Editer's note: In the following article, Brian Dewitt makes continual reference to several "heavyweight wargamers", I amongst them. In conjunction with use of the term "heavyweight", he also seems to focus on "bellies", and, putting two and two together, I can only surmise that Brian is poking fun at our (the collective heavyweight wargamers) tummies. Now I have to admit that, at the game described by Brian, there was a lot of fun to be poked, simply because there was a lot of tummy gathered tableside. My own tummy is not inconsequential, and combined with the others of those present, one might say a veritable "aura of tumminess" pervaded the air. I know not what others may feel, but I must state that an attack on my tummy ranks on a par with an attack on my rules-writing and figure-painting prowess. That said, let me now present Brian's article... and we'll let the readership decide if any grounds exist for litigation. Before diving into the story of "The Dreaded Green Bellies", I need to give a little background about the war-room in my house. It all began last HISTORICON when I noticed that GEOHEX added a flock-covered table cloth to their product line which they sell for around %30. Since GEOHEX introduced their flock-covered styrofoam terrain system a number of years ago, I have been looking to upgrade the felt covering on my game table. The GEOHEX styrofoam system is flexible and looks great, but it is expensive and requires a lot of storage space and set-up time. This new table cloth cover was just what I was looking for, as it is easy to set-up and stores compactly. Then I discovered that my 10' x 6' table would require 3 GEOHEX flocked cloth pieces to cover, thus costing me around %100 after taxes. Consequently, I decided that if GEOHEX could flock a cloth, so could I. After purchasing flock, all-purpose spray-on adhesive at the local Hechinger hardware store, and one very large piece of green felt, I was ready to begin assembly. A few small test samples were made by spraying the felt, pouring on the flock and following with a gentle pat of the hand. The results were fantastic! I then took my large piece of felt and covered half my driveway with it. The next hour, the neighbors watched me crawl around on the driveway doing a little spray, a little flock, a little pat-pat-pat. I let the cloth dry for a hour, then shook it out and brought it down to the war-room. I set-up a TACTICA game featuring Greeks vs. Persians and invited the local Saturday gamers over and unveiled the new war-room look. I lined up as a Greek alongside veteran gamers Mr. Simon and Mr. Hubig, both wargaming heavyweights, and as a team, we added up to around 100 years of wargaming experience (with me being the lightweight... only 20 years under my belt). The opposing Persian team was not going to be a pushover, however, as it consisted of wargaming heavyweights Mr. Culberson, Mr. Hurst, and Mr. Figlia. Our Greek battle plan was simple: advance as a line and press the center, letting our main battle-line hoplite units in the center break the weaker Persian battle-line. The Persian strategy was to advance their flanking units (which overlapped ours) and hold the center back as they feared an even-up fight with our battle-line. The first contact was on the flanks, and one of General Hubig's units and one of mine routed the first round like green-bellied recruits. We hung our heads low. General Simon was in the center with the flower of Greek might, still waiting to see battle, and on his shoulders the Greek cause now rested. General Simon sent his units charging into melee the next turn, only to see another first round rout of Greek units. Now as I looked down the Greek line, I had the illusion that these veteran Greek generals somehow were all new green-bellied commanders. I was even imagining their bellies starting to turn green. We Greeks were not going to be pushed around so easily, however, as our hoplites were starting to take their toll on the lighter Persian center even as the Persian flanks starting encircling our position. Now I started to imagine green-bellied Persian flank generals being unable to control their cavalry. The mounted units broke for the Greek camp to loot, which meant that the rest of the Persian army lost its decisive advantage. Then I noticed that the further the Persian troops advanced across the table, the greener their generals' bellies looked! Horror of horrors... as I looked around the table, almost everyone was greenbellied! The problem?... the flock was not sticking to the felt when players rubbed against it, which tended to happen as one's troops moved further away from one's edge of the table. I was very embarrassed and very apologetic to all present. Also, I certainly never realized how much one's stomach rubs against the tabletop when using miniatures. I vowed to put another coat of glue on the cloth and to have another play test before subjecting any of my guests to the dreaded green-belly syndrome again. Perhaps the next PW meeting (before this article is printed, of course) will be my best chance for getting new play testers. As for the battle, the Persian center held out long enough for their flankers to overwhelm our Greek battle-line units. In TACTICA, when a unit is hit in the flank, the unit stands completely impotent and waits to be cut to pieces by the flanking unit. For the next battle, we kept the same sides and set-up TACTICA Romans vs Macedonians. As we three former-Greek-now-Roman generals (Dewitt, Simon and Hubig) were still quite green-bellied even after shaking off our shirts, we decided that perhaps the best strategy would be to stay close to our board edge and let them come to us. And they played right into our hands. Advancing rapidly across the field, they smashed our battle-line while we three green-bellied generals sat and watched. Back to PW Review May 1993 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 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