Over 20 years ago, Tom Elsworth and I developed a set of rules which we called ARMOR BOOM BOOM. You’ve never heard of ARMOR BOOM BOOM??? O’ Shukky Gee! Then you missed out on a set of WW2 rules which (if I may mix metaphors) were perfection personified.
The key element of ARMOR BOOM BOOM was the movement deck… each type of unit had a number of cards in the deck (a function of its relative speed), and the cards were arranged in specific order so that there was no randomness to the draw. In other words, you couldn’t draw three ‘Sherman Tank’ cards in a row, enabling the Shermans to suddenly take off and march up the field. I should note that Tom and I developed ANCIENTS BOOM BOOM, and NAPOLEONIC BOOM BOOM, and others of that ilk. All these rules sets proved to be great successes… at least, they were in my own rec room.
I decided to resurrect the movement deck procedures and apply them to a solo medieval game. Here, I defined 5 types of troops, which, listed according to the relative speed with which they could dash about on the field, were given a number of movement cards:
- Mounted Knights 5 cards
Untrained Foot & Archers 5 cards
Men @ Arms 3 cards
Foot Knights 3 cards
This made for a deck with a total of 16 cards, and the deck was specifically arranged as follows:
- Card #1 Mounted knights
Card #2 Archers, Untrained foot
Card #3 Men@arms
Card #4 Mounted knights
Card #5 Foot knights
Card #6 Archers, Untrained foot
Card #7 Men@arms
Card #8 Mounted knights
Card #9 Foot knights
Card #10 Archers, Untrained foot
Card #11 Mounted knights
Card #12 Archers, Untrained foot
Card #13 Men@arms
Card #14 Mounted knights
Card #15 Archers, Untrained foot
Card #16 Foot knights
Cards were drawn in the order as numbered, and after the 16 cards were drawn, the deck was gone through again in exactly the same order. Each time a card appeared, the type of unit listed on the card could move 10 inches. This system was very useful for a solo presentation… it notified me of which unit was moving and when.
This means that when the 16-card deck was completely drawn, all 5-card mounted knights units could have moved forward 50 inches, men@arms could have moved 30 inches, and so on.
Each side was given its own 16 card deck, and the sides drew alternately. The effect is to produce an incremental “lurchy” movement system… but a ‘smoothed out’ “lurchiness”… due to the numbered listing of the unit types, and their relative speed, the game flows more fluidly than other “lurchy” systems I’ve seen.
Digression
One of the first “lurchy” rules sets I encountered was KOENIGKRIEG (KK), Barry Gray’s rules for the Seven Years War. In KK, one side would select a regiment and it would advance or fire, and then the opposing side would select a regiment. In this manner, the initiative would pass rapidly from side to side as each regiment was individually activated.
But the “lurchiness” in the rules used for this article is much less noticeable than that in KK, and much less noticeable than the card movement systems of ON TO RICHMOND or AGE OF REASON. These rules focus on single units, not types of units, and prescribe a deck with one card for each unit on the field… as its card is drawn, up pops a unit, and it fires or moves, and then subsides into a coma until the rest of the deck is drawn and the sequence starts anew.
There’s no chance for unit coordination since units are activated in a helter-skelter fashion. And what’s also of interest is the manner in which melee resolution is treated. In ON TO RICHMOND, when a unit makes contact, melee is resolved right there and then. In AGE OF REASON, the two units in contact sit there, glaring at each other, until all the cards in the movement deck are drawn, at which time, the effect of the combat is determined.
Another type of “lurchy” system is that employed by PIQUET. A side has 30 cards, and, let’s say, about 4 of them are for cavalry movement. Cards are drawn at random, and you never know when a cavalry card will appear and your cavalry can lurch forward, indeed, you never know when they may lurch forward three or four times in a row.
End of digression.
Two Decks
And so, for this battle, I made up two decks, one for Lord Walt, the other for his opponent, the Earl of Corth. Each of these noble gentlemen had around 12 units, with the Earl of Corth’s forces already set up on the field, while those of Lord Walt had to enter the field.
Walt’s Card #1 was drawn, and Walt’s 3 units of mounted knights filed onto the field, 10 inches, in march column formation. When a card is drawn, that particular type of unit can first move a distance of 10 inches, and then has a 70 percent chance to change formation. The mounted knights moved up 10 inches, and then, each diced to see if they could deploy. All did.
The next card to be drawn was for Corth, his men@arms. He had 5 such units, and they moved up slightly. Note that for Lord Walt, I had started the draw on Card #1, for Walt’s mounted knights. For the Earl of Corth, the draw was started on Card #7, for Corth’s men@arms. In this manner, slightly varying the starting point provided a more interesting sequence… you didn’t have all mounted knights of both sides moving, then all foot knights of both sides moving, and so on.
On Lord Walt’s Card #2, his archers and untrained foot entered next, followed by a draw for Corth’s mounted knights (Corth’s Card #8). And so the two forces assembled. Even with the strict sequential listing, it was impossible to guess which type of unit would be activated. Note, for example, that Cards #1, 4, 8, 11 and 14 are for mounted knights, but they’re not evenly spaced throughout the deck.
Eventually, the two forces approached each other within missile range… 15 inches. It goes without saying that archers could fire on their own archer cards, but note that there’s lots of movement on the field… between the draws of the 5 archer cards in each deck, there are other units moving around, coming into and getting out of range, and to confine missile fire solely to the archer cards wouldn’t quite make sense.
And so I gave each side 5 Response Points (RP). In addition to the normal archer fire, a side could use its RP to have an archer unit fire out of sequence. And there were other uses for RP. For example, if a slow moving unit of foot knights contacted a unit of mounted knights, the faster mounted unit could use an RP to evade and withdraw.
The basic sequence turned out to be:
- a. Side A draws a card, moves the appropriate units, or, if he draws an archer card, his archers fire.
b. Side B can use his RP to respond with any unit
c. Melee is resolved between units that are in contact from Side A’s movement.
RP were quite valuable, and these were replenished for a side each time a card for the mounted knights was drawn… 3 RP per card draw. In theory, then, a side received 15 RP per complete card round, but these were never enough because of their usefulness.
One interesting use of RP was to use them, not for defense, but for offense, for example, to have a unit charge forward. Immediately after Side A drew a card and moved, Side B could expend an RP and have his own mounted knights charge forward for 10 inches. And he could do so as long as he had any RP in his inventory.
In midfield was the small town of Roun, defended by a unit of foot knights, 3 stands, of the Earl of Corth. As the attacker, Lord Walt drew a ‘foot knight’ card and sent two of his own foot knight units to take the town. After Lord Walt’s units moved up, Corth used an RP to have one of his archer units fire… one hit was scored on one of the attacking units… it took a morale test, failed, and retreated. This left one unit of attackers to make its way into Roun.
When the archers fired, I compared two values… the missile attack value (AV) and the target unit’s defensive value (DV). The AV factor for bowmen was 6, while the DV for the targeted foot knights was 3. Subtracting, 6-3, we get 3, where this is the number (0-to-3) to be tossed on a 10-sided die to score a hit. Each of the three stands of bowmen tossed a die, looking for 1-to-3.
In similar fashion, when Lord Walt’s foot knights tried to bash their way into town, I compared AV and DV values. Foot knights had an AV of 6, and DV of 3.
- (a) In this combat, pitting foot knights against foot knights, each side, to score a hit, looked for a toss of 1-to-3.
(b) Corth’s defending 3 stands each tossed a die.
(c) Walt also had 3 stands, however, his penalty, for fighting a unit under cover, was to have one of his dice taken away… Walt only tossed 2 dice.
(d) Corth scored twice on the attackers, while they didn’t score at all.
(e) That was the casualty-inflicting phase, and now we decided the winner by looking at N, the number of stands each side had in combat, and H, the number of hits scored on the opposition.
- For Corth 10-sided die x (3 stands + 2 hits) Die x (5)
For Walt 10-sided die x (3 stands + no hits) Die x (3)
(f) Corth tossed high and won, and Walt’s attacking foot knights retreated.
I set out a table which listed all AVs and all DVs to be used in the battle
| Unit | Attack (AV) | Defense (DV) |
|---|---|---|
| Commander | 8 | 3 |
| Mounted Knights | 7 | 3 |
| Foot Knights | 6 | 3 |
| Men@ Arms | 5 | 2 |
| Archers | 4 | 1 |
| Untrained | 4 | 1 |
In combat, each stand tossed a die and looked for the difference, i.e., the ‘delta’ between its AV and the target’s DV.
Note that in close combat, archers were fairly weak with their AV of 4, whereas their missile AV went up to 6. Crossbowmen were in the same barrel… an AV of 4 in close combat, but an AV of 7 for their missiles.
Lord Walt’s attack seemed to peter out after I had gone through the sequence decks a couple of times. He definitely had a run of bad luck when his mounted knights ran up against those of Corth’s. From the combat table, in combat, mounted knights, when striking at other mounted knights, need to toss a die showing 1-to-4... a 40 percent chance of success. And Lord Walt couldn’t hack it… his mounted knights, the crème de la crème of his army, failed and failed again.
Each time a unit was hit from missile fire or in combat, I placed a casualty marker on it. And if it lost a melee and retreated, I placed an additional 2 markers on it. These markers remained with the unit until the opposition drew a ‘mounted knights’ card.
This particular card, which appeared 5 times for each side in the entire sequence, triggered an administration phase, during which all the casualty markers which had accumulated on a unit, were evaluated.
For example, when Lord Walt’s ‘mounted knights’ card was drawn, Walt moved his men and the melees brought about by the movement were resolved. Then the Earl of Corth did two things:
- First, he used whatever RP he wanted to remove any casualty markers from any of his units. One RP took off one casualty marker. Note that by using his RP to remove casualty markers, Corth was depriving himself of the RP he could call on during subsequent card draws.
Second, having taken off all the markers he could, Corth then removed one stand from every unit that still had 3 casualty markers remaining on it. Six remaining markers, and 2 stands were gone.
Since most units started out with 3 stands, a 1-stand removal took a big chunk out of a unit’s combat value, i.e., it tossed less dice in melee.
Remember that each time a card for mounted knights appeared for a side, it received an additional 3 RP, so that for the draw of the entire deck, a side received 15 RP. But 15 RP were not enough to provide both counter responses to the opposition’s movement ,and to keep up with the steady flow of casualty markers on the units.
Examining the combat chart, you’ll see, by comparing AV and DV numbers, that it was pretty easy to score on the opposition, and so the casualty markers proliferated. Especially so for Lord Walt as the attacker, for each time his units lost a combat and were driven back, they received an additional 2 markers.
With his mounted knights battered, and the rest of his army bedecked with casualty markers, Lord Walt decided to call it a day.
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© Copyright 2000 Wally Simon
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