It is fact that Bob Hurst and I tooled up for a science fiction campaign some time ago. It is fact that both of us now have a goodly assortment of well-painted 25mm Citadel and Games Workshop figures. It is fact that, after amassing these troops, neither of us has really done anything with them. But further, it is fact that, about a year ago, I f inally set down a brief set of rules concerned with an assault on a spaceship.
What's most interesting about the rules is that some two weeks after I presented my game to the Saturday crowd at my house, Jack Culberson brought a Games Workshop (?) game called SPACEHAWK or something like that to a PW meeting. I sat in on the proceedings and there, to my great surprise and wonderment, was revealed my game! Yes, Games Workshop had stolen my game... stolen it over two years before I had even written it!
You can't trust anyone nowadays! 'Twixt thee and me, though, I think what it really means is that there's only so much one can do with a game in which outer space beasties and armored marines run from one 2-inch square to another 2-inch square. No matter who the author is, therefore, all such games will invariably resemble each other.
Now the time frame switches to the beginning of this October; Jim Butters, Cliff Sayre and I met for our monthly dinner meeting at a local restaurant, a meeting of the Old Men's Club... so called because Jim and Cliff are both retired, and I'm working hard to achieve that status. Jim and Cliff are founding fathers of PW.
During dinner, I said to the lads: "How's about coming over to my house after we're through here?"
Both unsuspecting fellows said yes, they'd come, and we finished our meal, got into our cars, and assembled again at the Simon residence.
As soon as Jim and Cliff were through the door, I quickly secured the locks and announced: "Heh! Heh! Heh! You're my prisoners! No one leaves before we play 'The Attack On The Patrice Lamumba'!" There was a momentary scuffle as both lads tried to wrestle past me, but I managed to twist their collective elbows behind them, dragged them to the ping-pong table... and the game began.
The Game
The space ship Patrice Lamumba is basically laid out on one level as diagrammed in the sketch on the next page; all the squares measure 2 by 2-inches.
Note that I added something new... a third dimension in the form of a catwalk which permits units to zip up and over and past the maze of rooms on the first level.
I call each 2 by 2-inch stand a 'squad'; each has 3 figures on it, armored beasties for the bad guys, and armored marines for the good guys. Three or four stands comprise an 'Assault Group', and the squads within the Assault Group must remain fairly close together, i.e., they can't go running around on their own.
At the front of the ship... the 'bow', as we ex-sailors are wont to say... is the bridge and control room, and the objective of the assaulting marine force is, after blowing a hole in the side of the ship, to board and to eventually win control of the bridge.
Cliff Sayre commanded the marine force; he had about 7 Assault Groups. Jim was in command of the defending bad guys; he also had some 7 Assault Groups.
To my disappointment, both commanders failed to use the catwalk... they solely concerned themselves with ground level movement and combat.
And this, after I had spent hours with my bandsaw, cutting and hacking and shaping the 3-D ramps and bridges.
Cliff's marines divided themselves into 3 separate boarding parties. Each force attempted to blow a hole in the hull to permit entry.
Jim's entire crew of beasties, except for one 3-squad Assault Group, all started out in the control room at the bow. Hence, as soon as the defenders heard the racket made by the marines banging away at the outer hull each turn, trying to penetrate it, the defenders made their way toward the source of the sound.
The length of the Patrice Lamumba is about 50 squares. The thickness of the hull was inversely proportional to the distance from the bow; in other words, the closer to the bow that Cliff's marines attempted to pierce the hull, the more difficult it would be. The actual number of hull armor points assigned each section of hull was:
- Hull Armor = 3 x (100 - D)
D = Distance from the bow
Note, therefore, at the stern of the ship, where D = 50, the armor points come out to 150, whereas at the bow itself, where D is defined to be zero, the armor points come out to be 300.
Cliff soon discovered his assaulting marines fell victim to Zeno's Paradox. The hull-damage chart, to which the marines referred, looked something like this:
- Modified Percentage Dice Throw
---------------------------
- Hull Section Destroyed
- 1/2 Existing Hull Points Destroyed
- 1/3 Existing Hull Points Destroyed
- No Effect
Note that if, say, the hull had 200 points, and a modified dice toss of 85 occurred, the hull would be halved to 100 points. And if another modified toss of 85 occurred, another half would be gone, and the hull down to 50 points. But note that the hull could never entirely disappear down to zero, because each time damage occurred, half of the previous value remained. Which means that unless the toss totaled over 100, the marines could hack and slash and chop and bash for days on end... they'd get nowhere.
This almost happened to one boarding force. They were given a small number of 'explosive points' to add to their dice throw. Unfortunately for them, they just couldn't get a modified dice throw of over 100.
Each time they tossed, they would demolish half the existing hull, and its armor points went from around 220 to 110 to 55 to 27 to 13 to 7 and so on... but it just wouldn't go down to zero. Not until Turn 7 or so did this particular boarding party smash their way through.
Cliff's other two boarding forces had better luck. In fact, Assault Group #3, composed of 3 squads (3 stands), with a lucky dice toss early in the battle, actually bashed its way through the hull right next to the control room.
I use the term "lucky" rather advisedly, because as soon as this marine Assault Group entered the ship and showed itself, it was swamped with all manner of ugly thingies and beasties stationed near the control center, who had sworn their fealty to the Imperium. The Assault Group fought the good fight, but they were too outnumbered.
Cliff's Assault Group #1 (AG#1) entered the Patrice Lamumba first, breaking in around midships; the squads looked around and found themselves staring right at the one defending Assault Group that wasn't stationed in the control room. BANG! WHAM! BOOM!
All squads on both sides were armed with the same anti-personnel weapons, the Subnucleonic Ejector, Mark 5 (SEM5). When an Assault Group fired, it added the following points:
- First, each firing squad contributed +30, which represented the basic effect of the SEM5. A 3-squad Assault Group, therefore, started out with 3 x 30, or 90 firing points.
Second, each firing squad contributed a number of Action Points. Each turn, all squads started out with 4 Action Points, and whatever total of points the squad didn't use for movement, it could use for firing. Each such contributed Action Point added +5 to the total for the Assault Group. Thus if each member of a 3-squad Assault Group didn't move at all, but each contributed 4 action Points, the Assault Group would gather 12 Action Points and the Assault Group would have 12 x 5, or 60 firing points.
The total of 150 firing points, as explained above, now gave rise to one 10-sided "Rill Die" (for the first 100 firing points) and a 50 percent chance of a second Kill Die (for the remaining 50 firing points).
The Kill Dice were tossed, and a throw of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 was a hit.
Now that we had the hits, the next question concerned the injury to the target. Each hit adds +20 to a percentage dice throw, and the modified total looks at the tabulation listed below.
- Modified Percentage Dice Throw
---------------------------
- Squad Destroyed
- Squad Disrupted
- Squad Forced Back 4 Squares
- No Effect
---------------------------
Note that if enough Assault Groups fired, then with enough hits, each adding +20 to the dice throw, one had a fairly good chance of destroying what one shot at, i.e., the modified dice toss would be over 100.
But also note that the firing procedure was a rather awkward one. Not time consuming, but awkward. It required three separate dice throws. First, to determine the number of Rill Dice. Second, to toss the Kill Dice and determine the number of hits on the target. Third, to determine the effect on the target. I have to admit that I can do better than that. And in the Second Edition, due on your news-stand fairly soon, I shall.
But now, returning to the Lamumba, what initially saved the first marine force to enter the ship, AG#1, was that the sole defending Assault Group of 3-squads of beasties essentially had to focus its f ire power on one target squad, i. e. , one stand, at a time. The defenders destroyed one or two advancing marine squads, but there were too many in the assault force.
After a while, however, Jim's defenders took advantage of another firing rule. As the marine squads swarmed into the depths of the Lamumba, Jim asked if there was some sort of rule about shrapnel or secondary explosive effects. Indeed, there was. Jim had noted that the marines stayed close to the walls, seeking shelter, and now Jim's beasties began to fire their heavy weapons, not directly at the marines, but at the walls.
If the wall was hit, there was a 60 percent chance that a squad standing next to it was also hit. If a squad was one square away from the wall, there was a 30 percent chance the squad was hit. And if a hit did occur, reference was then made to the chart at the top of this page to determine injury to the target squad, with each hit, as in the regular firing procedures, adding +20 to the percentage dice throw.
Jim's defenders banged away at the walls, and this proved to be more efficient than firing directly at the advancing squads. Each hit on a wall caused about 3 or 4 different squads to test.
It was soon obvious that Cliff's marine force had bitten off more than it could chew. The marines pulled back. And I unlocked the door and freed both Cliff and Jim. A full days work.
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© Copyright 1993 Wally Simon
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