There are two British firms advertising 1/48th scale figures (approximately 38mm in size) in metal for WW2. I bought a bunch from each firm… they’re not inexpensive… one firm sells its figures for a little over $2 each, the other for a little over $3. Count in the postage, and you definitely have to be in the high-income bracket when you order. When I received the figures, I noted that the figures from one firm were a wee bit larger and bulkier than those of the other, but it was hard to notice the difference once they were all on the table top. The first outing for the figures was honored by the presence of Russ Lockwood, Mr. MAGWEB. He dropped by on his way to a convention, spent the night and thus, as my prisoner, was forced to participate in a Simon game. I defined 3 men, 3 figures, as a fire team, and mounted them, via magnets, on a 2-inch by 2-inch base. Two such fire teams equaled a squad, and each 2 or 3 squads were given an officer figure, i.e., a platoon leader. In most Simon presentations, unit officers play some sort of supporting role… they’ll add points in close assault, they’ll assist in the morale procedures, and so on... the same here. Digression About the only published rules I’ve ever seen in which officers actually play a part and “do something”, is CROSSFIRE. They can rally squads, and they can coordinate movement and fire. I had just read a series of current e-mail messages on the RAPID FIRE (RF) yahoo e-groups web site. RF was first published on 1994, and the content of the messages focused on the fact that in RF, the officers had no function… in terms of one of the players, the officers were “absolutely useless”. What was even more interesting to me, was that no one seemed to have any clever thoughts on the subject. And remember… RF first came out in 1994, and here it was late 2002 and people were first complaining about this gap in the system! End of digression. I really had no rules drawn up, and so, as Russ and I played, we each tossed in our thoughts as various situations presented themselves. For example, we decided that each fire team (FT) in a squad would fire separately… each man in the FT contributed 30 percentage points towards the Probability of Hit (POH). A full FT of 3 men would thus have a POH of 90 percent, while a weak FT, down to only one man, would have a POH of 30 percent. If the target was under cover, halve the POH. A heavy machine gun (HMG) occupied one stand, and was manned by 2 men… if both of the the 2-man team were present, the HMG could fire twice, each time with a 90 percent POH. If only one gunner was present, the HMG could still fire at a POH of 90 percent, but only once. Our platoon leaders were critical when the FTs took morale tests. An FT, when hit, started with a base morale level of 80 percent, but deducted the distance to its platoon leader. And one of our ploys, relying on a random “special events” card draw, could have one side move an opposing platoon leader some 30 inches to his right or left, temporarily abandoning his squads, and fouling up the morale test results. After Russ left, I decided to completely revamp the rules, substituting “hit dice” for the POH percentages. Toss a 10-sided die, and a roll of 1, 2, 3, or 4 hit a target in the open, while a 1, 2, or 3, hit a target in cover. Now the question was… how many hit dice (HD) does the fring side toss? My first cut was to furnish one HD per man firing. If firing at a single target, both FTs in a squad would combine their dice. Which means that a squad of two full FTs, of 3-men each, would toss 6 HD. But I gave the squad even more fire power… if there were over 3 men firing, I added one HD to the total, giving the squad a total of 7 dice. Note that with the target in cover, the number of HDs wouldn’t be reduced… the cover modifier was taken care of by the dice tosses (1,2,3,4 for targets in the open, and 1,2,3 for targets in cover). I kept a record of each squad… it started with 50 Efficiency Points (EP), and each time one of its FTs was hit, it lost 2 EP. When the squad went down to zero, both FTs in the squad were removed. Key Procedure But the key procedure in the rules concerned what I termed the Reaction Chart. Immediately it was hit, a targeted squad would not only record its lost EP, but the affected FT would dice on the Reaction Chart to respond to being fired upon. Reaction results were immediate and sequential. This meant that a target might fall back and might not be able to be targeted by a second firing unit. Here’s the Reaction Chart. 91 to 100 FT loses 1 man, falls back 10 inches, receives pin marker 76 to 90 FT falls back at least 5inches (maximum of 10 inches), 1 man to Rally Zone FT receives pin marker 66 to 75 FT falls straight back 5 inches, receives pin marker 21 to 65 FT holds position 11 to 20 FT holds position, returns fire 01 to 10 Entire squad returns fire, and then advances at least 5 inches (maximum of 10). Attached HMG may remain in place The above chart is the heart of the rules system. As in most Simon rules systems, low dice rolls are “good”… they produce aggressive action for the guy who’s tossing the dice. And high dice throws are lousy for the responding squad… at the high end, there’s a 35 percent chance the reacting FT falls back, and picks up a pinning casualty figure. Pinned FTs cannot move, but they can still fire (losing one HD). There’s a phase somewhere in the sequence during which the active side can attempt to remove its pin markers, and get its FTs going again. There were some 7 phases in the sequence, but the most important were the first three: a Active side moves its troops b Active side then dices to see how many of its squads can fire. c Non-active side then fires all of its squads Note that while the non-active side blasts away with all of its units on Phase (c), the active side gets a “limited amount” of fire power on Phase (b). And here’s where I tossed in a “suppressive fire” ploy. The active side, on Phase (b), could forego some of its fire power, i.e., not use direct fire at all, and, in return, receive “suppressive fire” (SF) tokens. Then, in the next phase, Phase (c), as the non-active side’s units fire, the active side could use its SF tokens to “null” the non-active side’s dice. For every SF token played, one of the non-active side’s Hit Dice was knocked off. My thought on this was that the active side, on its Phase (b), could toss its own HD to actually score casualties on the opposition. But if it decided not to aim at specific targets, it could lay down a field of fire with its SF tokens, thus making the non-active side’s troops, on Phase (c), keep their heads down, reducing their fire power. There’s a balance to be maintained here… give the active side too many SF tokens, and you’ve made a non-game of the proceedings because you’ve nullified the firing procedures. What I finally came up with was the following… first, the active side gets a “freebee” 2 SF tokens, and then it dices and sees if it gets any additional: 01 to 33 3 squads may fire 34 to 66 2 squads may fire 67 to 100 1 squad may fire a First, active side receives 2 SF tokens b FTs in designated squads may fire, or c For each FT foregoing fire, active side receives 1 SF token This distribution gives the active side a maximum of 8 SF tokens, enough to make the non-active side’s units keep down. And this happens not that frequently... only if the active side tosses low on the chart, and foregoes firing with all 3 eligible squads. We tried a couple of test setups, with 5 or 6 squads per side. Initially, all FTs had only 2 men in them, and, during the sequence, there was a reinforcement phase, in which the active side received a couple of men, and could thus flesh out his 2-man FTs to their full 3-man strength. One HMG could be attached to a 2-FT squad. The HMG received 4 HD, and these dice could be tossed in with the squad’s regular HD, or they could be tossed in a separate fire burst. For example, if a squad with an attached HMG fired, with each FT having 2 men, it would receive 4 HD for its 4 men, plus another HD, since more than 3 men were firing, and then could toss in its 4 HMG HD, giving the squad a total of 9 HD. The target would record its hits (reducing its Efficiency Points by 2 points for each hit), and would then go to the Reaction Chart for its response. The alternative was to first toss the squad’s 5 HD, see if there were any hits, and have the target respond on the Reaction Chart. Then toss the 4 HD for the HMG, and again see how the target responded on the Reaction Chart. Note that in this second mode, the target, being fired at twice, got two bites at the apple by going to the Reaction Chart twice. My own druthers were to toss the HMG dice separate from the HD of the rest of the squad… looking at the Reaction Chart, there was 35 percent chance that something bad would happen to the responding unit, while only 20 percent chance that it would fire back. And so I played the percentages. Short Game I ran a short game for the Friday night group, in which one force held a small cluster of three buildings while my own side tried to “winkle” them out. As in the past, I proved a poor “winkler”, and even though the rules and sequence looked okay, I lost. In another game, I matched myself against Jeff Wilrout… his German force was in a town made up of 5 buildings… my goal, again, was to take the town from him, i.e., “winkle” him out.. He had 4 squads, I had 5, and initially, all of his FTs had only 2 men in them… he’d receive his reserves later in the sequence. My initial force was slightly larger than his and I began my advance on the town from the south. I had no idea of where the defending units were, and so I came on in strength from the south east corner of the field. Located in Farmer Schnapp’s house were one of Jeff’s squads, supported by an HMG. The riflemen opened fire, together with the HMG, tossing a total of 9 Hit Dice (HD), looking for a 1, 2, 3, or 4 to score a hit, since my unit was in the open. Hits were registered in the following manner: Target in the open 1,2,3,4 Target in soft cover (woods) 1,2,3 Target in hard cover (house) 1,2 Before Jeff’s troops opened fire, I had diced for my suppressive fire (SF) dice and received 4 of them. I applied these 4 to the 9-dice volley, thus knocking off 4 of the enemy’s HD, leaving him with 5. He tossed his remaining dice, scoring 2 hits on my squad. He had actually fired upon my own HMG unit, attached to the targeted squad. Having been hit, my HMG unit took a morale test using the Reaction Chart. I tossed extremely high…in the 90’s… and the chart decreed that my HMG FT was to fall back, and was given a pinned marker. This was the beginning of the end for me. My HMG FT never recovered, never even got to set up and fire its weapon during the battle. Sometime around the 3rd bound, I brought on my last squad, and it was greeted with lots of enemy HD. My own SF markers were insufficient to null the enemy’s fire, and both FTs in my last squad were sent running due to high tosses on the Reaction Chart. I could make no headway against Jeff’s units, and his victory points (VP) piled up. One VP for every man killed, 2 VP per eliminated enemy FT, and so on. Around Bound #5, I pulled back. Back to PW Review February 2002 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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