About a year ago, I purchased a handful of 20mm modern figures... complete with berets, and Uzis, and Cong, and rifle grenades, and the like. My intent was to work on the skirmish rules I'd devised for 54mm figures, and take them down a scale or so. One holdup was the sequence. The skirmish game first used a deck containing a number of cards, each inscribed with the name of an individual figure ... when that man's card was drawn, he could move as required. We then went to a "fire team" system, wherein 2 or 3 men were named on a card, hence they could act as a coordinated group to attack in concert, or to handle crewed weapons such as a heavy machine gun. And there it stayed until the other day, when Fred Haub reminded me of an article I wrote on a sequence I brought back from England ... one derived in conjunction with Robin Peck. The article appeared in the June '84 REVIEW; it dealt with a command system for a naval game ... but it easily adapted itself for the skirmish action. Details of the system are described below. MOVEMENT A regular 52 card playing deck is used for movement, while a "special deck" for each side dictates the degree to which each squad, or fire team, is controlled. The 52 card deck is used, ala THE SWORD AND THE FLAME, to determine which side moves, and how far. A red card and side A moves; a black card and Side B moves. Movement distance is denoted by the card drawn; picture cards and aces are good for 10 inches, while other cards read the numbers directly. A red 6, therefore, tells us that whoever is eligible to move on Side A may go 6 inches. THE SPECIAL DECKS The special decks are composed of two types of cards: name cards and blank buffers. First, for each side, each man's name is listed on 3 separate cards. Then one blank buffer is added for every man listed. For a squad of 4 men on side A, we'd have: Soldier : Number Of Cards Sgt York : 3 Pvt Cork : 3 Pvt Mork : 3 Pvt Dwork : 3 Buffer cards : 4 Total 12 cards Each squad has its own special deck, and when it comes time for Side A to move, the men in the above squad - for example - must be within 6 inches of Sgt York for him to exercise control over them. If Side A's card is drawn from the 52 card movement deck, there are several possibilities concerning the magic 6 inch zone of control: a. All men are within 6 inches of Sgt York. No problem here. All men can fire or move or do whatever they are commanded. b. No men are within 6 inches of Sgt York. Problems. The squad is out of immediate control of the Sergeant. He's got 2 options: (i) He can focus solely on one man in the squad (which could be himself) devoting all his energies to controlling that man and having him perform as ordered. (ii) He can attempt to control his entire unit by using his squad's special deck, drawing 4 cards - since there are 4 men in the squad. Here, he may draw 2 cards for Pvt Cork, one for Mork, and one blank. Cork thus has 2 complete actions, Mork has one, while the Sergeant and Dwork are immobile. c. Some men are within 6 inches, some outside of the 6 inch zone. The Sergeant has three options: (i) As in b(i), he can move one man outside the 6 inches as he desires. (ii) As in b (ii), he can draw 4 cards from the special deck for his squad, attempting to control all the men therein, and probably not succeeding. (iii) He can move and control, as ordered, only those men who are within his 6 inch zone. All those outside are immobile. All the above ain't as hard as it sounds. In summary, the Sergeant can control all men within his 6 inch zone, or control one man outside his zone, or draw from the special deck and take his chances on control of his unit. As noted, if there are several squads on each side, each squad must have its own special deck. When it comes time to move Side A's forces, each squad is treated individually, and the squads are examined to see if all, some, or none of their members are within the squad leader's zone of control. Thus some squads may remain completely under control, while others may have to resort to the special decks. All squads using their special decks have their cards drawn simultaneously. Once the cards from a special deck are used, they are not discarded; they are immediately reshuffled back into the deck for reuse. In our test scenarios, one of the main tactical ploys that developed was termed "shoot the squad leader". While the leader was down or pinned, the squad was deemed out of control, regardless of whether or not the men were within the 6 inch zone, and the special deck had to be used to determine which men were to function properly. Control went to pot and unit performance was definitely downgraded until either the squad leader recovered or someone else arrived to take over. PERMITTED ACTIONS When a man could move, he could: a. Run forward the number of inches shown on the playing card from the 52 card deck, or crawl forward 1/2 the number shown. b. Run full distance and fire hastily ( negative modifier or run full distance and drop prone. c. Rise up from the prone position. Back to PW Review April 1985 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com