I frequent the dollar stores in my neighborhood, and, over the years, I’ve picked up a number of cheapy, plastic modern infantry, not quite 54mm in size. I decided that a bag of these figures had been on my shelf for way too long… it was time for them to see some action. I mounted the infantry on a 2-inch-by-2-inch stand, 3 figures to the stand... call it a squad. Also mounted on the 2-by-2 stands were first, a single machine gun, termed a LMG; second, 2 machine guns, termed a HMG; and third, a single prone infantryman, termed a sniper. As for a paint job… what paint job? I took out my paint bottle labeled “flesh’, swiped some paint across the men’s hands and faces, and that was it. Of greater importance was the placement of a unit designation on the 2-by-2 base… each base was labeled so that the unit could be tracked. Jim Butters and Cliff Sayr were lucky enough to show up on the day the rules were introduced to the wargaming world. Jim’s force was the attacking one… he had 10 stands of infantry, LMG’s, etc., whereas Cliff, as the commander on defense, had only 7 stands. Jim’s force started off-board. On the first turn, he took 4 area markers, each area measuring about 5-inches-by-5-inches, and placed them on his baseline. Then he diced for the ‘Activation Points’ (AP) of his units. Each AP enabled him to move a unit into one area. With only 4 areas, he could activate only 4 units. On Jim’s next turn, he took another 4 area markers, and laid them on the table adjacent to the initial areas, building up his beach head. Again, he diced for his AP, and moved his units on the areas he had placed. In this fashion, placing 4 areas per turn, Jim gradually moved inland, bridging the gap between his men and the defenders, moving toward the areas occupied by Cliff’s troops. The ‘stacking limit’ per area was defined to be a single stand. Cliff’s defenders had initially been set up in 5 areas. On his half of the turn, he could take and set out 2 areas, in contrast to the 4 permitted the attacking force. On each of his areas, Cliff placed a token, indicating that one of his units was in that area. Some of the tokens were ‘dummies’… the true content of an area was revealed if the troops within it fired, or if the attackers successfully fired at it and scored a hit. Although movement was confined to areas as laid out on the table top, the firing procedures permitted units to fire across the table, and was independent of the areas. The ranges of the weapons, and their Probability of Hit (POH) were as follows: WEAPON RANGE, INCHES PROBABILITY OF HIT (%) Rifle 15 50 LMG 15 60 HMG 20 70 Sniper 20 70 Each unit had a data sheet. When a unit was hit, it crossed off an ‘Efficiency Level’ (EL). A loss of 4 ELs destroyed a unit. After the firing side tossed its hit dice, the affected targets took a reaction test. Percentage dice were thrown, and the following table referenced: DICE TOSS RESULT 01 to 33 Hold position, and return fire 34 to 66 Fall back, one area 67 to 100 Retreat to Rally Zone There were 2 Rally Zones. If a high number was tossed on the above chart, the unit would be placed in Rally Zone #1. At the end of the half bound, all units of both sides in RZ #1 would test to see if they went to RZ #2. There was a basic 70 percent chance they would do so. If the unit failed its test, it was destroyed. Hence it was possible to destroy a unit in two different ways… first, when it accumulated 4 hits, and second, if it failed its rally zone test. Units that successfully made their way to RZ #2 would automatically reappear on their baseline. The reason for using two rally zones was to ensure that an injured unit was kept off the field for at least one full bound. In the battle, Jim kept placing his areas on the table top and moving up his troops. But, initially, he did so piecemeal… he would move up a single unit with no support and then have it fire. In the sequence, the active side was permitted to move and then fire. After that, the non-active side would fire. Cliff’s defenders at first took a heavy toll of the attackers, concentrating their fire on Jim’s isolated stands. What saved Jim was that although many of his units were sent to the rally zone, most of them recovered and returned to fight again. In contrast, Cliff seemed to fail about 80 percent of his rally zone dice tosses, and his defending stands died on the spot. They never made it out of RZ #1. It was interesting to see how Jim used his areas to lay out his attack. He first started with three isolated regions… one for his left flank, one for his center, one for his right flank. Then, as his men moved forward, he began to place his areas to join up his right flank and center. At the end of the battle, he had so coalesced his advancing frontage that he really didn’t need any more areas. Instead, he focused on concentrating his fire. There were 3 hand-to-hand combats during the battle. This occurred when 2 opposing stands were in the same area. Combat used the normal firing routines. Each stand, at the battle’s beginning, diced for its ‘Response Time’ (RT), either zero or +10 or +20. When combat occurred, Each of the 2 opposing stands added its RT to a percentage dice toss, and the higher total fired first. The target, if hit, would take a reaction test as given in the above chart. If it held position, it would fire back and cause its opponent to take the test. the combat continued until one stand decided to call it quits. At battle’s end, All that remained of Cliff’s defenders was a single sniper stand. As I mentioned before, the defender’s poor showing resulted from most of its units being destroyed in the rally zone. Back to PW Review October 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