If Frank Chadwick can do it, so can I. His SPACE-1889 takes off to the moon and Mars and Venus. .. my rules encompass the entire galaxy.
It started when Bob Hurst, Fred Haub and I discovered a new toy store. There on one of the shelves, at less than $2 per box, were all those 30mm plastic spacemen... pre-painted! How could I resist?
"They're mine, all mine!", I shouted, and before Bob and Fred could twist my arms behind my back and hustle me out of the store, I grabbed four boxes and ran up to the check-out counter.
I must confess there was a wee bit of method to my madness. Several days prior, Bob Coggins had telephoned and requested that I put on a "game for the kiddies" at HISTORICON in July. The HMGS conventions produce a number of young folk, ages 9 to 13, who wander about, forsaken by their daddies, who are too engrossed in their own activities to attend to the kids.
Bob Coggins signed up a couple of people, me among 'em, to entertain the little ones. My first thought was to dust off the single figure WWII 54mm skirmish game, and I even went so far as to start to repaint a figure or two. But my visit to the toy store and the sight of the plastic spacemen opened up new vistas for me.
When I got home, I discovered there were some 30 "armed and active" spacemen per side, plus another group of "sitting down" figures, a couple of whom I placed in a sort of hover craft termed a Stabilized Gun Platform (SGP) equipped with a Disruptor.
The men are organized into four-man squads. Three of the men are armed with a smaller version of the Disruptor; the fourth is armed with the dreaded Immobilizer.
As its name implies, the Immobilizer immobilizes. It's an area weapon; all targets within a 4-inch zone halt in their tracks and go glassy-eyed for from one to three turns. This makes them choice subjects for a close assault, for, in their helpless state, they simply stand there and absorb punishment.
The Disruptor, on the other hand, eats away at the target's Power Pack, or his Battle Armor, and finally, at the man himself... and with a high enough dice throw, it can disable the target's weapon.
At first, I was going to have psionic ray guns, and electro-optical laser beam disintegrators, and neutronic destabilization fission projectors. But, I decided, that's not historically realistic... that's kid stuff. Adults play only with Disruptors and Immobilizers. And, therefore, so do I.
Mod 1 of the rules required each man to record both his Armor Grade (AG) and the Energy Units (EU) in his Power Pack. I had second thoughts about all these bookkeeping requirements, what with some 20 to 30 men on the field. My intuition played me false. Our first game, in which each participant controlled 8 men, went very smoothly.
Mod 2 looked at the 4-man squads. The intent was to treat the squad as an entity and do away with individual bookkeeping. Here, I decreed, the squad shared a common power source. Individual men would not have to be tracked, but only the squad's Power Pack. To ensure "stay togetherness", the squad's EU's would diminish each turn, first by the distance in inches between the members of the squad furthest apart, and second, by any additional EU's used for movement or firing.
Here, therefore, there was to be a tactical problem presented to each commander: his squads had to clump together to prevent unnecessary dissipation of a squad's EU's, but in doing so, the men presented a perfect target to the much feared Immobilizer and its 4-inch zone of effect.
Unfortunately, the squad game, Mod 2, proved not at all balanced in terms of the Energy Units parcelled out per squad, or the EU consumption when firing, or the degradation in the common Armor Grade of the squad... in short, it was rather messy, and we gave up the squad level game after about three turns, and went back to tracking individuals.
The Mod 1 game was interesting in that, having created two classes of weaponry, i.e., Disruptors and Immobilizers, I had no idea as to how their impact would effect the scope and tactics of the game.
The Immobilizer proved extremely valuable... as indicated, once its targets were immobilized, the enemy closed and beat on them with no chance of having them fight back. It was "free hack" time. Indeed, for that reason, Immobilizers turned out to be TOO powerful and in Mod 3, we loosened up a bit on the weapon's impact.
In our first game, I commanded three squads, one of which, Redsquad, was initially located in the Control Tower of Zgorblim (Zgorblim?) ... the other two Zgorbliminian units would come on if Redsquad was attacked. No one ever asked just what it was the Control Tower was controlling, and I'm certainly not going to start now. If you are truly interested, ask your local Zgorbliminian.
Fred Haub and Fred Hubig had two enemy 4-man squads each; their objective, of course... the Control Tower. It should be noted that neither of them questioned the reason for assaulting the Control Tower... they took it as a given that occupation of the Tower by someone other than themselves was a bad thing, and the situation should be rectified.
Commander Hubig easily entered into the spirit of the game... on his data sheet, his off-planet troopers had names like Fracto, Grapar, Clagar, Arpa, etc. Commander Haub took a more mundane approach; his star-based warriors, although from the far reaches of the outer galaxy, were given names like Jim and Tom and Ed. He did display a small amount of outer- galactic originality... the two men he controlled that were armed with the Immobilizer were called Zappo and Zingo.
THE ABORTIVE ASSAULT ON THE WOODS
Haub's men were located deep within the Transmigorian Woods and my boys decided to take them out.
Each man's movement consisted of a "freebee" basic 8 inches. Then, if he needed to move further, he could expend an Energy Unit (EU), and for each EU so allocated, held receive a 10-sided die, and move the sum of the distances shown on the dice rolls.
Each of my men allotted 2 EU for movement, threw their dice, and all but one were easily able to travel the 20 inches into contact. Melee began immediately... defensive fire is provided for in the melee procedures which utilize a Melee Deck. Cards call for "Defender fire", "Attacker fire", etc.
As the melee cards were drawn, each of the men scored on their opponents, reducing both their Armor Grade (AG) and their EU's.
The Melee Deck contains 10 cards. When one side fires, the particular target parameter is defined... "Defender scares on Attacker's EU11, or "Attacker scores on Defender's AGII, etc. Haub's troopers were getting the worst of the scoring, when a "Defender may retreat" card was drawn, and the Haubmen withdrew to the other side of the woods.
A short-lived victory, for on the next turn, one of Commander Haub's Immobilizer-carrying men - either Zingo or Zappo, I'm not sure which - took aim at my victorious group, pressed the button on his weapon and froze my three men. This was, obviously, the signal for a Haub counterattack, and in rushed his squad, surrounding my poor, doomed, immobile troopers.
As each of the melee cards were drawn, the Haubmen powdered my men's armor into a fine dust and drained all their EU's. And when a "Defender fires" card was drawn, of course, my own men, being immobilized, were powerless to act. It was sheer murder! Let us mercifully draw the curtain on the Transmigorian Woods Massacre, which is what the action is called in Professor Q. C. Lhork's famous historical text, A HISTORY OF INTER-GALACTIC WARFARE.
This episode taught us the value of the Immobilizer, and for the remainder of the encounter, the men bearing these weapons were prime targets. It was similar to certain World War II actions in which men who carried flame throwers drew a great deal of enemy fire in an attempt to suppress these deadly weapons.
THE ABORTIVE ASSAULT ON THE TOWER
Around Turn 3, one squad of Commander Hubig's men allocated additional EU's for their movement distances... the intent was to ensure they could get into the Tower held by my Redsquad.
I should mention that movement was not linear, i.e., not confined to the two-dimensional table-top. Men who used additional EU's could perform a 3-D "jump" rather than "move" ... and this is what the Hubigians had planned to do in landing on top of the Tower.
Commander Hubig's anticipatory smile of victory quickly faded; it turned out that of the 4-man squad designated to jump into and assault the Tower, only one brave fellow made it. Poor dice throws restricted the distances moved by the others.
I'm not sure of who it was that jumped into the Tower alone, into the midst of Redsquad, but rest assured he didn't last too long. My boys zapped him with the Immobilizer, and then closed in for the kill while he stood there with his mouth open. Each time an "Attacker scores... 11 card came up, a piece of the poor fellow is armor was peeled off, or his eyeglasses melted, or his underwear set on fire. Redsquad did fine work on this would- be Hubigian hero... nothing was left but the on/off button of his Disruptor.
Once again the Immobilizer had won the day by rendering its victim completely helpless. It was this incident that caused us to rethink the effect of the weapon.
The Disruptor, on the other hand, proved to be rather standard in its use. Firing either weapon, Disruptor or Immobilizer, started out as a three-phase affair:
- a.First, the weapon had to lock-on or acquire the
target. The key parameter here was the Range Factor,
RF, defined as the ten's digit of the range
measurement. A 10-sided die roll had to exceed RF by
2. Thus, at 35 inches, with RF equal to 3, the die
had to be greater than 2+3, or 5, to lock-on.
b.Second, once locked-on, the weapon had to hit. This was a function of the number of EU's devoted to firing. The EU's, plus a 10-sided die roll, had to exceed the target's Armor Grade, AG, which started at a value of 8.
It should be noted that in the "to hit" procedure, range was not a factor; range played its role only when the weapon tried to acquire the target. Once acquired, the probability-of-hit depended only on the amount of power poured into the shot.
c.Third, if a hit was scored, target damage had to be determined. Percentage dice were thrown, and the result could be loss to target AG value, or to target EU, or a damaged weapon, or a combination of all three, or, if an Immobilizer was fired, immobility.
Here, the percentage dice throw modifier was 5 x EU, so that the more EU expended in a shot, the more the damage.
A close look at the above indicates that, in essence, all we have going is a modern armor game. Call lem. Disruptors or Immobilizers or what you will, the procedures still deal with the aspects of piercing a certain armor value or pinning (immobilizing) the target. Whether the combat is fought on the planet of Zgorblim or in Eastern Europe, a game is a game is a game.
THE TOWER IS TAKEN
This time, Commanders Haub and Hubig joined forces in a combinedaction operation against Redsquad. Gobs of EU were devoted to additional movement dice to ensure the assaulting troops could successfully complete their jump into the Tower. Seven troopers took off... seven made it into the Tower.
One turn before, the dreaded Immobilizers zeroed in on Redsquad "to "soften up" the defenders. Consequently, when the assault force jumped in, only one out of four men of Redsquad could even move a muscle; the other three were frozen in place. And the one trooper that wasn't immobile had a damaged weapon.
Helas! There was a virtual repeat of the Transmigorian Woods Massacre. The attackers took great delight in getting in their free hacks while reducing Redsquad to its constituent atomic particles. Professor Lhork's footnote, in referring to this encounter, is particularly interesting; he uses the phrase "merciless, bloodthirsty and bestial" when speaking of the attackers.
And so, here was further proof of the potency of the all- powerful Immobilizer. It was evident that we had too much of a good thing.
Whereupon, we turned to Mod 3. . Mod 3 was a "cut it to the core" phase of the rules development. First came the bookkeeping requirement... after Fred Haub's question: "Why are you tracking two parameters... Armor Grade and Energy Units... when only one would do.
After some five minutes of trying to rationalize the recording practices - and I must admit I produced a rather rambling, completely incoherent reply - I realized Fred was right. All we had to do was record the one EU parameter. As long as a man had Energy Units left in his Power Pack, he could maintain his nominal Armor Grade. With no EU, his AG reduced to zero and if he was hit before he could recharge, he was killed.
As an aside, it should be noted that, as we cut and pasted, uppermost in our minds was the fact that the game would be presented to an audience of about ten fidgety, impatient, squirmy, screaming kiddies who, in the heat of battle, might not respond too well to what we would consider a well-reasoned set of procedures if they consisted of too many steps, however simple each one might be.
And so we worked on simplifying the weaponry. The three phase "to hit" procedure was reduced to two by eliminating the "lock on" phase.
Despite some discussion on dropping to an elementary one- dice-throw firing routine, we decided that despite the screaming, squirmy, squalling kiddies, our devotion to realism and historical accuracy demanded a two phase procedure. The first dice throw determines whether or not a hit is achieved. The second determines the result... which could be a damaged weapon, a fall back of 12 inches, a loss of Energy Units, or complete dematerialization of the target for two turns. Now, there's historical accuracy for you!!
"Dematerialization" was sort of an afterthought... dreamt up when I tried to envision all the horrible things that could happen to a fella when a Disruptor poured its energy at him. When the poor fella "dematerializes", he's taken off the field for two full turns, after which he may "materialize" next to any member of his 4-man squad.
Which then brought up the question: if a man could only materialize next to a fellow squad member, what happens if there are no squad members, i.e., all of his buddies have themselves been dematerialized? Next to whom does he materialize? Weighty questions such as these have driven lesser men mad.
The obvious answer: he just doesn't get to materialize. Or, to put it another way, if all four members of a squad are dematerialized, then the entire squad is permanently zapped... they've had it.
This method of eliminating an entire squad proved the key factor in a scenario which had Fred Hubig commanding Force X which was defending a base at which were stored a vast number of critical Artha-Zypto-Liguric (AZL) crystals. AZL was much in demand throughout the galaxy as a much-more-efficient Preparation H.
Fred Haub and Bob Hurst were in charge of Force Y, composed of six squads. Force Y's function was to land its spaceship, hop off, assault the base, grab the AZL, and get out.
The Hurst/Haub Y squads did land; they did hop off the spaceship; they did assault the base; they did grab a quantity of AZL crystals. And then they discovered that they had not set out a rearguard on their landing craft... while they were running around scraping up the AZL, Commander Hubig had sent one of his squads to take over the spacecraft. Y Force was essentially marooned.
So much for 26th century tactics!!
It was in this scenario that there first appeared the Stabilized Gun Platform (SGP), a sort of hover-tank, manned by two men, and armed with a super Disruptor. One SGP was given to the defensive X f orces and, as the attacking Y squads closed in on the base, down swooped the SGP. We expected great things from this imposing weapon.
We thought the SGP to be a killer-diller, for the crew couldn't be immobilized, each vehicle had an increased Armor Grade of 10 instead of the 8 of an individual, it carried a supply of 25 EU rather than the 12 permitted to each man, and it moved faster than a man could.
And what happened to this wonderful weapon? The first thing one of Fred Haub's men did was to fire at the SGP and get in a lucky shot, disabling its Disruptor, rendering the vehicle useless for almost the entire battle. Some days, it just doesn't pay to take off in your Stabilized Gun Platform.
During this scenario, the sequence was changed from alternate movement to... you guessed it! ... one governed by a card deck.
Again, our driving force was the fact that the game was to be presented to, and understood by, and to have the participation of, those squalling, screaming, squirming kiddies. The apparently simple alternate sequence calls for all the forces on one side to fire and move and materialize and recharge Power Packs, etc., and we envisioned that with all this motion in progress, there would be nought but Absolute Chaos at table-side and the earth would split asunder.
And so what we did was to split the sequence into separate fire and movement phases. Side X has 2 Movement cards, as does Y. Side X has 2 Fire cards, as does Y. This makes for an 8 card deck, which is shuffled and drawn from randomly. Most important, it eases, by a hundredfold, the umpire's task, for at any given time in the sequence, he has to concentrate on firing procedures or movement procedures, but not both.
In the battle, around Turn 6, the Hurst/Haub squads drew their Fire cards first and were able to get off some quick, devastating volleys. High dice throws resulted in several of Hubig's Y-men dematerializing on the spot... POOF! ... only a small, smelly, smoking pile of ash was left. The X-men poured it on the Y-men, and before long, entire squads of Hubigian Y- troopers dematerialized and were gone forever.
Fighting in the base proper was fierce as the opposing men zapped at each other. Occassionally, a man ran his Power pack completely down... his EU reduced to zero... and without any Energy Units to power his armor, the next hit killed him.
Most of the time, however, the troopers, when their EU reserve got down to 3 or 4 EU, recharged their Power Packs during a Movement phase by remaining still and tossing the dice: a low number recharged the pack by 2 EU, while a high number recharged by 4 EU.
As I mentioned before, the effect of the Immobilizer had been somewhat diminished. No longer was immobility absolute. on a man's Movement phase, after he had been zapped by the Immobilizer, he could devote a number of his EU's in an attempt to shake off his immobility. Each EU added 20% to the chance that he could get back in action again.
Inside the base, one of the heroes of the assaulting X-team was Eldar. Eldar took on two of the enemy in close combat and drove 'em back, he dematerialized others, he fired until his Disruptor gun barrel was red hot. At game's end, Eldar was still hanging in there... we never did find out what Eldar's fate was.
We stopped the game to catch our breath for, at this point, the defending forces were pretty much wiped out. Defending Commander Hubig's Y-force was just about down to the one squad he had sent to capture and secure the spacecraft, and he was constantly beseiging the umpire with questions such as "Why can't my squad take off in the ship?", and "Why can't I fly away and capture X's home planet?", and other irrelevancies.
Yes, it was definitely time to stop... an umpire has to know when to throw in the towel. Besides, it was time to prepare for Mod 4.
There should be no doubt in your mind that the kiddies will love this game. After all, it's passed the Simon/Hurst/Haub/Hubig test... the team that made its reputation for setting intergalactic wargaming standards for 9-year-olds.
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© Copyright 1990 Wally Simon
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