Space 1889 GDW's Science-Fantasy Colonial Gaming Rules The title comes from a remark of Fred Haub's, watching my irregular, green, ill-trained recruits as they were being slaughtered by an enemy unit in a Martian Canal. This was a scenario set up to playtest the rules as set forth in The Soldier's Companion (TSC) , published by GDW, authored by Frank Chadwick, and applicable to the British colonial era, with the unusual twist of incorporating provisions for the intra-planetary explorations... circa 1889... of the colonial powers. TSC appears to be GDW's bid for THE SWORD & THE FLAME market with a shot at the fantasy field thrown in for good measure. TSC comes in an 8 1/2 by 11" soft-covered format of almost 200 pages, is nicely illustrated, is about half an inch thick, but, to my mind, about half the bulk is unnecessary. There is a section devoted to miniatures rules for 25mm figures, and there is a section devoted to the makeup of the armies of the colonial powers. The rest of the book contains the crappola relating to how the Brits and the other powers went off to the planets, and fought with the Martians, and the Moon Men, 'and the Venusians, and I'm-not-sure-with-who-or-what-else. Definitely unnecessary. Unnecessary, unless, of course, you're planning on manufacturing, distributing, and selling 25mm Martians and Moonmen and Venusians and spaceships, which GDW hopes to do on the strength of the popularity of TSC. It appears that Frank Chadwick took pains to produce an extremely detailed set of "realistic", "historically accurate" colonial rules, complete with all sorts of tabulations for all sorts of weapons for all sorts of units for all sorts of colonial powers, and then took off on a fantasy binge with his Martian and Moon Men and Venusian friends. Our first scenario involved only human troops... not knowing what to expect, we thought it better if we confined ourselves to normal, earthling, people-type soldier persons. There were five units against five units, where a unit was defined as a company, each of 20 figures. The nakeup of the 20 figure infantry compary, it seemed, was "officer heavy", i. e. , too many "special figures". The company was composed of a headquarters staff and two platoons as follows: Staff First Platoon 6 Troopers Second Platoon 6 Troopers Total 12 Troopers Special Figures 3 officers 1 Sgt Maj. 1 sgt. 1 Cpl. 1 Sgt. 1 Cpl. 8 Specials Thus, eight men, almost half the entire company, are "specials", while there are only 12 actual fighting men. All figures; are singly based. Evidently, GDW is broadcasting the TSC publication about, hoping it takes off on its own. My copy of TSC came in the mail about four weeks prior to our setting up the game ... an unasked-for "freebee"... withan accompanying letter stating "Here is your review copy." "Who sez?", said I. I certainly wasn't going to send it back, even less was I going to throw it out (I never throw anything out), and it lay on my kitchen table for a month staring up at me, until I took pity on it and brought it down to the ping pong table. I should rote, to give proper credit, that Rich Hasenauer, a fellow PW subscriber, did the cover art, a full color illustration of redcoated Brits in action. He is also producing the cover art for the other products in the Space- 1889 line. In truth, the rules didn't appear to be that bad... (praise from Caesar is praise indeed) ... despite the difficulties we had in running our first effort. There are a zillion details associated with each phase of the game, and the first time through, it's sheer torture as you thumb through the book looking up the applicable procedures. For example, when a side fires: First, add up your firing modifiers and throw a bunch of 6-sided dice to determine the number of hits. Now toss the target's savings dice throws to determine how many of the hits were actual casualties. Third, determine the number of NCO's hit (half the casualty total). Fourth, dice again to see if an officer was hit. Fifth, dice to see who was "lightly wounded", who was "critically wounded", etc. Sixth, throw two dice to test the morale of the target unit. Once you've got the hang of it, the above is rot that difficult, but to put it all together on the first exposure... trust me, your patience will be thoroughly tested. When we set our troops out, we diced for troop quality, consisting of five levels ranging from elite to green. I chose green, of course, and found out that my basic morale number was 7... which meant that to pass a morale test, two 6- sided dice must equal or be less than 7. The rest of the forces on the field were experienced, etc., having somewhat better dice throws. Fred Haub was on my side, and we chose lever-action rif les; the opposition had bolt-action weapons. The differences: a. We were outranged, 20 inches to 32 inches. b.Our lever-action weapons could fire at a rate of 1 "hit die" per man with no penalty, or 2 dice per man with the penalty of having to take a turn to reload. C. The bolt-action rifles had no penalties imposed and could fire at long range at 1 die per man, or at close range (up to 16 inches) at 2 dice per man. We also took a Maxim machine gun, able to throw 6 hit dice per turn up to a range of 4 8 inches; the enemy bad a Nordenfelt 1-B LMG, which could toss 2 dice per turn with a maximum range of 24 inches. The advantage of our 6 dice over the opposition's 2 was somewhat leveled because, every turn, we had to test for jamming (a toss of 5 or 6); the Nordenfelt was more reliable... no jamming test here. I mention all this to show the "historical accuracy" and "realism" built into the rules; the rules buffs will eat this stuff up... on the artillery tables, for example, there are 37, count'em, 37 types of guns from which to choose, all with different combinations of dice tosses and hit values and penetration values and damage values, etc. One thing I don't understand is why the author, with his zest and zeal for differentiating among all these weapon types, didn't go t:o percentage dice. There's only so much one can accomplish with the gradations provided on two 6-sided dice... is it so much more difficult to toss 20-sided percentage dice rather than 6-sided ones, and read the result? I can't see that the "keep it simple" argument applies here. Whatever, there we were on the field, and the battle commenced. TSC borrows its basic sequence from Chadwick's COMMAND DECISION, his modern armor game. An alternate system in which you move OR fire each turn, it consists of: Phase 1. Toss a die for initiative for the turn, and the winner, Side A, will declare his charges and fire troops that will not move. Side A can also hold his fire on this phase, waiting for his Phase 4 "hold fire", after mo,vement. Phase 2. Side A moves his troops, those that will not fire at all. Phase 3. Side B gets to fire defensively. Phase 4. Side A now has his "hold fire" opportunity. Phase 5. melee for the units Side A contacted on his charges. Note that on Phase 2, Side A moves, bringing his charging units into contact, thus, I assume, causing a melee to commence instantaneously even though it's not resolved until Phase 5. Since both sides get to fire after this contact, this brings up the question of whether or not one can fire into a melee. TCS doesn't address this issue. For what it's worth, in all Simon- generated rules with this type of sequence, I define the units, even though they appear to be butting head to head, to have not yet made contact, hence they are viable targets during the fire phase. I moved my Martian Irregular Militia, the dreaded MIM's, across a canal defined to be rough terrain, which cost them half their normal 12 inch movement. My boys were in skirmish order and the approaching enemy units started out as formed, and quickly opened up their ranks when they discovered the canals were impassable to close order troops. At long range, the MIMI s opened fire. Each man gets a 6-sided die, and the following modifiers apply to the basic "6" required to hit: +1 because the MIMs are green +2 because they're firing at long range +1 because the target is in open order This totals to 4, which, added to the basic "6", becomes a 10. It would appear that it's fairly difficult to toss a 10 on a 6-sided die, but not to worry. Whenever a number greater than 6 is generated, the 6 remains as the basic hit number, and the nodifiers show up, not on the hit die toss, but on the savings throws. Here, therefore, with 10 MIM's firing, I tossed 10 dice, and came up with 3 "6s", i.e., three potential casualties. Now the opposition tossed his savings throws; since the modifiers totaled 4, a savings throw of 1 through 4 would annul the hit. The dice throws cancelled the hits, and the target unit tested Morale, deducting one point for every hit, regardless of whether or not it produced a casualty. Here, the modifier was -3, and the target unit passed the test. The MIMs were fairly lucky, as the enemy opened fire at close range (2 dice per man), causing no hits... remember that each hit would have deducted from the MIMs basic morale number of 7. The hit modifiers were: +1 because the target MIMs were in open order -1 because the target consisted of green troops With the basic hit value of "6" unmodified, I would have had no savings throws if the MIMs had been hit. Incidentally, looking at the second listed modifier, I have no idea why the fact that targeting green troops added to the quality of the firing unit's marksmanship. But who am I to doubt the historicity of this modifier. Fred Haub's troops, on our left flank, were being charged by a horde of enemy units, and, in like fashion, so were my MIMs. TSC uses the melee procedure of THE SWORD & THE FLAME; figures are paired off, and high man wins. The MIMs were up against experienced troops and my opponent's melee modifiers were: +2 because they were two norale levels greater than the green MIMs +1 because they were facing a "weak adversary" This second modifier, said the melee chart, was applicable only to Moon Men, Lizard Men, Selenites, and "firearm-equipped irregulars". Placing the MIMs in the same class as Moon Men and Selenites, along with all their other negative modifiers, was just too much for the MIMs to bear, and since each pair-off gave the opponent a +3 advantage on a comparison roll of 6-sided dice, 'twas no surprise that the MIMs were slaughtered where they stood. Digression At this point, I must digress and take issue with the author's classification. I can see that beating up on a bunch of weak-kneed, grinchy-looking Moonmen and Selenites could easily give one a +1, perhaps even a +2 in melee... but Lizard Men? Every history book is full of tales of the courage and tenacity and ferocity in battle of Lizard Men...obviously Frank Chadwick hasn't done his homework. In fact, Chadwick's classification is so awry as to permit me to quote Bob Wiltrout, who, several issues ago, in speaking of the approach of a certain wargame rules author to realism and historic content, said that this certain author: "... never addresses whether the relative combat power of tanks and artillery are appropriate, or whether the armor factor of a Roman auxiliary is reasonable. He doesn't have any idea. Nor does he care..." While it's true we're not discussing tanks and armor here, neither was Wiltrout when he wrote the above. And so, Frank Chadwick, that's for you! Anyone who's rot familiar with the fighting capabilities of Lizard Men had better stay home, and keep his hands in his pockets, and not pretend to be a rules writer, and certainly not mess with me!... and definitely keep an eye out for Wiltrout. Back to the Melee I must confess I exaggerated slightly when I said the MIMs were decimated. There were, by actual count, only five or so MIMs in contact, so only five figures were in combat. What zonked the MIMs was the post-melee morale test in which the melee casualties affected the morale number. The MIMs started at 7, and deducted 2 for every figure killed (those whose original combat die toss was half of the opponent's) , and 1 for every man forced back (those whose die toss was less than that of the opponent's). This brought the MIMs morale level to about a 1 -- definitely a no- no. At this point,we mercifully brought the battle to an end, as Fred Haub's troops weren't doing too well either. Four of us took part in this first game with Chadwick's rules. I'm not sure why -- perhaps because it was late and we were tired, perhaps because of the rules themelves -- but there was a negative cast to the game. .. no one liked the rules, and no one had anything nice to say about them. New Game This puzzled me, for some days later, in reading and rereading the rules set, I could find no reason for the negatives. Seeker-after-the- truth that I am, I then set up a solo game, with the intent of running through all the procedures myself, taking my time and examining in detail all the nitty-gritty therein. The first game had taught me that "firearm equipped irregulars" were fairly rotten troops, and the Brits--vs- native scenario set out the following: British: 1 Reg Lt Gav 3 Reg Foot Coys 1 Gardner Machine Gun Native: 7 Irregular Coys 3 Reg Foot Coys All regular units had 12 troopers, 4 NCO's, and 4 officers; all irregular units bad 16 warriors, and 3 officers. The native-to-British force ratio was about 200 to 80. The British, led by General Sir Edwin Drapple, cane on in column on Alaphah Road, cavalry in the front... the objective was to explore the ruins to the northeast on Betah Road. The imp shows the dispositions of the native units, all prepared to ambush the unsuspecting Brits. It should be noted that all British colonial scenarios start with the "unsuspecting" Brits marching down a road, about 1r) be whomped by the natives, and mine was no different. For some reason, General Drapple did not take the first turnoff on the Betah Road but continued to Point A. Here, the dreaded Hoodii bushwhacking irregulars opened fire at short range on the leading cavalry unit. Sixteen hit dice were thrown... 7 "6s" were rolled, i.e. , 7 potential casualties turned up. There were no savings throws, and after many, many, many dice tosses, the result was: 1 officer killed, 1 NCO lightly wounded, 1 NCO seriously wounded, 2 troopers killed, 1 trooper lightly wounded, and 1 trooper seriously wounded. Then there was yet another dice throw as the cavalry tested its morale: its basic value was a 12 (an elite unit) , and it subtracted one point for every hit incurred (7) and another 2 for having been enfiladed. Its level was thus reduced to a value of 3... and sumvagun! ... the unit passed! Now bear in mind that all the above had occurred on the very first volley... I was definitely not looking forward to the upcoming turns wherein multiple simultaneous volleys would be fired by the various units concerned, with consequent resolution of the effects of the fire. But on I Plowed Not for too long, however... I quit at the end of Turn 4... the Brits were pretty much bogged down, and so was I in the details of keeping track of the unscathed, the wounded, the dead and the dying. The small British force had deployed and fired and sent running the first few native units it encountered, but while there were more natives coming up, this was not so for the Brits... outnumbered as they were, they would have to fall back. They had taken, in all, 23 casualties, a fairly large percentage of their original strength. General Drapple was going to have to answer to the War Office with a lot of paperwork. In this second game, I really didn't discover anything new, but I did note an interesting Chadwick concept concerning "volley fire" and its effect on formed and unformed units. TSC's volley fire "causes fewer casualties", says Chadwick, and he adds a +2 modifier to the savings throws of the target unit when it dices for actual casualties. But having said this, he then doubles the number of hits caused by volley fire against formed units. In either case, the true effect of vo lley fire shows up in the target's morale test, wherein the target takes a -2 modifer. Between the two games, I sampled enough of the rules, I think, to single out some of the good and bad points of the playing procedures. As far as the 37 types of artillery, I must admit I'm not qualified to judge the merit of how each gun is treated. Nor, for that matter, can I comment on Gardner machine guns getting two hit dice, while Maxim get six. Nor do I feel I can state with certainty that the "1 die at long range, 2 dice at short range" fully simulates the relative efficiencies of the bolt action rifle. I leave determinations such as these to the Bob Wiltrouts of the world, whose expertise qualifies them to render such judgements. But I did find that, in all, TSC appears to be "just another set" of colonial rules with very few innovations. About the only new item on display is the hit/casualty procedure, and here Chadwick acknowledges he took the idea from Hal Thinglum's Zulu rules. Hal's thoughts were to generate a large number of hits due to firing, which are then filtered out, via the savings throws, to determine the much fewer actual casualties incurred. Hal then used the basic number of hits, hcwever, rather than the casualties, to modify unit morale. In the section titled Designer's Notes, Chadwick explains: "...This rule, along with the saving throw rule on small arms fire, enabled me to put together a game where there could be a lot of firing and a lot of game results (checks, shaken morale, and so forth) but relatively few casualties." Enough, for now, of TCS. Back to PW Review September 1989 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1989 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