Look at the basic boardgame sequence
- a Side A move
b Resolve combat from Side A’s movement
c Switch sides
In this sequence, Side A moves up, and, shouting “I gotcha!”, smashes into Side B without any response from B.
Side B simply waits, and gets his licks in when he becomes active... if he survives. I term this a “gotcha!” sequence. I’ve seen this type of sequence still used in a couple of current rules sets.
In the early seventies, when I broke into wargaming, my favorite sequence was the simple
- a Side A move
b Side B fire
c Resolve melee resulting from Side A’s movement
d Switch sides
Here, Side B has a response… he can attempt to drive Side A off by firing.
But note that Side A still maintains a “gotcha!… on his movement phase, he can move up to B, and place as many men or stands or units as possible into contact in readiness for the melee phase, and B is powerless to prevent it.
I’ve heard it said that the above A-move/B-fire sequence “discourages aggression”. Why move up when you know you’ll instantly be potted? I’ve tried out the system in both ways (A-move/B-fire and A-fire/B-move) and, in truth, at table-side, there doesn’t seem to be any difference. The players lose themselves in the tactical situation, and aren’t too interested in how the sequence runs. What they are interested in is how fast up the field they can run their troops.
There are a couple of popular, current rules sets which add yet another phase to the “gotcha” system.
Here’s the 5-phase sequence for the half-turn.
- a Side A move
b Side B fire
c Side A fire
d Resolve melee resulting from Side A’s movement
e Switch sides
Note this is a sequence essentially employing A-move in phase (a), followed by B-fire in phase (b), plus some return fire form Side A in phase (c), which works well for the battalion or brigade level game. But it’s still a “gotcha!” sequence.
It should be noted that the series of DBX games employs just this type of “gotcha!” sequence. And I’ve never stopped wondering how grown men could assert that this type of sequence provides the ultimate in “historical reality”.
The above sequence is the one used in the American Civil War set FIRE AND FURY (FAF), and for years, I’ve maintained that not only is this a “gotcha!”, but that the phasing employed in this sequence is completely inappropriate for a set of rules purporting to cover the horse and musket era. My reasoning stems from a look at the time span of the turn.
FAF’s complete turn, which encompasses two cycles, 10 phases, of the above listing, is stated as being in the order of 30 minutes. In the horse and musket period, preparing a musket for firing was a time consuming effort. Each man in a unit had to load powder, tamp, load ball, tamp, prime, and fire. A unit that is advancing must spend most of the time during the turn in simply moving up… it can not devote as much time to the firing procedures as can a unit emplaced in a static, defensive position. In other words, if you move, you have fewer opportunities to fire… and this is exactly what the above sequence does not portray. Instead, it allows both sides the same amount of fire power during the half-hour turn… they both fire at full effect on both halves of the turn, regardless of whether they’re emplaced or moving forward.
Alas! It is my sad duty to relate that NAPOLEON’S BATTLES (NB) also has a half-hour turn, and it also uses the FAF sequence as listed above. During the time span of the turn, all units have equal fire power.
That old standby, COLUMN, LINE AND SQUARE, tried to implement a simple solution to this problem. Each infantry unit was given two operations, or actions during the turn. It could move up 6 inches on both actions for a distance of 12 inches, or it could use one action for a 6 inch move and use the other for firing. Which meant that during the span of the turn, if a unit fired, it could not advance as rapidly as a unit that did nothing but move up. But this solved only half the problem. An emplaced unit still was permitted to fire with only one of its two actions. Which meant that the sequence, while slowing down the firing/advancing unit, still provided both sides with equal fire power.
The CLS solution is a linear one… move-twice, or move-half-and-fire. But there doesn’t have to be a linear relation between moving and firing, as long as the fire power of an advancing unit is lessened when contrasted with that of a static one. But how much is “less”? Here is where I again resort to stating that my charts and factors in reducing fire power will be different from yours… but, at the least, they’ll both contain provision for a reduced impact on the enemy.
My proposed solution for a sequence applicable to the horse and musket era is to give the active side a number of “actions”, wherein each action permits him to either fire a volley or move a certain distance. In other words, in the first phase (a) of the above sequence, Side A receives, say, three actions. If he’s advancing, he can move up for all three actions, while, if he wants to have a wee bit of cover fire, he can advance for two of his actions and fire for one.
The point is that he must sacrifice fire power for movement. Contrast this with the response of Side B, who is emplaced in works, and has no need to move. When he becomes the active side and receives his three actions, he can whang away at the opposition… he’s got the maximum amount of fire power.
Way back when, Avalon Hill had a sequence (introduced around the time that PANZERBLITZ appeared). This was also used in the sci-fi game, OGRE
- a Side A move
b Side A fire
c Side A move mobile units
d Switch sides
This made mobile units (tanks) more powerful and enabled an “over run” phase to be added in, but note that the sequence was still a “gotcha!” one… poor Side B had no response to Side A’s actions.
Of late, my own sequences have contained the following 7 phases for the half turn.
- a Side A moves all units
b Side B fires
c Resolve melee stemming from Side A’s movement
d Side B moves mobile units only
e Side A has “opportunity fire”
f Resolve melee resulting from Side B’s mobile unit movement
g Switch sides
In the first phase (a), Side A moves all his units… whether foot or cavalry or tanks or armored cars… a set distance. For my gaming purposes, I use a set distance of 10 inches. But if all units move the same on this first phase, we’ve got to give Side A’s cavalry or tanks or armored cars another phase during which they can outdistance the infantry.
This is done when his opponent becomes active on the second half of the turn. It’s on this half of the turn that Side A switches and becomes Side B, and it’s here on the fourth phase (d) that his “mobile units”, i.e., his cavalry or his tanks or his armored cars, will gain their additional movement distance.
In effect, the mobile units have a split move, allowing them to react to the opposition’s actions.
Note that splitting the movement of the mobile units as I do (in my 7 phase listing), can still lead to a “gotcha!” effect. When Side B’s mobile units close to contact on the fourth phase (d), the opposition is caught flatfooted and needs to have some sort of response. This is what the fifth phase, (e) provides.
Side A is given a limited amount of firing to defend himself. I term this “opportunity fire”, because not all of Side A’s units can open up and blast away, as was permitted Side B in the second phase, (b). One of the methods that I use to provide limited fire power is to use a “clock die”. Side A selects his first unit to fire, does so, and tosses a 10-sided die. This toss is his “clock number”. He selects a second unit to fire, does so, and tosses the clock die a second time. Each time he fires, he keeps accumulating and adding his clock numbers until the total equals 12 or more. When he reaches this point, this is the last unit permitted to fire.
What’s interesting about this system is that while Side A is guaranteed to be able to have two units fire (you need at least two tosses of a 10-sided die to reach a total of 12), if he’s really lucky, by tossing a series of low numbers, i.e., “1’s” and “2’s”, he can blast away with a number of units… and neither side knows in advance how many.
Now let’s look at “emergency responses”… opportunities outside the normal range of the sequence to give a side the capability to respond to the opponent’s actions, i.e., to fight back against a “gotcha!”.
NB does this rather neatly, providing two “out of sequence” opportunities. First, during your half of the turn, when you are the active player, you may hold your cavalry back, marking them with a reaction chitty. Then, on the second half of the turn, when your opponent is the active side, you can have your reacting cavalry charge out as desired.
A second emergency “out of sequence” response provided by NB permits infantry units, anytime they are contacted by enemy cavalry, to toss a die to see if they can form square.
Another set of rules, Howard Whitehouse’s SCIENCE VERSUS PLUCK, deals with the British colonial era, and permits British troops to react, that is, to attempt to react, whenever native units materialize out of the sand dunes and charge in. The Brits can form square and fire.
To my mind, the above described reaction capability doesn’t go far enough. If infantry can attempt to react to a charging cavalry unit by forming square, and the Brits can react to native units bursting in on them, why restrict an emergency response to these two instances?
For example, if, in NB, the cavalry charge in, and the enemy infantry, in their “emergency mode”, form square, why can’t the cavalry commander, also suddenly faced with an emergency, be allowed to try and abort his charge?
Similarly, if a unit in column of route along a road is suddenly attacked on the flank, why not permit the column commander to attempt to form up and fire before contact? If I were the column commander, I’d certainly consider this an “emergency”. In other words, why not enable a side faced with an emergency… any “emergency”… to attempt to react?
The standard answer is that, if we did so, we’d have no more flank attacks, no more advantages, no more surprises. But, having asked the question, let me offer my own solution.
I permit a limited number of “emergency responses”, i.e., a limited number of out of sequence reactions, within the turn, to both sides. The opposing commanders can individually define their own “emergencies” and react accordingly… but, since the number of responses is limited, they can’t be too free with their reactions.
Each side is provided with, say, three Reaction Points (RP) for the turn.
These RP provide a sort of “local initiative” to a unit commander… they permit him to respond in an out of sequence fashion when he deems himself in trouble. If, for example, one side’s infantry unit, now in line formation, is suddenly being charged by enemy cavalry, a player may do the following
- a He allocates one of his RP to the situation, indicating that he’s sending an emergency order to the infantry commander... the adjutant rides out, or the radio message goes out over the aether, or the courier is on his way, etc. The player now has two RP left.
b Having sent the order, did it arrive successfully? The chance to do so is 80 percent… a toss of percentage dice of 80 or under says the order was received and can be acted on. And the infantry unit forms square.
c If the 80 percent toss was failed, i.e., the order never arrived, another order can be sent out… a second RP can be devoted to the situation. I permit a maximum of two orders to a unit per phase… there’s only so much a player can do to help out his units. And note the player, because of this second order, is down to only a single RP.
d The cavalry commander, suddenly faced with charging a square, can now allocate his own RP to attempt to abort the charge.
The interplay of RP occurs anywhere within the turn, as long as the players have RP in their inventory. If a player decides, in mid-sequence, to suddenly call on one of his infantry units to issue a volley, it is perfectly permissible to do so. What the player has done, in effect, is to declare his own emergency, and, in a sense, by using up an RP, has penalized his side when and if a true emergency appears.
On occasion, the half turn can be expanded to devote an entire phase to the use of RP. Here’s my previously listed 7-phase sequence, expanded to 9 phases.
- a Side A moves all units
b Side B fires
c Reaction cycle
d Resolve melee stemming from Side A’s movement
e Side B moves mobile units only
f Side A has “opportunity fire”
g Reaction cycle
h Resolve melee resulting from Side B’s mobile unit movement
i Switch sides
This sequence inserts two separate phases, (c) and (g), solely for the use of RP. Each phase contains a “reaction cycle”… first one side uses an RP, then the other, until neither wants to use his RP. Perhaps a side has run out of RP, or perhaps, he wants to save an RP for a subsequent phase. Note that the RP phases occur just before the resolution of melee. This permits a unit to attempt to respond to an emergency situation produced by an opponent’s move.
And it must be noted that RP are, in essence, a “bonus” for a player… he should be forced to decide where and when he wants to use them, and allocate them only to critical situations.
In some of my rules sets, I’ve gone hog-wild and overdone the RP… provided too many of them… and the presence of an overabundance of RP completely negates the reason for their existence. There should always be too few of them.
On occasion, I’ve introduced even more phases within the half-turn than the above listed eight phases of (a) through (h). Phases for supply, for administration, for casualty evaluation, and so on. The problem here, though, is that there are only so many reaction and response and movement and firing and miscellaneous phases that can be introduced before the game slows down. Remember my initial comments on the necessity of keeping the players busy, and their units moving. When ginning up a formalized sequence such as the above, bear in mind that keeping the participants busy is prime.
Now, let’s look at some not-so-formalized sequences… those implemented using cards to govern unit movement.
More Thoughts on the Generation of Wargame Rules
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© Copyright 2002 Wally Simon
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