From the Internet, I downloaded a set of rules by a fella named Terry Preen, which used a unique sequence to activate units. Preen’s article was published in THE SOLO WARGAMER, which I constantly read, courtesy of MAGWEB. For his solo mode of play, Preen used a deck of cards… in fact, two decks… to activate his units… he wanted, in part, to have the decks decide what each unit would do. I decided to revamp Preen’s procedures to have them fit a multi-player game, rather than use them for solo play. The first deck, I call the Type A deck… this contains a total of 12 cards. The contents are: 7 cards: Each of which state… “Move 3 units” 1 card: Each of which calls for Ammunition resupply 2 cards: Each of which call for simultaneous fire by both sides, resolve close assault, and also states “STOP MOVEMENT” 2 cards: Calling for both sides to assess casualties, and which also state “LOSE INITIATIVE” Note that the only time units fire in the Type A deck is on the 2 cards calling for simultaneous fire. All other activities are move only. The main firing functions occur on the cards of the second deck, termed the Type B deck. This deck contains 8 cards. 6 cards Each of which states “Move and fire” 2 units 2 cards Each of which states “STOP MOVEMENT” In either deck, A or B, when a STOP MOVEMENT card shows up, the opposing player begins to draw from his own Type A deck. But in the Type A deck, when a LOSE INITIATIVE card is drawn, the opposing player begins to draw from the Type B deck… and this means trouble for the first guy, since the cards of this deck permit both movement and firing. During the firing routines, each time a unit fires, then regardless of whether or not it hits the target, it also must dice to see if it runs out of ammunition. Note that there’s a card in the Type A deck on which all units automatically resupply, and until this appears, uniits with “out-of-ammo” markers are impotent. They can move, but they can’t fire. I set up a game in 15mm… 3 stands represented a company, and it was the company that was the maneuver and fire element in the battle. A battalion was composed of 3 companies. When a company fired, there was a 40 percent chance it ran out of ammo… in retrospect, that’s way too high, and we’ll lower the percentage until it appears right. We also tracked each company for its Loss Points (LP). Calculating LP involved a two phase procedure. (a) When a unit was hit, we placed a casualty figure next to it… one casualty figure for every hit. These casualty figures kept accumulating during the bound. When hit, not only did a unit receive a figure, but it took a morale test. And if it failed the test, it fell back and received yet another casualty fgiure. (b) Note that there are 2 cards in the Type A deck that require assessing casualties, and when these cards appeared, we examined every company that had one or more casualty figures. The effect of all the casualty figures accumulated by a unit were then totaled by referring to a table whose results, diced for, stated that each casualty figure was worth anywhere from 1 to 5 LP. The number we looked for , or rather hoped not to see, was 30 LP… bound by bound, the LP accumulated, and when a company totaled 30 LP, it was destroyed and removed from the table. In all, I think that the sequence and gaming procedures didn’t lend themselves too well to a multi-player game. Use of the Type A and Type B decks, specifying a certain number of units can move, leads to a lurchy sequence, in which, first one group of units advances, then another, then another. And lurchy sequences, in my opinion, don’t fit in well in multi-player games. For one-on-one, or solo play, the Type A and B decks are fine. There’s only one player per side in a one-on-one game, and he constantly has something to do. With several players on both sides, most of them simply sit there, waiting for their cards to be drawn. And so, we say goodby to my adaptation of the Preen sequence and look at another, this one based on a couple of thoughts tossed out by Don Bailey, who authored a WW2 game which he calls STURM. In Don’s STURM, when a unit is affected by certain critical situations on the battlefield, it gets to react. STURM defined the more important of these situations as follows: A unit gets fired at A unit sees an enemy unit approaching A unit sees a friendly unit falling back A unit is contacted in close assault by an enemy unit Each time one of these situations occurred due to the impact by Unit A on Unit B, the affected unit, Unit B, drew a card from the Reaction Deck, and the card mandated what the impacted unit would do. Unit B might fire, it might fall back, it might hold, etc., etc. If, for example, the card said to fire, then Unit A, now being fired on, would itself draw a card, and in this fashion, with cards being drawn by both units, a brief firefight might develop until the cards decreed that one or both units ceased to impact on the other. STURM is also a one-on-one game… there are so many interactions between units that play is held up while each pair of units works out their impacts on one another. I thought I’d try to develop a reaction game along the lines of STURM, but more oriented to multi-player use. I set up a battle between two forces in which the maneuver and firing elements were termed battalions. Each battalion was given a data sheet, which contained 12 Efficiency Levels (EL), i.e., 12 boxes to be crossed out, at which time, the unit was defined to be destroyed. I also gave each side a number of Counter-Fire (CF) tokens… the exact number was proportional to the number of units on the side. When one side (call it Side A) began its firing phase, and its battalions fired on the enemy, there were two possible results: (a) The firing unit missed, i.e., didn’t hit its target. In this case, no ELs were crossed out, but the target battalion of Side B was given 2 markers (I use casualty figures as markers) (b) The firing unit hit its target. Here, an EL was crossed out on Side B’s data sheet, and the targeted unit received a single marker. After Side A completed its firing, each one of Side B’s battalions that had been targeted, were examined. (a) All those of Side B’s battalions that had 2 markers (had been fired at and not been hit) now were permitted to return fire. Side B could do this by expending 2 Counter-Fire (CF) tokens. (b) All those of Side B’s units that had been hit (and now had 1 casualty marker on them) could fire back by expending a single CF token. The result of Side B’s round of fire, was to give Side A’s units, the ones being targeted, either 1 or 2 casualty markers. Again, Side A was permitted to expend its CF tokens, and this routine of fire and counter-fire kept up until each side ran out of CF tokens. In effect, this situation created a number of decision points for each side… by firing on an enemy unit, you opened yourself up to possible return fire. Again, as in any sort of action-reaction procedure, the system slowed down as the fire-and-counter-fire provisions consumed lots of the gaming time. Too much time, particularly when more than one player per side was involved. For solo, or one-on-one play, the system is adequate, and both sides keep busy. Back to PW Review July 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.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com