It started when I went to K-Mart, and, in the toy section, found several sets of cards in a little box labeled "Card War Game." Opening the box, I found there were 36 cards in all, each one with a number, and, nicest of all, each card had a neat picture of an archer or halberdier or swordsman, etc. Immediately, I saw there were untold wargaming possibilities for the deck, and for only a buck apiece, I purchased some 5 sets.
The decks rested in my gaming room for a couple of weeks, when I decided to see what, if anything, I could do with them. I took out one of them, and, looking at the 36 cards in a deck, I noted there were four “1’s”, four “2’s”, four “3’s”, and so on, up to four “9’s”. No “10’s”.
I took out several stands of my Lannigan Brigade, 20mm WW2 figures, American and Japanese. Not just any Japanese, but the highly skilled, Highly Imperial Japanese Marines. It was obvious the Yanks were in trouble.
There were five Japanese units versus four American units. At this scale, call a stand a platoon, so that a 2-stand “unit” could be termed a company. A unit consisted of 2 stands, and a 2-stand infantry company could be augmented by either a machine gun or an anti-tank gun. Each side had a tank company, consisting of 2 tank stands.
I gave each of the companies a number, 1 through 9. Companies 1, 2, 3, and 4 were American, the rest were Japanese. Now to the deck… Draw a card, look at the number, and that was the number of the company that could move and/or fire. This was absolutely earth-shaking! This was even more mind-boggling than the PIQUET sequence! This was going where no man had gone before! Sacre Bleu!
With four cards in the deck for each company on the field, one would think that everyone would get an even shake… n’est-ce pas?
Now I started to lay out terrain. This consisted of a series of areas, some 6-inches by 6-inches, and I placed a line of areas directly across the field, from the American baseline right up to the Japanese baseline. In effect, this was a road, leading from one baseline to the other. Units could move only from area to area… they could not move cross-field, which meant that before they could advance, they either had to lay down a new area, or stick to the already-laid-down areas, i.e., the road system. The road was termed ‘open’, i.e., no cover, and so most units, when their card was drawn and they moved, chose to lay down a new area, and go off-road.
Game
On Turn 1, I drew a card, and one of the American companies, Coy A, advanced off-road into a new area. I took another area, placed it adjacent to one of the areas in the existing road system, and Coy A moved into the new area.
Was the new area wooded or in the clear? Draw a card from the deck, and if it was a 1, 2, 3, or 4, the area was wooded.
Note, however, that I am now completely fouling up the movement statistics! That is, if there ever were any. By using a card to determine if an area was wooded or not, I’m penalizing the unit whose card was drawn. That unit now has only 3 cards left in the deck, vice its former 4.
Not to worry. More horrors are on the way. For example, Coy A fires at a Japanese unit on the road. Here, I listed a fire table, which told me what card draws constituted a hit.
Firing at a unit in the open, a draw of 1, 2, 3, or 4 would score a hit. That’s 4 chances out of 9, or a 44 percent chance. If the target was in cover, only a 1, 2, or 3 would hit (33 percent chance).
Now I draw a card, and Coy A hits the Japanese unit. Having been hit, the target takes a morale test… a draw of either an 8, or a 9 indicates failure and the unit will fall back.
Note that I’m bolluxing up the statistics even more! Holy Moley! First, a card draw for hitting, and second, a draw for a morale test! By drawing from the single deck, every unit on the field gets zinged!
In this fashion, I played 5 complete turns (5 run-throughs of the deck), which took me an hour or so, until it became obvious that the Yanks were going nowhere..
When a unit was hit, I recorded a hit on its data sheet… the 5th hit took away one of the unit’s 2 stands, and the 8th hit completely destroyed it. When hit, a single box of the unit’s initial 8 was crossed out, and if a melee was lost, an additional 2 boxes were gone. In this manner, losses accumulated quite rapidly.
With five Japanese units to four American, the Japanese really didn’t begin to get going until Turn 4. Then there came several Japanese unit cards in a row, lots of firing, and lots of American fall-backs… and each fall-back, i.e., each failure to pass a morale test, took another box off the unit.
Everything was referred to the deck. To move, to fire, to resolve melee, to test morale… everything came out of the single deck.
Given that there were more Japanese cards in the deck, one might think that when I pulled a card for terrain determination, or for firing, or for melee resolution, or for a morale test, this would have a greater impact on the Japanese side than the Americans’, i.e., there was more of a chance that a Japanese unit’s card would be drawn.
On the other hand, with their fewer cards, when an American card was drawn, and used up for ancillary matters and not for unit movement or firing, this seemed to hurt the Americans proportionately more than their enemies.
On the whole, I was somewhat surprised that the system seemed to balance out.
It’s not something I’d want to incorporate in a more formal game, lest I be laughed out of the room. Don’t get me wrong… it’s not that this system is sillier or less logical than others I’ve seen. It’s just that the audience, raised on a diet of such pap as FIRE AND FURY and IN THE GRAND MANNER and NAPOLEON’S BATTLES and BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER and COMMAND DECISION, would raise questions that they would never dream about asking concerning their favorite rules sets.
But I do like the cards… With the illustrations of swordsmen, or archers on them, they would seem to be appropriate to a medieval game. I’ll work on it.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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