Most Indian tales start off with ... and in the quiet green valley, on the shores of the Rappazoola River, there lived a peaceful tribe of Indians, hunting and fishing... Not so for the Herculaneum Indians, who, from what I've seen of them, were each about seven feet tall, ate only steroids and raw meat, each weighed 300 pounds, each pressed 450 pounds, and were each armed with 3 bows, 4 lances, 5 tomahawks and 6 knives. These were tough mammas. The Herculaneums made their appearance at the September PW meeting, when Tony Figlia presented a game using his rules for the American Revolution, and he indicated that the Herculaneums were really from the Arropaquois tribe, the members of which lived near the confluence of the Menonqehela and the Susquehanna Rivers. After doing battle with these fighting devils, I termed them the Herculaneums, named after Hercules, the Greek God of Steroids. I commanded the American left flank... some 5 regiments. Out of the woods rushed the dreaded Herculaneum allies of the defending British... they were on me almost before my forces were able to enter and form up on the field. There was only one Herculaneum unit of 10 stands, but whatever they touched, they ate up. No contest. At the end of the battle, all five of my regiments had forgotten a11 about the British... all they wanted to do was to defend themselves against the dreaded Herculaneums. And with good reason. The problem area centered in the melee procedures. Essentially, what you did was multiply the number of stands in the unit (which was usually 10) by the per-stand Melee Factor (MF) and add a 10­sided die roll. Tony had assigned the MF's of the units on the field, and they ranged from "1", the militia, to the "5" of the British Grenadiers. The MF of the Herculaneums was a "3", while the MF's of all my American units were "1's" and "2's". Here's the problem: note first that when a "3" unit meets a "2" unit, the "3" starts out with 10 x 3, or 30 points, while the "2" has 10 x 2, or 20 points. Both then add their 10-sided die roll. Note second that, unfortunately, the choice of numbers predicates, not a melee in which either side has a chance to come out on top, but a pre-ordained massacre. The numbers indicate, by definition, a sure win for the "3", for whatever the "2" rolls on its 10-sided die, it cannot beat the "3" and its 10-sided die. And, by definition, when a "3" meets a "4", the "4" must win. And so on. During the battle, when two units engaged, Tony kept saying "Toss your die", and we'd reply "Why?... we lose anyway!" Toward the end of the game, Tony acknowledged something was wrong, and accepted advice from the local Indian experts, i.e. all those gathered tableside. After all, we were all historical wargamers, and, by definition, experts in whatever period we chose to game in. Eventually, the Greatest Expert of all made himself known... he who could shout the loudest, Great Chief Jack Culberson. We were all silent whilst the Great Chief stated that it was known fact - since he had seen it in several sets of wargaming rules - that Indians were great fighters in the deep, dark woods, but were lousy fighters in the open. Tony listened to everything tossed at him, squinched his eyes, and suddenly shouted: "It's okay, fellas! I've fixed it! From now on, the Indians only have "3" in the woods, while they're down to a "1" if they're in the open." Alas, Tony really hadn't "fixed" anything... he had merely ducked the problem... now, everyone on the field could easily beat on the Indians in the open, where the Redmen were assigned a "1" status. Conversely, all Murican "1" and "2" units still avoided them, like the plaque, in the woods where a no-win situation still existed. The remainder of Tony's rules, i.e., firing, morale, melee, etc., seemed to work (praise from Caesar is praise, indeedl). The firing method, in particular, bears mentioning; it used a 3-phase procedure: a. Toss a 10-sided die, and multiply by the number of stands firing. This gives the percentage probability of hit. b. Add the firing bonus of the concerned unit... this ranged from a +20, to a -10 (for militia). c. Toss percentage dice, attempting to throw under the W percentage you obtained above. Note that two random tosses were necessary. I'm not entirely persuaded that two dice throws are necessary to establish whether or not a target is hit, but the procedure moved rapidly. Brian Dewitt tried to persuade Tony that the first die roll could be replaced, statistically, simply by multiplying the number of firing stands by 5.5 (the average 10-sided die roll), but Tony was not to be convinced., But firing aside, for my part, my troops will never, never enter the deep, dark woods wherein lurk the dreaded Herculaneums. I advise you to do the same. Back to PW Review October 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 (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com