The editor of THE COURIER, Dick Bryant, requested that I jot down some thoughts on generating wargame rules for his magazine. I agreed, notifying him that I also wanted the article to appear in the REVIEW.
In the pages of the PW REVIEW, I’ve jotted down many thoughts, and my efforts focus mainly on gaming sequences and movement mechanisms.
In other words, I concentrate on the gaming system… my desire is to produce a game which keeps all players continually busy and interested in what’s going on. Are these games “historically realistic”? Certainly not! Are any miniature table-top games “historically realistic”? You’ve got to be kidding! Despite the magnificently painted uniforms of your Napoleonic Cuirassiers, or the good-looking painted shields of your Athenian hoplites, as soon as you start tossing 6-sided or 10-sided or 20-sided dice to determine combat outcomes, or command factors, or unit morale level, then, as far as I’m concerned, .you’re in la-la land.
About the best you can do, is to mimic the battlefield results of history. When a unit takes sufficient casualties, odds are that it’ll retreat. What odds? When your English Civil War cavalry contact a formed enemy infantry pike unit, odds are that the cavalry will get beaten off. What odds? And when your Napoleonic 9-pounders fire cannister into a square, odds are that it’ll cause much more damage than when firing ball into a line of infantry. What odds? How much more damage?
From the above, you can see that I’ve a much jaundiced view of “historically realistic” rules sets. The tables and charts that I generate for my rules sets will set up different probabilities and odds factors than those set up by other gamers. In general, all the rules sets will ‘go with the flow’, i,e., the statistically expected results will occur in statistically expected fashion, but your statistics are not my statistics, and so, don’t shout “historically realistic” too many times when you’re near me.
With the above as a preamble, let’s get down to business… let’s discuss sequences. As I stated above, my basic goal is to keep the participants busy… keep them moving their troops… allow lots of opportunities for fire and movement. No one should be penalized by having to sit and wait and wait and wait at table-side until his units are called into action via the sequence.
Over the years, I’ve noted that not too many miniatures players take an interest in sequences. They’ll purchase a rules book and simply swallow whatever sequence has been written down by the author. I assume that they assume that the author has sufficiently provided for movement phases and firing phases and combat phases. In the boardgaming world, however, there’s no such assumption. Here, the gamers dissect the phases within the sequence… should supply follow movement?… should rebel forces move before those of the King?… should firing be simultaneous?… and so on.
But in the miniatures world, there is silence. What miniatures players seem to lock on are the firing tables (should crossbows be given a +3 compared to the longbow +2?… should the Sherman be given a +4, when the PzIV gets a +3?), and, of course, the very, very important army lists (can I have a unit of arquebusiers in my Circassian forces?… does my Moldavian army have 2 or 3 horse archer units?). But nobody says nothin’ about the sequence. When you gin up a sequence, you have the option of selecting a move-and-fire system, or a fire-and-move system. If you choose the move-and-fire sequence, this, in effect, extends the weapon range of the troops on the table… by moving up before firing, their weaponry can cover that much more territory.
For smaller scale tactical games, I’d go for the move-first-then-fire sequence. For larger scale games, involving battalions and brigades, I’d opt for the fire-first and-then-move system.
And note that these phases do not have to be assigned to only one side. The actions of the sides can be interspersed with one another. You can have Side A move, then Side B fire, or, perhaps, simulataneous fire by both sides, or have artillery fire first, then small arms… there’s no end to the permutations involved.
More Thoughts on the Generation of Wargame Rules
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© Copyright 2002 Wally Simon
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