Recently, I took out one of my WW2 sets of troops… the Mertons, 40mm anatomically disadvantaged, and skinny, plastic people. My original Merton set has been augmented by a number of figures from the Dollar Store. These last figures are a wee bit too tall for the Mertons, but a little bit of surgery, via an Xacto knife and a soldering iron, gets them right in the ball park.
Three Mertons form a squad, and each couple of squads is given an officer to help out in the rallying phase. In this most recent game, each side started with two squads, a total of 6 men, and ran onto the field, which contained of a number of houses, wooded areas and hills. The basic objective was to drive the other guy off the field.
A force size of 2 squads wasn’t going to drive anyone off the field, and to provide the sides with reinforcements, each side, when it was active, drew from an “event deck” of some 25 cards. The cards in the deck contained such items as “mortar fire on one enemy squad”, or “2 allied squads show up”, or “1 allied squad appears”, or “one enemy squad takes a morale test”, and so on.
If reinforcing troops did show up, we diced for the location at which they appeared. The key sites on the field had been numbered from 1 to 10, and a 10-sided die roll told us where the troops materialized. If you were unlucky, your reinforcements would pop up right in the middle of the enemy force, and get zapped.
When a rifle squad fired, it added up the Fire Points (FP) of each rifleman to get a total probability of hit (POH), and then we referred to the chart below. Each of the 3 riflemen in a squad contributed 15 FP, and if the squad had an attached MG, we added another 30 FP.
| DICE THROW | RESULT |
|---|---|
| Over POH | No effect |
| Less than POH | 1 casualty figure |
| Less than ½ POH | 1 casualty figure 1 man to RZ |
For example, a 3-man squad initially totaled 45 FP, and if assisted by an MG, the squad’s POH became 75. A toss of less than 75 on the hit dice betokened a hit.
The reference to the “RZ” in the chart is to the off-board Rally Zone, where one of the three men in the squad is placed, and there’s a phase in the sequence during which he can rally (or attempt to rally) and rejoin his squad. The Rally Zone was bad business, for if a man failed his rallying test (70 percent), he was declared killed.
Years ago, I cast a lot of 40mm casualty figures to go with my Mertons, and if the above chart called for a casualty figure, one of these was placed with the targeted squad. An accumulation of 3 casualty figures resulted in one man immediately zipping off to the Rally Zone, and so reduction of the number of casualty figures on a unit was quite critical, and that’s where the officer’s rallying capability came in.
Each officer had a basic 50 percent chance to remove one figure, and he diced to see if the 50 would be augmented by either 10, 15, or 20 points. Given the final value, he tossed percentage dice to see if the casualty figure was to be removed. If the officer tossed over the required percentage, then, instead of a figure being removed, a casualty figure was added to the squad’s total… not good.
Having helped out one squad, the officer could move on, and the chance to assist a second squad was 10 percent less than that required for the first squad. The chance of removal of each succeeding casualty figure was 10 percent less than the previous.
Each side, during the encounter, won “sniping points” in 10 or 20 point blocks. One of the phases permitted a side to take all of its current total of “sniping points”, add them up, aim at an opposing officer, and try and pot him. If the officer was killed, that would prevent the opposition from removing casualty figures… the figures would accumulate, and eventually, result in men being placed in the dreaded Rally Zone.
We played the game for about an hour, at which time, my opponent stated he had to dash out, and so the battle had no conclusive ending.
Initially, I thought that I might continue the battle the next day in solo style, but I decided to try out another idea or two, and so the Mertons were swept from the field, and replaced with my 25mm collection in which the figures were single mounted. Here, the units are organized into 5-man squads, and each squad can be reinforced with an MG.
Eight squads were pitted against 5 defending units. The five defenders were placed in ambush, and would get in first shot. The 8 attacking squads moved in from their baseline and the battle was on. This game used a data sheet for each squad… the units had 15 Efficiency Levels (EL), and when all 15 were lost, so was the unit. I started out by giving each of the 5 men in the squad, as usual, Fire Points, and dicing to see the effect on the target.
For this game, however, instead of a simple POH being generated as in the Merton game, I had a loss chart. So many points, combined with a random dice throw, resulted in so many lost ELs. The results, as noted on the chart, could be a loss of ELs ranging from zero to 5. I tried this method for a couple of bounds, and then turned my attention to another set of procedures.
I had noted an article in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED (Issue # 172, January/2002) by a fellow named Richard Clarke on “kriegsspieling” WW2 battles. Clarke’s rules give each unit a certain number of 6-sided dice with which to “do things”…. these dice, says Clarke
- “… may be used to do different things in a turn, moving, firing, spotting, getting on a bus, getting off a bus, and so on. The better a unit is, the more dice it starts with. As it takes casualties, the number of dice it has reduces… “
He doesn’t say how the number of dice is determined, and the only example he gives concerns an exchange of fire between two enemy units, British and German. The Brits fire first, having ambushed the Germans, and they toss 3 dice. I have no idea of where the 3 dice came from, or of how many dice the Brits started with, or how many they have left. They toss their 3 dice and total some number. At this point, Clarke looks at his Fire Effect Table.
Down the left side of the table is a column for the total of the dice throws… it goes from 1 to 30, so there must be around 5 dice available. And for each total, you look up the range increment. I’ve reproduced, in part, a section of Clarke’s Hit Chart below.
| Total | Up to 9 inches | 9 to 18 inches | Over 18 inches | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great | OK | Poor | Great | OK | Poor | Great | OK | Poor | |
| 7 | 7P | 3 | 2 | 3P | 2 | 1 | 1 | x | x |
| 8 | 8P | 4 | 2 | 4P | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | x |
| 9 | 9P | 4P | 2 | 4P | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | x |
Here’s where the umpire’s kriegsspieling effort comes in. He has to decide if the target category is “Great”, is “OK”, or is “Poor”. He looks at the cover factors, surprise factors, the quality of troops, number of wounds already taken by the unit, its morale factor, whether or not the unit is ‘pinned’, and makes his decision.
As an example, looking at the chart, if the 3 dice totaled 9, and the range was, say, 7 inches, and the ump said the situation called for an “OK” target, the chart above indicates a result of ”4P”. This equates to 4 hits on the target unit, while the P indicates the target unit is pinned.
But now here’s where Clarke and I part company. He advocates more dice tossing. He tosses a die for each of the 4 hits… “1 or 2 being a close shave, 3 or 4 being a light wound, 5 or 6 being dead.”
What’s a “close shave”? Is it or isn’t it a hit? I have no idea.
The article doesn’t really go into the nitty-gritty, and it isn’t meant to do so. It’s merely a 3-page summary of Clarke’s thinking on his free-play procedures.
“Okay!”, sez I, for I, too, can assign a unit a certain number of dice, and permit the unit to allocate its dice for certain functions. And I started off by giving each of my units an initial total of seven 10-sided dice. Why 7? Don’t ask.
For a simple small-unit encounter, I’ll initially assign all the units either a defensive (D), or an aggressive (A) posture. The D units will hold in place maintaining position (unless a failed morale test forces them back), while the A units will be advancing upfield.
Here’s my dice allocation requirements.
- 1. First, an A unit has to knock off 1 of its 7 dice (reduce its available total to 6) if it doesn’t want to fall back 10 inches. It doesn’t actually toss the die, but it merely becomes unavailable to the squad if it wants to at least maintain position, and not fall back. A D unit, with orders to hold, doesn’t have to sacrifice its die.
2. If the A unit wants to advance, it needs to yield yet another 1 die. Again, it doesn’t have to toss the die, but it must be available for the squad to move up a distance of 10 inches. And here, a D unit since it has no desire to advance, keeps this die.
3. If the squad wants to avoid taking a morale test, it must knock off another die.
4. The squad can allocate any number of its remaining dice to firing… all 7 if it wants.
For an A unit to advance, then first, under Rule 1, it must use up 1 die, and then, under Rule 2, use up another. This means that an advancing squad can fire with its 5 remaining dice as it moves forward. And if it wants to avoid a morale check, it will only fire with a total of 4 dice.
In contrast, a D unit, unless it wants to avoid a morale test, can fire with all of its 7 dice.
If an A unit finds itself in trouble, and decides to blast away with all of its 7-dice fire power, it’ll get penalized. Note that if the unit fires with all 7 dice, then (a) immediately after firing, it must fall back according to Rule 1, and (b) it must take a morale test according to Rule 3.
Essentially, the above is a form of allocating “Action Points”, but here, the points are dice. And, keeping up with Clarke’s dice assignments, an elite unit might be given 8 dice, a regular given 7 dice, and a green unit 6.
In battle, another couple of dice will be deducted if the target is in cover, or at long range, etc.
Now, with units tossing gobs of dice, we need a simple way of determining hits. What could be simpler than looking for “1’s” or “2’s”… tossing five 10-sided dice, for example, the chance of getting at least 1 hit on the target is 77 percent (the chance of scoring with all 5 dice is way, way down at 0.03 percent… that’s not 3 percent, but .03 percent… which can be ignored).
This method does away with Clarke’s large 30-row, multi-range Hit Chart.
And for a test battle, it’s the battle of Saku Island in the Bob Hurst - Don Bailey campaign I’ve been umpiring. Bob ordered his American 5th Army to land on the island, while, at the same time, Don had his Japanese 6th Army to do the same. Forget about the term “army”… I’m giving each side 10 stands (25mm) of troops and defining each stand as a company. This equates to about 2-battalions on each side.
The Bailey Japanese forces went first and appeared on their baseline. Since both sides were attacking, each had been given “Advance” (A) orders, and, as explained above, units with A orders need not give up any of their dice to move. They can move, devote one die so as to not to have to take a morale test, and fire with their remaining dice.
When moving, all units moved a “standard” 10 inches. And so, as the sides got in range, they could advance, and use their dice to fire… looking for 1’s and 2’s to score a hit.
Eventually, the Hurst forces got the upper hand and drove Bailey’s men back, and I changed the Bailey orders to “Defend” (D)… this meant that if they held position, they didn’t have to devote any of their dice to not moving, but could fire with all of them. But if one of the Bailey units decided to advance, then it had to discard 2 of its dice in accordance with the rules I discussed above, and could fire with the rest.
When a unit tossed its fire dice, looking for 1’s and 2’s, each hit scored on the target took off a certain number of points, depending upon the target. For example, infantry-firing-on-infantry scored 2 loss points for every hit, while an anti-tank unit, firing on enemy armor, scored 4 loss points for every hit.
With each firing unit tossing lots of dice, the loss points piled up, and the Bailey forces again got the upper hand. Every 5 loss points taken by a unit mandated a morale test, and the Hurst American troops continually failed their tests and began dropping back. Note the difference in the morale procedures for active units and units that were targeted. A unit that was active had to sacrifice one of its dice to avoid a test taken during its own active phase. Without giving up the die, it could advance, fire, take the test, fail, and find itself retreating, thus giving up the ground it had just won.
The morale test, when fired on, was the ol’, regular, run-of-the-mill morale test, required when the enemy, as the active side, targeted the unit.
Due to the Americans constantly falling back, I had to give the battle to the Japanese forces.
It was cold outside, I had little to do, and so now came another replay, and with yet another variation on a theme. On one of the wargaming internet sites, I downloaded a rather simple “island assault” game with a very basic set of rules for infantry and tanks and 6-sided dice. Normally, I shy away from 6-siders, but here, I thought, “simple is simple”… and I outlined my own 6-sided WW2 game.
Each of the forces, American and Japanese, was assigned 8 units… 5 infantry and 3 armor. The sequence was an alternate one, and when a side was active, it tossed eight 6-sided dice which indicated the following:
- a. Each die showing a 1,2,3,4 permitted a unit to move 10 inches
b Each die showing a 1,2,3,4 permitted a unit to fire. Another gob of dice was tossed for each firing unit, and hits were scored on rolls of 1 or 2.
c A unit could be assigned 2 dice, thus letting it both move and fire
d The remainder of the dice showing 5’s were useless
e The 6’s did have a function. If you assigned a fire die to a unit and it hit the target, you could then assign one of the 6’s to it, thus forcing it to make a morale test.
Each unit (company) on the field was assigned a total of 20 Loss Point boxes… when all 20 were crossed out, the unit was destroyed.
As in the last game, a hit on a unit (a toss of 1 or 2) scored different numbers of Loss Points depending upon what type of unit the target was, and what type the firing unit was. For example, if infantry fired on infantry, every hit registered 2 Loss Points, while if an anti-tank gun fired on armor, every hit registered 4 Loss Points, and if a tank fired on armor, every hit scored 3 Loss Points.
Again, as in the last game, each unit… the ones assigned a firing die… had a different number of combat dice… elites had 7, regulars had 6, and recruits had 5. And if the target was in cover, one die was taken from the total.
This battle lasted but an hour. Losses were heavy, especially for the Japanese, who, within the hour, had had 6 out of their 8 units eliminated (all 20 Loss Point boxes crossed out). The Americans, at the time the Japanese threw up their hands, had lost only 2 units.
Having played out the same scenario several times with several different approaches, I was ready to quit. In truth, due to its rapidity, the last game, the 6-sided dice game, proved the most enjoyable. Perhaps I’ve become a “handful of dice“ addict.
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© Copyright 2001 Wally Simon
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