I have an assortment of 40mm Elastolin figures, Vikings and Romans, which have always struck my fancy even though I don't game with them that often. Elastolins are produced in Germany and, in my opinion, are the best looking figures on the market in terms of action poses, anatomical detail, and figure proportion. They're made of hard plastic, and, what's even nicer, they're cast in flesh-colored plastic, hence all one does is paint their clothing, weapons and armor, and it's off to war. They're ideal for single figure skirmish action and my one regret is that there are no casualty figures in the line. For HISTORICON, I listed an event called THE VIKING RAID in the preliminary program booklet... with that first order priority taken care of, it was time to generate the rules. First things first, I always say. Here, by the way, I continually refer to "Vikings and Romans"... but only because these are the figures around which I generated my scenario. Feel free to call your game "Athenians and Spartans", or "Mesopotamians and Assyrians", or whatever figures you've got available. Since this is man-on-man, there is no particular era or unit size or tactics to adher to... all we're concerned with here is the generic "ancients" period and bows and spears and swords and the like. Please do not write your friendly editor, informing him that a battle between the Vikings and the Romans is an historic anomaly. I have researched the period quite thoroughly, translating in full the ancient, yellowed manuscripts of Sven Marrowsucker which, as every schoolboy knows, starts out "By yumpin' yimminy, today we knocked the socks off the First Roman Legion..." Enough of historical fact. I don't mind admitting that the REVIEW has some excellent ideas in it ("good stuff" is the way I term it), and what started me off was an article in the November 1982 issue by Joe Matthews who authored a skirmish description in which he used a deck of cards to govern unit movement. Most of the cards indicated that individuals were to move, but on occasion, a "command" card would be drawn, and this enabled an entire unit to act in concert. I made up 3 decks of cards: a. Viking Leader (VL) deck. These cards are the equivalent of Matthews' "command" cards. There are 5 Viking Leaders, and each has 3 cards in the VL deck for a total of 15 cards. When a Viking Leader's card is drawn, that Leader may move and coordinate all men within 5 inches, i.,e., a 5 inch radius Zone of Control (ZOC). Each wound reduces a Leader's ZOC radius by 1 inch... thus if Eric has 2 wounds, he can control only those men within 3 inches. A Viking Leader cannot control the actions of other Viking Leaders. b. Roman Leader (RL) deck. Same as the Viking Leader deck. Fifteen cards, 3 per Leaderfor 5 Leaders. c. Mass Movement (MM) deck. Here we have 20 cards, on each of which is designated a certain number of men that can move: No of Cards : No of Men to Move 3 : 4 7 : 3 7 : 2 3 : 1 (20 in total) The Viking commander always had 3 of his VL cards in his hand to pick from... ditto for the Roman commander. When cards are played, they are immediately replenished so that 3 are always available. MM cards, on the other hand, are picked each turn and held for as long as desired. There is no limit to the number of MM cards that may be held. The sequence is an alternating you-go/I-go affair, and each turn, the active side does three things: a. Picks an MM card and totals the MM points in his hand. Call this total "T". b. Examines the 3 Leader cards in his hand, and c. Exercises one of two, options: (A) He can play 2 Leader cards of the 3 he holds, and activate the 2 Leaders and the men in their respective ZOCs, or (B) He can play any number of the MM cards in his hand and activate a number of men, anywhere on the field, equal to the total T shown on the MM cards played. The VIKING RAID scenario ordinarily has Leaders and their 5 man units scattered all over the field as the Vikings dash here and there rounding up Victory Points in terms of slaves and cattle. Under Option (A), two Leaders and their men may move. Option (B) provides for mass movement; if enough MM cards are accumulated and played, one can generate a mass attack by the entire side. MM cards provide other possibilities, i.e, for certain selected individuals to move.... Odin on the left flank with 3 prisoners, Bjorn in the center with a slave and a cow, and Rolf, way out in right field, with 3 slaves. What results, therefore, is an interesting mix of command decisions each turn, as each side decides which option brings the more optimal return. Another item of interest in the rules is the institution of the Rally Zone. Men routing due to the impact of fire and melee are termed disorganized and ineffective until a Leader, any Leader, helps them rally. Rather than dot the field with these riu-nning and routing ineffective figures, they are simply removed from the table, and placed in an off-board Rally Zone. Each turn, a commander may rally any number of his men in the Rally Zone, simply by placing them next to any of his Leaders. Rallying, therefore, is automatic ... the penalty, however, is the cost of Victory Points whenever regulars or Leaders are rallied. In the accompanying rules set, note that I've kept to my basic tenets: it's a "chartless" game. All weapons are deemed equal, whether axe or sword or spear, etc., and a man's melee value is (5 x 10-sided die), where the "5" multiplier can go up or down with an advantage or disadvantage. Morale rules are simple, and firing results fall into one of three areas: the target is completely missed, or a hit causes him to think twice and he is cast into the Rally Zone, or he is killed. The scenario to be presented at HISTORICON sets out 5 Viking Leaders, each with 5 men, anywhere along the shoreline, as the Viking commander desires. The Viking ship is somewhere out to sea. Each turn, the Vikings dice to see if it appears; the probability is (5xTurn Number)%. When it does appear, percentage dice are thrown to see where it lands ( dice throw equals the number of inches from the western end of the shoreline). Once it has arrived, it moves along the coast, hugging the shoreline, and once it departs and pulls away from shore, it's gone forever. This means that the Viking commander must make a crucial decision, sometime in the game, concerning whether or not he's gathered enough booty (slaves, cattle and prisoners) aboard to warrant deserting those of his men who can't make it to the ship and must be abandoned. This is the turning point of the battle, for the Romans, once they wipe out the deserted Vikings, automatically garner all the remaining booty and its Victory Points (VP). Vikings left behind are at a disadvantage in melee... they're somewhat chagrined at being abandoned... but the Romans may still have a tough time mopping up. The Romans -- 5 Leaders with 5 men each -- all start out in the Garrison. What they'd like to do is gather up slaves (2 VP), cattle (2 VP), and, of course, the Princess (5 VP for the Princess! ... after all, how many Roman Princesses have you seen?) and bring them all back to the Garrison, or, alternatively, break through the Vikings and get to the shore line, to board and capture the Viking ship. The scenario as described seems balanced, plays well, and provides enough cliff-hangers in terms of command decisions to keep interest peaked. Back to PW Review July 1987 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1987 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com