1. There's a guy named Ray Lucas who writes a column in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED, and in the December, 2001 issue (No 171), Lucas addressed the DBR rules in somewhat puzzling fashion. First, he commented that the results of some of the individual combats can be somewhat dubious, and the rigid adherence to block formations irritating, but it seems to me that the game outcome is rarely unreasonable." His reference to the "adherence to block formations" was to the PIP method of movement, which requires that, regardless of what the nationality of your troops supposedly represent, and regardless of how your troops are organized, you must squnch all your units into as few groups as possible, otherwise they just don't move. Then Lucas set up a DBR 'test game', using an historical order of battle, hopefully re-creating an historical encounter, circa 1569, pitting Huguenots against Royalists, which the Huguenots, on his ping pong table, won. Back in 1569, however, it seems the Royalists had won. Lucas attributed the Huguenots' victory, in part, to "... the Royalists' inability to throw more than one PIP at a time for long periods of the game...", i.e., to toss more than a "1" on their PIP die over several turns, thus severely limiting their mobility. But what were fascinating were Lucas' conclusions concerning the battle "What did the game prove? Only that it is possible to stage historical games with DBR. One could re-balance the forces, and the vagaries of the dice might well swing the contest to give a historical result." How in the world could he conclude the above? He had just completed a game in which the "wrong" side won, in part, as he confessed, due to the silly PIP die movement procedure. I simply couldn't follow his reasoning. About the only one of his comments with which I could agree was that DBR was "... intended to to provide a game of a given duration on a standard size table with armies that are affordable and available." And I was happy to see that he used the word "game", and not the words "re-creation" or "simulation" in referring to the rules. Realistic? You gotta be kidding. Historical? Back off, buddy. Accurate? Get outta here. 2. There's an internet site called 'www. theminiaturesgame.com" which posts thumb-nail rules reviews and permits the readers to offer their comments on the rules. In the medieval section were a buncha comments sent in by one reader, who had nothing but bad to say about a certain set of rules. The rules... KNIGHT HACK (KH), the author... Phil Viverito. Viverito is quite prolific... he's written lottsa rules sets, and sets up lots of presentations at the conventions, in none of which I've played. The reader who sent in his remarks on KH had purchased the rulesbook, but had never played the game, and started out by saying:  Unfortunately, I may never get around to playing your game. Despite the professional presentation (as far as the "look" goes), Knight Hack is an amateurish production. Entire sections are missing (examples are at the end of this letter). Typos, missing words, and awkward sentence structure make rules incomprehensible. Poor spelling and grammar, and mangled syntax make the rules painful to read. Whatever the merits of your ideas, I cannot shake the idea that if you truly thought they were worth playing, you would have taken the time to do a good job. Viverito tryed to dodge this first barrage of bullets by focusing on the term "amateurish production". For some reason, he brought in the Bayeax Tapestry to help fend off the above blast, and stated: While I do not know whether Mr. Retzer ever did get around to playing Knight Hack, I do thank him for the comments about "professional presentation." We must both have the same appreciation for layout and design. The Bayeux Tapestry, while amateurish by comparison to many forms of modern art, is still appealing in its simplicity and "amateurish production." Line drawings taken from the Bayeux Tapestry are used as illustrations in Knight Hack. But Viverito knew he was skating on thin ice in his reference to the Tapestry, for Retzer's remarks were not aimed at the illustrations, but at the text itself. And so Viverito came out with the following statement, which I thought was a rather extraordinary admission: Because Knight Hack is intended to be developed further by the purchaser, we feel that the ideas and ideals should remain vague. Indeed, many sentences retain more of a note book style than a definitive, carefully structured, unbending, even rigid if you will, style. And so Mr. Viverito is telling us (a) first and most important, please give me 20 dollars for my most excellent booklet, (b) oh, by the way, note that my rules system is purposely vague, (c) that its style, i.e., its presentation of the rules, is neither definitive nor carefully structured, and (d) I want you, dear reader (after giving me 20 dollars), to develop the rules by yourself. And the dance goes on. Retzer smashes away, and Viverito keeps getting himself deeper and deeper in hot, scalding water. Retzer asks... 'Why... did you not take the time to carefully edit your work?" And the reply states that... yes, we did, we did, and not only that, but: ... we are ready to go into a third edition. Perhaps Mr. Forgette's (who was the editor) efforts were not fully utilized, because by error the printer used an incorrect disk. It should be noted that the rules do come with an errata sheet intended to repair much of the the damage caused by this error. Because we do not shrink wrap all sets sold, it is possible that Mr. Retzer did not get an errata sheet with his set. KNIGHT HACK is going into its third edition? Complete with all its errors? Unbelievable!  Retzer then states: "Find someone competent to go over your work before you invest in producing any more rules sets. After reading through your rules and trying to figure out what you're saying, I think that you may have something there..." And now it's kissy-kissy time... time for Viverito to put his arm around Retzer's shoulder and kiss and make up. And so Viverito says: Perhaps this point is the most important one in my response to John. May I call you John? Let us both be on a first name basis from now on. The thing that I enjoy about the Knight Hack philosophy is its spirit. That is: take it, change it, make it feel right for you. Enjoy the game because that's what it is really about: true mutual exchange of ideas with the authors and the players. This exchange is the essence of all wargaming with miniatures. Regardless of peoples' backgrounds, race or social position, wargaming is inclusive and not exclusive. I think to exemplify this concept and our honesty in this philosophy of gaming. After reading this, I had tears in my eyes... here was this noble, yet humble, person, appealing to people of all races and backgrounds and social positions for inclusivity in the hobby, here was this honest, wonderful person, and all he was trying to do was to defraud you by selling you an incomplete set of rules for 20 dollars, and there was this ugly, villainous creature named John Retzer, complaining about the rules! Oh, Mr. Retzer, Mr. Retzer, have you no shame? How can you be so cruel? 'Nuff said... 2 On the internet, I downloaded what appeared to be a fairly complete set of ancients rules to examine them. On the net, the table of contents was fairly comprehensive, covering all aspects of the game, and it looked like it would be worthwhile browsing through the ruleset. It was a large file, and after downloading, I used WORD to read the text, which ran for some 20 pages. One of the first sections is devoted to the sequence, and the author states: Movement is simultaneous. At the beginning of the turn, each player rolls a die for initiative. The player with the initiative moves and fires first. The above quote was, I think, on page 3, and as soon as I read it, I had absolutely no desire to read further, and simply deleted the document. 3. A reminder to the subscribers. The date on your mailing label (placed before your name) is the date of the last issue due you in your subscription. It is not the date on which your subscription runs out. Back to PW Review September 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