1. The Cover Caper
All wargame rules impose a 'cover modifier' on a firing unit when its target is under cover. The modifier is tacked onto the probability-of-hit (POH), reducing the chance that the firing unit hits its target. Having reduced the POH, dice are thrown, and if the toss is successful, the target suffers full damage.
I bring this up because the definition of a cover modifier has been currently much discussed at my ping pong table. The discussions stem from Arty Conliffe's CROSSFIRE rules, which, in essence, have a single cover modifier. If a unit is 'under cover in a woods, for example, it still may be seen and targeted regardless of exactly where in the wood it is positioned. Which means that a unit cannot enter a woods and claim that it cannot be seen, that it is completely hidden by the dense underbrush.
Most rules approach this a wee bit differently. For these rules, a unit in the woods may be defined by the owning player as being in one of two configurations. First, it can be defined to be on the edge of the woods. It receives the protective modifier when targeted and fired on, but it itself may fire out. Second, it can be defined to be 'deep in the woods'... it's completely hidden from outside units, hence cannot fire out, nor be targeted.
I've tried the CROSSFIRE ploy several times, and found that it's most applicable to skirmish level games in which the terrain set up consists of small wooded groves and copses and farm houses. As you go up in scale, it becomes less appropriate. If, for example, in a battalion size Napoleonic battle, a unit enters a wooded area... supposedly an area of a couple of hundred acres, it seems illogical that if the battalion is way deep in the center of the woods, it's still visible from the outside.
Many years ago, Lee Tucker, one of the PW founding fathers, had an interesting approach to 'cover when he generated his WW2 rules. He looked at two degrees of cover. First, there was 'obscurity' and second, there was 'true cover'.
A tank unit hiding behind a hedge was given an 'obscurity' modifier. It was hard to see, and the POH was accordingly reduced, but if you hit it, it meant that the missiles went right through the hedge and the unit suffered full damage.
'True cover', on the other hand, was fully protective cover... a good example is a unit hiding behind a stone wall. Here, not only is the unit hard to hit, but if you do hit it (with a reduced POH), the protective cover factor tends to reduce the damage. In effect, the unit has an armored coating provided by the wall.
And if you're covered by both a hedge and a stone wall, both types of modifiers apply.
2. DUNE.
Recently watched a made-for-television production of Frank Herbert's DUNE. Three episodes of 2 1/2 hours each... a total of 7 1/2 hours.
I've read the first book in the series several times... in fact, I've collected and read the entire series of 6 books... the first was absolutely wonderful, and Herbert went exponentially downhill from there.
Dino Laurentus' DUNE, dating from the 80's, was colorful, but was hard to follow... the story didn't come through. This current DUNE makes it easier to track what's going on.
In essence, there are three parties to the story... first, the Emperor, then Duke Atreides (the good guy) and then Baron Harkonen (the bad guy). The Duke is assassinated and his son Paul, takes over. Paul is kind of a little, wimpy guy, not the sort you'd choose to run an intergalactic empire.
On the planet DUNE, there are Fremen, who resist everyone, but Paul becomes their leader.
And throughout the film, there are appropriate DUNE-type cries from the cast, like "The spice must flow!", and "Drink from the Water Of Life!", and "The sleeper awakens!", and other such meaningless phrases. These were carried over from the book and from the first movie, and they were just as meaningless then.
The costume designers went all out for the female costumes... yet I didn't see as much flesh as I expected to. But for the Baron's elite troops, the dreaded Sardarkar, they were dressed in sillylooking Japanese costumes, so they resembled little fat Samurai warriors. The reason they looked fat was, I assume, because of the armor they wore, but during the hand-to-combat scenes, the swords used by Paul's Fremen army went right through the armor. So why wear armor?
Yes, lots of sword fighting... occasionally, someone had the brains to use a gun, but that wasn't too often.
The scene I liked best occurred when Paul's mother, the Lady Jessica, had to drink the 'Water of Life' to become the Fremen High Priestess. And so, she took a healthy swig of the 'Water of Life', and had a couple of appropriate visions, and then, because her delicate tummy couldn't take the 'Water of Life', she threw up!
She seemed to throw up into the tankard containing the Water of Life... but this didn't deter the priestess holding the tankard. She held it over her head and shouted "Now, we must ALL drink the 'Water of Life"'!
And everyone rushed forward. Everyone except me, of course. I decided I didn't want to sample that particular batch of the Water of Life'. I would wait for the next batch to be made.
Yes, out of 7 1/2 hours, that was my favorite scene.
The book explained about the 'Water of Life' and the 'spice' and where these things came from and why DUNE, as a planet, was so valuable. But the movie failed to adequately fill in the blanks,
Back to PW Review September 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