On the internet, I came across a very simple, yet clever (at least, in my own mind) sea battle game in which each side tossed a number of 6-sided ‘activation dice’, and assigned them to their ships. To move, a destroyer had to be assigned one of the dice showing a 1,2,3,4,5. A carrier needed a 1 or 2, and cruiser required a 1, 2, or 3. After the movement dice, dice that hadn’t been assigned for movement could then be assigned for firing… a cruiser needed a 1,2,3 to fire, while a destroyer required a 1,2,3,4, and so on. In this fashion, the commanders, with a limited number of dice to be tossed, had to prioritize their dice assignments… did they want them for movement or firing? Coincidentally, while looking through my rules files, I discovered a British colonial game ginned up by one Tom Fisher… Tom is a REVIEW subscriber… obviously, therefore, one of the more intelligent wargamers, and so his ideas should be given great weight. Tom had come up with a system of pip dice assignment, but what’s even more important, his system sequence provided for the use of Reaction Points! It warmed the cockles of my heart to see the dreaded Reaction Point ploy being used in a “real” wargame, and not just my own folderol. But this article centers on pip assignment, and so we return to the pips. In Tom’s system, each of his units rolled a 6-sided die, looked at the result and assigned its pips as follows: Firing cost 2 pips Movement cost 4 pips Charging into contact 6 pips Thus only if a unit tossed a 6, could it charge forward to contact an enemy unit. And if it tossed a 4, it had the choice of moving forward (using up the full 4 pips), or it could fire twice (2 pips each). So I sez to myself, this is good stuff… regardless of the logic of pip assignment, the gaming system forces the commanders to make instant, critical decisions each turn. Besides, we all know, via DBA and DBM and others of that ilk, that pip assignment has been historically verified to be the way “real” troops were commanded and moved around the “real” battlefields. No pips, no movement. Wasn’t it Alexander The Great that shouted: “Where are my pips?” First Effort For my first venture, I set up a naval game on a table-top map made up of random-sized areas. Each area (about 4 inches by 4 inches) could hold 1 ship. The system used lots of 6-sided dice, wherein a side which had N ships, when active, tossed a number of dice equal to (N + 1). The dice were then assigned to the ships as follows: 1,2,3 Permitted a ship to move. If assigned a die, a destroyer could move 5 boxes, cruisers 3, etc. 4,5,6 These permitted a ship to fire. Ships could fire only once per fire phase. Note that for simplicity, I divided each die roll into two categories… either a 1,2,3 or a 4,5,6. A player didn’t have to count the individual pips, he didn’t have to total the pips, he didn’t have to look for specific tosses (i.e., a toss of 1 could mean this, and a 2 could mean that, and a 3 could mean some other thing…), he simply divided his dice into two piles.. And I discovered something else. Initially, I thought to use 10-sided dice for this solo effort, rather than the 6-sided ones. But when I tossed a handful of 10-siders, they were more difficult to make out than a handful of 6-siders. Those galumphy 6-siders were easier to read. Does this account for the vast popularity of the 6-siders? In any event, 6-siders it was. One of the movement dice… a 1,2,3… could be assigned to a ship to permit it to turn 90 degrees in its box. And then, after as many ships moved as possible, the active side referred to his firing dice (the 4s, 5s, and 6s), assigned each die to a ship, and blasted away. Each type of ship had a number of “hull”? “system?” “water integrity?” boxes. A destroyer had 15 boxes, a cruiser had 25, while a transport had 30… much more difficult to sink. And I prepared a damage chart showing how many boxes were to be crossed off a target when a given platform fired. A destroyer knocked off 3 boxes when firing at another destroyer, while a battleship, firing at the same type of target, knocked off 5. A torpedo (a fire die could be used for this), fired at a cruiser, killed 8 boxes. Note this was all deterministic… everything was laid out in the chart since I didn’t want to indulge in more die rolling than necessary. Simply assign a fire die to a ship, and pick the number of damage points off the chart. First scenario… I had a cruiser, plus 4 destroyers, escorting 2 transports across the field, which consisted of areas. The interdicting force had a cruiser plus 6 destroyers, but it also had an airbase from which it could launch intercepting aircraft. The first phase of the sequence consisted of the defending side tossing 6 “aircraft dice”. A showing of a 4,5 or 6 indicated that a flight (squadron?) could move 5 areas onto the field. Attach another 4 or 5 or 6 to the first one, and the squadron could advance another 4 areas, giving a total of 9. The area map wasn’t that large, and the assignment of 2 aircraft dice to a squadron meant that the convoy was reachable anywhere on the field. But this meant that since 2 dice had to assigned to a squadron, the number of aircraft squadrons were limited… with all 6 dice showing 4s or 5s or 6s, only 3 squadrons could appear at one time. If the range shortened to 5 or less areas, then every die could become a strike die, but the convoy stayed as far away from the airbase as possible. The second phase was that of anti-aircraft fire. After the squadrons were placed on target (a squadron consisted of a single token), all defending ships fired. The range of anti-aircraft fire was one area, so ships adjacent to the targeted ship could help out. Destroyers tossed 3 dice, cruisers tossed 4, etc… and a showing of 4, 5, or 6 was a hit on the squadron. Each hit represented a pip which could “deflect” the squadron away from its target, i.e., cause it to turn away and return to base. Thus if three destroyers (tossing 9 dice) caused 4 hits, the squadron would toss a die and a showing of 1, 2, 3, or 4 would divert the flight. If 2 squadrons were attacking, the hits could be divided amongst the squadrons… in this case, with 2 squadrons and 4 hits, a 1 or a 2 would be successful in turning back a flight. Most of the time, it didn’t pay to divide the hit pips up, and they were focused solely on one squadron. The third phase was the ship phase… it consisted of the active side tossing its N+1 dice and assigning them to its ships for movement or firing. Looking at the odds… the interdicting force had 6 destroyers to 4 escorting the convoy, PLUS an airbase… I thought the convoy was doomed. Shows how much I know. The escorting destroyers zipped into the midst of the opposing fleet, and unleashed a barrage of torpedos. Each torpedo knocked off 8 damage boxes on its target ship, and each destroyer carried two of them. The defending cruiser and 4 destroyers were sunk, and the convoy, losing only 2 destroyers, with minimal damage to the transports, sailed on. The airbase, which I had considered to be the deciding factor, did nothing!… nada! in terms of blasting away at the convoy’s ships. Now I set up a second solo scenario… Each side had 5 destroyers, two cruisers and a carrier (the equivalent of an airbase), and they proceeded to smash each other. I quickly found out that the key ploy was to keep your carriers protected, i.e., surround them with ships so that the aircover was maximum. I didn’t do this at first, and so one side suffered, having its carrier severely trashed (a carrier had 25 hull boxes), but it staggered on, and in subsequent turns, the fleet clustered closely around the mother ship. As the two fleets approached each other, the carriers came within a 5 area range of each other, hence only a single aircraft die was required to launch a strike against the opposing carrier. Alas! The fleet which I had let down… by letting its carrier get mauled… soon lost the carrier and its 2 cruisers… a glorious naval victory for the opposition! And in this battle, I was vindicated… airpower turned out to be the critical weapon. I must note that the preceding two games were fairly short, around 2 hours each, but they were, to me as solo player, extremely boring. I’m not a “ship game” fan, and as in all ship games, there was no surprise movement, nor were there unexpected attacks… everything went by the book and seemed to be well regulated... I tossed the dice, recorded the results… more dice tossing, more results. Perhaps if I present the game to a living, breathing opponent, it’ll take on a life of its own. ACW Dice Assignment But now it’s on to bigger and better things… more dice assignment, and this time, in a battle of the American Civil War. Here, each brigade, when active, tossed three 10-sided dice. With 3 regiments per brigade, each regiment (composed of five 15mm stands) was assigned a die. Die results were 1,2,3,4,5 Regiment may move 10 inches 6,7,8,9,10 Regiment may fire a volley A regiment could be assigned two of the three… one move die and one fire die, but this would penalize its sister regiments. Note that in this game, I reverted to the 10-siders… enough of those awful 6-siders! This game was introduced at a PW meeting, with several players per side. At the beginning of the battle, when the sides initially approached the table, it was completely bare except for two towns. But the terrain began to fill up. When one side became active, each of its brigades was issued a terrain card, on which was listed one of three results. a There was a small town straight ahead, 10 inches. The brigade commander could have his regiments advance (his movement distance was 10 inches) and enter the town. These cards composed some 20 percent of the deck. b There was a woods straight ahead, 10 inches. Here, too, the brigade commander could have his regiments advance and enter the woods. The woods cards composed around 60 percent of the deck. c The third result was simply that of bare terrain… nothing ahead in view for the commander, with these cards composing 20 percent of the deck. The brigade commander would read out the contents of his card, we’d place the terrain features, and the game would continue. Now, tell the truth… isn’t this historically realistic? or is it merely realistically historical? I’m not sure which. With a 60 percent chance of woods popping up, the predominance of wooded areas on the table-top soon became evident. An interesting result of the dicing-for-terrain business was that on the western side of the field, despite the small probability of a town showing up (20 percent) , five towns suddenly appeared in that vicinity. All else was woods. Three players managed the Union forces, and three guided the Confederates. Each side was given four infantry brigades and one cavalry brigade. An infantry brigade was composed of three regiments, each of 5 stands, or 15 stands total, plus one battery. The sequence had the active side tossing three dice for each brigade… the dice were then assigned… as described above, a 1-to-5 meant that one of the regiments could move, and a toss of 6-to-10 meant that a regiment could fire. After the active side tossed its movement/fire dice, the non-active side had a fire phase. Here, again, each brigade tossed three dice, and assigned them… since this was a fire-only phase, a 6-to-10 meant that a unit could fire, while a 1-to-5 indicated no fire, so a regiment assigned these dice remained immobile. When a unit, infantry or artillery, fired, the basic Probability of Hit (POH) was 50 percent. Deduct 10 from the POH if the target was in cover, or add 10 if canister was being fired. POH : LOSS Above POH 1d ½ POH to POH 1d, 1D Below ½ POH 2 D The fire results chart is given above. There are three zones… dice tossed below half the POH, i.e., a low number, caused a “2D” loss to the target. Dice tossed above the POH, i.e., a high number, caused a single “Little d” loss to the target. “Big Ds” were more deadly than “Little ds”. These losses were applied to the brigade commanders. When a regiment took a hit, it wasn’t scored against the regiment, but against the Brigadier himself. And the regiment, having been hit, took a morale test, and if it failed, the Brigadier lost even more points. Each Brigadier had been graded by a random dice toss… they started out at 45 or 40 or 30 points. These numbers were termed their Efficiency Points (EP). As a brigade’s losses mounted, i.e., the Brigadier’s units took more and more losses, his EP parameters went down toward the zero level… at zero, the Brigadier called it a day, and withdrew his brigade from the field. Every half-bound, after all the firing and melee phases had finished, the brigades had accumulated a certain number of “Big D” and “Little d” points. Via a filtering system, ‘Little ds” could either disappear, or transform themselves into “Big Ds”. And “Big Ds” were bad… for they could transform themselves directly into reductions of the Brigadier’s EP total. In this manner, each Brigadier had his EP level slowly atritted. As I mentioned, the EP levels started out at either 45, or 40, or 30… and when a unit took a morale test, its Morale Level was twice the current EP total of its Brigadier. And so, as the EP numbers began to decrease from the forties (Morale Level of 80 or so) to the thirties (Morale Level of 60 or so), and into the twenties (Morale Level of 40 or so), more and more regiments broke, causing their brigade to lose even more EP levels. There were two key towns on the field, and the Rebs took control of the one on the western side of the field, and refused to be driven out. Two Union brigades went forward to the town, but could make no headway. The town’s defenders kept filling the air with “Big Ds” and Little ds”, and the Yankee regiments kept failing morale test after morale test. I controlled the brigade of Brigadier Brittle on the western edge of the Union’s force. I tried to help out the units assaulting the town, but I was diverted by the Confederate cavalry. During a bound, the cavalry could move a total of 20 inches versus my infantry’s 10 inches, and it was impossible to get away from them. I’d fire and inflict a couple of “Big D” or “Little d” losses, but, for the most part, they always seemed to pass their morale tests, and in they came. They managed to come in on the flank of General Brittle’s battery, and in the resultant melee, that artillery crew actually beat them off. Despite this brilliant victory (brilliant in MY eyes, that is), what this did was to draw jeers from the crowd at the table… “How can an artillery crew, attacked in the flank by charging cavalry, with no supporting infantry nearby, and unable to even get off a shot, repel a regiment of cavalry and beat them off?” There was really no answer to this, except to admit that the melee parameters were slightly askew… but nobody’s perfect. And in the next cavalry melee, we gave the horsemen an appropriate bonus, and they won. Of the four Union infantry brigades, two of them were beaten down to zero EP, and off the field went all their regiments. At the end, each side held onto one key town, but it was only a question of time before the Confederates would take the Union-controlled town. The EP levels were so low that almost every time a unit took a morale test, it failed. I had given each side a “reserve” of morale points to help out in morale tests, points to add to their current Morale Levels, and the Union rapidly used them up. The reserve consisted of 50 points, which disappeared quickly. At battle’s end, I was curious about the player’s thoughts on the dicing-for-firing-and-movement system. It was too restrictive, was the main response, but several players gave their ideas on how to open the game… so it wasn’t a total loss. Back to PW Review November 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