting hit. Here, we referred to a table which told of his response in terms of his EP factors. DICE THROW TARGET REACTION Above current EP Falls on back From ½ EP to EP Falls on stomach Below ½ EP No effect I should note that each man was represented by three separate figures… one standing, one kneeling, and one prone. As I remember, Baldy’s reaction on the above chart was to toss high percentage dice, above half of his current EP, and so Baldy fell, and his standing figure was replaced with his prone one. As the turns went by, my boys Blueson and Wayne got in two lucky shots, one at Baldy and the other at Baldy’s Fire Team buddy… each targeted man tossed rotten dice for his reaction, and both found themselves on their backs. Aha! This was my chance to test the melee rules, and on the next card draw for my Fire Team, out dashed Corporal Blueson to attempt to close while the other guys were still on their backs. When Baldy’s card was next drawn, the only action permitted him and his friend was to turn over on their stomachs, since it took a full card for a recovery. But this mad charge of Blueson meant that Blueson had to move some 24 inches to contact… and moving at 10 inches per card, this would be a long, long run for the Corporal. His only hope was that Baldy’s Fire Team card wasn’t drawn during his charge. Lucky for Blueson… he managed to close after only one draw of the opposing Fire Team’s card. Which meant that Baldy and his partner were still on their collective stomachs. Blueson chose to attack Baldy, and took his current EP level of 100 (he hadn’t taken any injuries) and added +10, since Baldy was at a disadvantage, to a percentage dice throw to get a total. Baldy added his current EPs but deducted a -30 for being attacked while prone. His net, after adding a percentage dice throw, was less than Blueson’s, and so Baldy lost the melee and took additional damage. A 10-sided die was tossed and multiplied by 3 and deducted from his EP level. Unfortunately for Blueson, Baldy’s card appeared again, and he and his buddy rose to their feet, thoroughly peeved and greatly annoyed with the Corporal, and both attacked him. The result was that Blueson found himself flat on his back with his attackers ready to close in for the kill. “I’m coming, Blueson!”, shouted Wayne, “Help is on the way!” and Wayne started his own mad 24-inch dash to help his friend. While all this was going on, the rest of the attacking force was concentrating on our other Fire Team run by John Shirey. Lots of enemy fire power, causing lots of EP losses to John’s men. Needless to say, Blueson and Wayne soon keeled over, accompanied by one of John’s… this left, out of our initial total of 4 men, only one man alive, a fella named Zakorov, who had manned our light machine gun. Zakorov did the only thing he could do… he tried to run for his baseline and safety. He made it to within 12 inches of the baseline when rifle fire brought him down. A noble end to a fine scenario. Back to PW Review November 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