Brian Dewitt called up: "I've gone over the TACTICA rules book... why don't we try a game?" Now Brian is well respected within our group... not only did he go to college, but he actually remembers some of what he was taught. And so off to Brian's house we trekked. This was Saturday, January 20, and on this weekend, there were three coincidences worth reporting. First, Brian's call, and our subsequent introduction to Arty Conliffe's ancients game TACTICA. Second, that same night, the arrival of Hal Thinglum's Midwest Wargamer Is Association Newsletter (MWAN) , and within it, a scathin~g review of TACTICA. Third, on the very next day, a call from author Arty Conliffe to state he had sold out his first printing of 2000 issues, and that a second printing of 5000 was on the way. In the MWAN, Terry Gore -- a WRG devotee -- pummelled TACTICA... he kicked it, he smashed it, he bashed it, he insulted it, he cursed it, he damned it, and he finished by stating the rules were... ".. most certainly not 'an historical approach' to ancient gaming... I've seen meatier rules in local newsletters." So deep were the wounds inflicted by Terry, and so great the flow of venom and salt poured into the wounds, that Dr. Thinglum himself felt he had to step in at the end of Terry's piece to apply a soothing unguent. It turned out, however, that Hal really had nothing to say, except that the slick, glossy format of the publication itself led to an unusually large number of sales for an unknown, first-time effort: "The rules looked simple when I looked through them and that appealed to me. This is no ' putdown' on Terry or his review. I just think there are a number of reasons... why this rules set is selling like crazy." I think I'll stand aside as the outside world cho0ses up sides in the pro-TAdTICA, anti-TACTICA political arena. We had two games at Brian's house, giving us a good sampling of the scope and the procedures of the rules, and the tone and intent of the game that Arty Conliffe wants to set up. And, I must admit, I enjoyed myself... Now note I DID NOT say that we played TACTICA... we didn't. That's why this article is titled SON OF TACTICA. What we did do was set up two games in which we followed TACTICA procedures. Indeed, we violated several TACTICA basic precepts: TACTICA mandates that you must play with certain size forces. We didn't. There just weren't enough troops available. TACTICA mandates that the content of each force be just so, i.e., so many heavy cavalry, so many slingers, etc We ignored this. We guestimated, for example, that about 12 Roman cohorts versus 4 Macedonian phalanxes (plus auxiliaries) would make for a balanced game. 4 TACTICA mandates that only certain types of units be included in the army lists and that only certain armies can battle each other. Who sez? With nothing better to do, we gave the 12 Roman cohorts a huge number of elephant troops, while the opposing Macedonians got an equally large chariot corps. And despite the heresies described above (and others too blasphemous to mention), we came out with two very interesting, quite balanced, games. Conliffe's big PR push has been in the direction of "historical accuracy" ... this is the argument that will wean the WRG fans to his side. And this is the argument about which I could care less. If you wish to define certain heavy infantry units as Roman cohorts, and if they can deliver a big enough whomp on opposing infantry, then, as far as I'm concerned, Roman cohorts they are. And if you call those horsemen Alexander's Companions, and their morale level puts them head and shoulders above the competition, and they get a 11+311 in combat, then bigawd!, the Companions they are! I leave the "historical accuracy" aspect to the experts... give me a couple of units with spears, some with javelins, others with bows, and to me, it's an ancients game. And if you feel you can pinpoint with any accuracy exactly how many "plusses" the Romans get over the Gauls, and the Spartans over the Persians, than God bless you. What I found out about TACTICA is that following its procedures and guidelines, one comes out with a simple, formalized, almost chess- like, fairly fast-moving game that employs a couple of interesting and innovative approaches to ancients gaming. For example, looking at the Macedonian phalanxes I commanded, Conliffe lays out the situation as follows: a.The Good News. My phalanx has bulk, mass and depth. Whatever I can approach frontally, I can usually overcome. b.The Bad News. Because the unit is bulky, because the unit has such mass and forward inertia, the flanks are vulnerable. Anything hitting on the flanks and cohesion is lost... the unit is gone. To implement these two factors on the table top, our four Macedonian phalanxes must all be pointed in the same direction*, must all remain within 4 inches of one another, and once pointed, CANNOT CHANGE DIRECTION. No veering, no sidestepping, no pivotting. Up the alley, as if on tracks, they march, hoping to overrun the opponent before he can get around to their flanks. And protecting the flanks, we assign cavalry and javelineers and any other troops we can toss in to delay the enemy. The four phalanxes are termed our Main Battle Line. If we lose two units in the Main Battle Line, then all is lost... the Macedonians flee the field. Now the Romans, our opponents. Their Main Battle Line consisted of 12 cohorts, much more flexible than the phalanxes: Unlike the phalanxes, which must IMMEDIATELY deploy and face in the direction of their advance, the cohorts can stay in column, can wait to see which way the wind is blowing, and then deploy to take advantage of any favorable situation. Once deployed, the cohorts, too, like the phalanxes, must advance in the direction in which they are pointed, with one key exception. If a cohort can advance past the front rank of the units in our Main Battle Line, it is permitted a 90 degree wheel and can come bashing in on the flank of the ill-fated phalanx. Limiting the flexibility of the Roman formation is the rule that no cohort can move more than 18 inches f rom the Roman command figure. This prevents the Romans from simply splitting their forces, and in three quick turns, flanking the Macedonians on both sides. A loss of 4 of the 12 cohorts is defined as a loss for the Romans. I think the above presents the phalanx-versus-cohort situation in neat, elegant fashion. The phalanx plods straight ahead, while the Romans attempt to penetrate its flanks. Very stylized, very much simplified, very methodical in its concept. Almost, as I said, like a chess game. Our two battles employed, in the first, an early Roman force of maniples, and in the second, a later force in Caesar's time, of Roman cohorts. Again, the approach used to differentiate between the capabilities of the early maniple to the later cohort was stylized and unique. Both types of units, once deployed into the Main Battle Line of the Roman force, are restricted to straight-ahead movement, but... ' a.The cohorts, if they outflank ALL of the enemy's Main Battle Line units, and advance past its front ranks, may perform their dreaded 90 degree wheel into the enemy flanks. b.The Maniple, on the other hand, does not have to outflank ALL the units in the Main Battle Line. If it sees a gap in the enemy's line, produced, perhaps, by a unit falling back, then the maniple may advance into the gap, and having advanced past the front ranks of ONE enemy unit, may now wheel into its flank. I should mention that, once flanked, you've had it. I dimly remember that in the WRG rules, if you're flanked, you fight in disorder, but at least you FIGHT! In TACTICA, once flanked, a unit is completely impotent. It dies the death of a thousand cuts. It can't pull back. It can't strike back. All it can do, each round, is take casualties and test its morale until it disappears from view. The only thing that can save a f lanked unit is to have a friendly unit draw off the attackers. In our battle, the combats on the flanks of both armies, while extremely important, did not draw as much attention as in the center, as each side attempted, with the forces in its Main Battle Line, to smash the opposition and to eliminate the requ- site number of key units. In our second battle we pointed our phalanxes in a NNW direction, and off they went. The Romans, of course, held off deploying as long as possible and tried an envelopment, but were restricted by the "18 inch" rule. The outcome was favorable for us... four cohorts were annihilated... and just in time, for the protecting units on our right flank had given out, and in another turn or so, the Romans would have swept past the front ranks of our Main Battle Line and made their permitted 90 degree wheel. As I indicated a page or so back, Conliffe, in order to sell books, has to shout "Historical accuracy!" No red-blooded WRG fan is going to buy TACTICA unless it lays out, in nitty-gritty fashion, the required number of Hastati and Princeps and Triarii and Velites and Hypaspists and Peltasts and Hoplites and so on. An author cannot simply refer to generic heavy infantry and light infantry and spearmen and slingers and hope to break into the ancients market. Which, to me, is unfortunate. For it takes the focus from the APPROACH used in presenting the table-top tactical problem and concentrates solely on the minutia by means of which the approach was derived. The forest is ignored, while the individual leaves of each tree are closely scanned. Is it "realistic" that Main Battle Line units are restricted to straight-line movement solely in the direction they were initially facing? Certainly not. Is it "realistic" that a unit can wheel ONLY after it advances past the front rank of the enemy? Certainly not. Is it "realistic" that all firing units (bows, javelins, slingers) score a hit on a 6-sided die roll of "6" regardless of target type? Certainly not. Is it "realistic" that javelin range is 9 inches, while bow range is 12 inches? Certainly not. Despite all the "certainly nots" given above to each of the individual factors, they all meld nicely together to present the gamer with a tactical ancients battlefield problem. For that matter, it certainly wasn't realistic when we gave the Macedonians a large chariot force and the Romans an equally large elephant unit. But this, I must admit, was merely "noise in the system". The elephants looked impressive, and the 4-horse chariots looked good, and we were interested in seeing (a) how TACTICA treated these uits, and (b) how far off one could get from the prescribed army listings and still come up with a balanced game. It turns out -- at least as far as our battles went -- one can deviate quite a bit. I mentioned this to Arty in our telephone conversation, and he stated that he was preparing for publication a set of do-it-yourself guidelines for generating your own army lists. I do have one negative... this concerns the TACTICA booklet itself, an 8 1/2 by 11, soft covered, glossy, slick paged work of art with numerous diagrams and color photos. The 90 page book uses a glued binding, and after only a few hours use of Brian Dewitt's copy, the binding split. This type of binding prevents the booklet from being fully opened and laid flat on the table. I recommend, for you who purchase TACTICA, that you drill three holes in the booklet and pop it in a three ring binder... the pages are eventually going to fall out, and you'd as soon prepare for it now as later. Back to PW Review February 1990 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1990 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