Bob and Cleo Liebl hosted a skirmish game, set during the Boxer Rebellion, and, it seemed to me, expended an enormous amount of energy and time in preparing for the game.
For example, I commanded a 6-man unit of British troops, all of them labeled and mounted singly. Bob had taken a pack (several packs) of playing cards, and on the back of each card, mounted a label containing a colored photo of the individual (he had previously photographed every cotton pickin’ man in the force), plus the person’s name. Each of the 25mm members in my force had 3 such cards.
As I remember, there were three Boxer forces, each of 6 men (18 cards each for a total of 54 cards), plus an American force (18 cards), plus my own... another 18 cards. A grand total of 90 cards.
As he set the game up, I immediately noted that he took all 90 cards, assembled them in a single deck... about 2 inches thick... and it was at this time that I cringed inwardly, whispering "No! No! No!"
Crying softly to myself, I asked "You’ve set up a DESPERADO game?"
"I have no idea of what a DESPERADO game is", he replied.
But, yes, Bob was indeed, presenting a form of a DESPERADO game... which, to me, was the wussest of the wust. A huge single deck, and when a man’s card was drawn (at random), he could move or fire or whatever.
I had played DESPERADO (a wild west gunfight set) once, and once was enough. Each player commanded 1 or 2 men. A card for one of your men appeared, and he did something, and then you waited and waited and waited until his card appeared again. In Bob’s skirmish, the chance of one of my cards appearing on a given draw was 18 out of 90, or 20 percent.
Actually less than 20 percent, for there were a couple of "special cards" in the deck. One card, for example, stated "Reshuffle!", and so you’d take up all the cards, reshuffle and begin the draw again.
Each side placed its men and the card draws began. On the first or second draw, Corporal Tzu’s card showed up, and this plucky little Boxer decided to charge forward. He added the result of a 12-sided die roll to 6, and by tossing a 12, was able to zip up the field for a total of 18 inches, making contact with the last man in my contingent, Seaman Zykes.
"Immediate melee." said Bob. My immediate questions were: "Do I get a chance to respond? Do I get a chance to get a shot off? Do I get a chance to evade?" And the answer was "No! No! No!"
Melee, it was. Zykes had a rifle, which gave him no Melee Points (MP). He was a naval person, said Bob, and naval persons carried rifles without bayonets. If Zykes had had the aforethought to borrow a rifle which had a bayonet on it, he would have had 25 MP. But for now... nothing, zilch.
Corporal Tzu, on the other hand, flushed and sweaty from his 18 inch charge, received MP from several sources. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but we’ll say he got a +20 for charging, and another +15 for his sword, giving him +35 in all. In fact, I dimly remember that Tzu carried a shield, resulting in a negative 10 MP for Zykes.
Now Zykes and Tzu each tossed percentage dice, and added their points. Zykes tossed abysmally low, and Tzu’s total was four times that of Zykes. Poor Zykes fell, mortally wounded. If a man tossed twice his opponent’s total, the opponent received a light wound. Three times resulted in a critical wound, and four times (like the Zykes affair) was certain death.
And now, the game was instantly converted into a Class AAA Abomination. No casualty figures here. Simply tip Zykes’ figure on its side and leave him there with his base sticking way up in the air. "No! No! No!" I whispered.
This first melee showed me that we were playing a "Gotcha!" game. The active figure did what he wanted and shouted "I gotcha!" to his opponent, and his poor victim could do nothing.
One of the players, Jim Byrne, said that perhaps Bob might think about allowing a response on the part of a charged man. Bob said he’d think on it.
Cards were drawn and people were firing and moving and hacking away at each other, when suddenly, the "Reshuffle" card was drawn. "End of first turn" said Bob, "That was pretty fast."
I pointed out that the first turn had taken one hour and 15 minutes to go through about half the deck. What I didn’t mention was that, of my 6 men, I had drawn cards for only 3 of them...the other three, none of their cards showing up, had remained immobile for the hour and 15 minutes.
The reshuffle produced a couple of bad effects.
- First, it leveled out the playing field. Everyone’s card now being in the deck, the guys who had been fortunate enough to have had their cards drawn could have their cards drawn again.
Second, those poor guys whose cards hadn’t been drawn were whammied. Their cards had been in the bottom of the undrawn portion of the deck, and if the draws had continued, their chance of doing something had been proportionately increased. Now, however, their chance of doing something was reduced and was equal to that of the other guys on the field, as they took their place in line.
A man could fire only to his front, within an arc of some 45 degrees. It took one of his precious card draws to turn. On his data sheet, each man had a ‘firing proficiency’, ranging from around 7 or 8 percent for the Boxers, to around 25 to 45 percent for the British. The proficiency factor was added to a percentage dice throw, and if the total was over 100, a hit was scored. A second dice throw determined the effect of the hit... light wound, critical wound, etc.
Increasing a man’s firing proficiency could occur if he took one card to ‘aim’... +20, or another card to ‘rest his weapon’... +20 and so on. None of my Brits ever aimed or rested their weapons... cards didn’t appear that often, the world seemed to be filled with Boxers, there just wasn’t time to "squander" a card, and so, and when their precious cards did appear, my boys just blazed away with no proficiency modifiers tacked on. The second turn lasted 15 minutes... the reshuffle card ended it prematurely. The third turn lasted a full hour, also ending prematurely.
Bob had distributed data sheets for each man. On the sheet were listed a variety of status factors necessary for play.
- Critical wounds : 2 criticals and you’re dead
Light wounds : 2 lights convert to a critical
Loaded weapon : Rifles didn’t have to reload, pistols did
Firing proficiency : Added to percentage dice when firing
Aiming : Did the man aim his weapon on his last card
Rested weapon : Did he rest his weapon
Erect, kneeling, prone : What was his posture
Was he walking, running : A man could run 4 times, he was then exhausted
That was quite a bit of data for each man. Midway through the game, Bob stated "It’s obvious that you can’t keep track of more than 6 men." I agreed.
Pat Condray recently sent me an e-mail, noting that I consistently "trashed other people’s rules". I couldn’t disagree with him, but my return message pointed out that I thought that I was just as hard on my own presentations as on the "other people’s".
Here, for example, with Bob’s presentation, as soon as I recognized a DESPERADO-type game, I could foresee troublesome areas. Take the business of the single card deck. This sets out a slow, slow, slow game, as each figure waits to be called upon. And with yet another problem... the single deck may permit one side or the other to perform a huge "Gotcha!’ on its opponent if it’s lucky enough to get a run of several cards in a row.
The solution... two decks, one for each side, coupled with alternate draws. Each side then knows that if one of the opponents moves, he’ll get a chance to do something with one of his own men.
B>More Speed
Another way to speed up the game... form the men into 2- or 3-man groups for activation purposes, and have an entire group move or fire on its card.
The author of DESPERADO told Dick Bryant, editor of THE COURIER, that he had obtained his initial thoughts on DESPERADO from an article on a western gunfight that he had read in COURIER. That was my article... published sometime during the early ‘80s. I recognized, early on, that two decks were the way to go... that one, huge, single deck produced a slow, lurchy game. Two-deck lurchyness is still no bargain, but it’s better than one-deck lurchyness.
At game’s end, out of curiosity, I gave out an evaluation to the five participants. Questions such as: do the rules give the "flavor’ of the period?; can you carry out the tactics of the period as you know them?; do the rules provide a fast moving, entertaining game?
We were pretty much tied. Fast moving and entertaining? Not for me it wasn’t. Give you the flavor of the period? Not for me, it didn’t.
Bob and Cleo gave the rules high points... out of a possible 10, all categories were rated 9 or 10. My ratings were down in the 3’s and 4’s, as were those of another guy’s. Different strokes for different folks.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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