Just about every rules set I’ve ever created uses a similar routine to determine unit casualties. First, the unit firing is given some basic probability of hit (POH), and this is then modified for factors such as range, weapon type, cover, status, etc., to get a final POH percentage. The POH is then divided into three zones and percentage dice are tossed to determine the particular zone of interest. DICE TOSS Above POH Zone 1 Below POH to half the POH Zone 2 Below half the POH Zone 3 A dice toss in Zone 1 (high toss) indicates no effect, a miss… Zone 2 is a hit, and a toss in Zone 3 (low toss) indicates "bad things" for the target. It’s quick, it’s easy to implement, it requires no learning experience. Recently, I decided to chart my way to glory, foregoing the basic simple essence of the POH table. One reason was that the game I was ginning up had three possible outcomes each time a unit fired, and the above table would have to be greatly modified to account for the parameters of interest. And, as long as I’m modifying the table, sez I, let’s go whole hog and generate a "real" casualty table, one similar to those used in "real" games, devised by "real" authors. A second reason was to see how the chart was received by the gamers… did they really care if a chart or table was simple, or difficult to look up, or easy to read? The three outcomes I was working with were: First, a "kill". I was using 6-man units, and one of the possibilities of firing on a unit was to knock off a target figure, and take him permanently off the field. The second possible outcome was to consign a man to the Rally Zone… he was defined as too disorganized to add to his unit’s combat power, and until he recovered, and rejoined the unit, we’d whisk him off the board until, later in the sequence, we could see if he recovered his aplomb. The third outcome was to temporarily reduce the unit’s efficiency by giving it a casualty figure. Presence of the casualty figure said that, although the unit could still move and fire, two of the men in the unit wouldn’t fire, and so its fire power would be lessened. Two casualty figures, in effect, "suppressed" the entire unit… here, until it rallied and all casualty figures were removed, no one could fire and no one could move. Jim Butters and Cliff Sayre arrived to play a game, and I presented my new, all-new casualty chart to them. On the ping pong table, I had set up a large table-size island, marked off into areas, with each area large enough to accommodate 2 stands of troops (each stand measured around 1½ inches square). These were 20mm WW2 troops, and the scenario involved an invasion by the Grey force… headed by Cliff… while the defending Brown force was commanded by Jim. The basic unit was termed a "division"… consisting of 2-stands of 3 figures each. When the division took casualties, as described above, and we had to remove figures, I had made a number of stands of 2-figures each and some of 1-figure each… so that we could "make change" as required. The island had around 40 areas in total. The invading Greys didn’t have to capture everything in sight, but they could focus on the Headquarter areas (HQ) of the defending Browns. There were 11 HQs on the field, and a Grey victory would be declared if they could capture 6 of the 11 HQs. Once a HQ was captured by the Greys… that was it!… even if recaptured later on, it was defined as destroyed by the Greys and could no longer be used by the Browns. This was of importance to the Brown forces, since it was from their HQs that they could bring troops out on the field. As more and more HQs were destroyed, the Browns would find themselves pushed to the wall. At the start of the game, the field was bare… the Greys were offshore, and the Browns were holed up in their HQs. The Greys moved first, and Cliff, as Grey CINC, selected a card from a deck of 7 which he held in his hand. Each card had a listing of sub-sequences to be followed. For example, for this first event, Cliff selected a card stating that 4 of his divisions could move, and so 4 of his 2-stand divisions landed on the beaches. There were a couple of Brown HQs located directly on the beach, and Cliff immediately placed his troops in them, taking them over, instantaneously destroying them. The stacking limit for the area game was defined to be 1-division-per-area, i.e., 2 stands per area. The other sub-sequences on Cliff’s card were of no importance on this first move, since his were the only troops visible. But now, Jim’s defending Browns selected a card. This said that 3 of the Brown divisions could move, and so Jim placed a division in each of 3 HQ areas, i.e., 3 divisions popped out of their defensive works and were visible on the field. Now there were both Greys and Browns on the island, and we went through the sub-sequences listed on Jim’s card. Since the Browns had moved, the Greys were given first-fire. Jim’s card stated that 2 Grey units could fire away. After the Greys’ fire, the card listed the number of divisions that the Browns could fire, in this case, 3. Each card specified the number of firing divisions for both sides. I purposely limited the number of divisions eligible to fire on each card. The number of units ranged from 1 to 4. This was one of the parameters used by a player in selecting a particular card. He could limit the number of opposing firing divisions by selecting a card stating that only 1 enemy unit could fire. But there were other parameters on the card, and if he focused on only one, he might limit himself during other sub-sequences. During the firing phases, each division developed a number of Fire Points (FP). Shades of WRG and FIRE & FURY! Each man in a division contributed 10 percentage points, 10 FP, to the unit’s total. Thus a full division of 6 men, had 60 FP. Infantry had a 3-area range. and for every area of range, we deducted 5 FP. As the number of men in a division decreased, so did its fire power. Once we had obtained a division’s total FP, we then referenced the new, all-new casualty chart. And here it is. Look down to the row which indicates the FP, toss percentage dice to get a number for a particular column, and read off the results. Is this ground-breaking or is this ground-breaking? The chart lists three possible outcomes in every box. In general, a high number of FP is good, and so are low dice throws. When these are coupled, a division can be devastated. K refers to the number of men killed, removed from the target division. CF refers to a casualty figure placed on the unit, reducing its efficiency RZ indicates the number of men that temporarily go bonkers and are placed in the Rally Zone. During the battle, I’d hear things like: Jim: Let’s see, I’m firing and I’ve got 40 FP and I look at the fourth row. Cliff: No, look at the second row. Jim: You’re right. My dice toss is a 56, and so I score one of your men killed, one in the Rally Zone. Cliff: But you also score one casualty figure on my unit. Jim: No, you’re looking at the wrong box. Cliff: You’re right. Despite a continual series of dialogues like the above, the guys thought that the chart did what it was supposed to do. Which made me happy. But there still remained one aspect of the procedure that made me squeamish… without the chart in front of you, you couldn’t play the game. It just didn’t seem right that every time a unit fired, the gamers had to dig into the chart. But now, back to the battle. After the firing phase specified on a selected card, the card designated a number of men to be recovered from the Rally Zone, and a number of casualty figures to be removed from the side’s divisions. This completed all the sub-sequences listed on the card, and any contacts (unit-versus-unit) were then resolved. On the Greys’ second card draw, Cliff had one of his divisions advance and enter a Brown HQ area occupied by a Brown division. We went through the fire phases, during which both divisions scored on each other, causing losses, and then we went through the recovery and rally phases, and then, it was time for combat resolution, division versus division. Combat Card System Of late, I’ve adopted a combat card system of melee resolution. I’ve described the cards before… I picked them up in K-Mart, and there are 36 cards per deck… four "1’s", four "2’s", four "3’s", and so on, up to four "9’s". Here, I gave each division a basic 3 of cards. Why the number 3? It seemed to work correctly in other games. In addition to the 3 basic cards, each division received 1 card for every man in the division (maximum of 6) 2 cards for every casualty figure on the opposing division This meant that each division in combat could possess around 10 or so cards. The moving, i.e., offensive side struck first, and played a card, A. The opposing side then played a card in defense, D, trying to top the strike card. Then the positions were reversed, and again a strike card, A, was played, with the opposition playing a D card. Each time an A card topped a D card, the strike was successful, and it was recorded on the Battle Board, which looked as follows: Value=25 Value=25 Value=25 Value=25 15 15 15 15 5 5 5 5 0 0 0 0 Each side had four tokens, initially placed in the boxes labeled "Value = 25". A successful strike resulted in one token being moved down to a lesser level. After all cards were played, the resultant token values were added up, and each side added a percentage dice throw. The high total was the winner. The impact on the loser was devastating. His division had 2 men killed, and 1 man placed in the Rally Zone. This meant that a division of 6 men came out of the melee with only 3 men functioning. But there was more! The losing division received 2 casualty figures, rendering it impotent. It retreated 2 areas, and could neither fire nor move until the casualties were removed. In the first melee of the battle, when Cliff’s Grey division charged Jim’s Browns defending a HQ area, Jim managed to beat off the charging Greys, causing the Grey division to retreat 2 areas. But a 2-area retreat placed the losing Greys back in the sea… a wipe-out! An entire Grey division lost on the beach! Jim continued to do other good work, keeping the Greys immobile by placing lots of casualty figures on them. As umpire, it seemed to me that the Browns won the battle, and kept the island free of Greys. Back to PW Review March 2001 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 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