Sometime in August of 1992, Garry Haggerty, a subscriber to the REVIEW, wrote ma a letter, describing an interesting sequence in which he used the standard 52 card deck. This was not the first such input from Garry, and previously, I had employed a number of his suggestions in a set of Napoleonic rules. Garry's thoughts are based on the fact that the 52 card deck has 4 parameters to be utilized: there are number cards, picture cards, there are suits, and there are colors. Too often does one see the simple sequence, first introduced in THE SWORD AND THE FLAME, which uses only the 'black-and-I-go, and red-­and-you-go' routine. I'm continually amazed at the repetitive number of un-innovative rules that gamers submit to the hobby publications... which really means that, regardless of the era of interest, all the rules sets resemble one another... the same tired old sequence, the same "a 6 hits at long range, a 5,6 hits at medium range", the same magical, mystical aura of 12 inches surrounding the commanding officer (within which all his troops function on command, while outside, no one pays him any attention). For a couple of years, I've been looking for a sequence applicable to the ECW era, a sequence in which the gazer is given a number of choices concerning the functions to be carried out by the units under his command. I've tried point systems, and card systems, and random function systems... none seemed to work. And so, there was Garry's letter, dated August, 1992. You'll note how rapid a response I have... it's October, 1993, and it took only one year before Garry's ideas finally started to gel. Below is the heart of Garry's system. I'll let him explain it. Description of the Deck Cards are ranked King high through Ace low. Suits are ranked (highest to lowest): Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades. (Thus, while a "7" of any suit outranks any "Ace" through "6", a "7" of Clubs outranks a "7" of Diamonds or Spades). A card's face value determines the number of actions a unit can perform: Jack, Queen, King = one action; 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 = two actions Ace, 2, 3, = three actions. A card's suit determines the type of actions a unit can perform: Both red suits allow MOVE actions. Both black suits allow FIRE actions. RALLY actions can be performed only with a Spade. A "Charge" (ie, any MOVE action that will place the moving unit in contact with an enemy unit) can only be performed with a Heart. The two Jokers outrank all suit cards. They permit a unit to perform three actions of any type (Charge MOVE, MOVE, FIRE, RALLY) and in any combination. At the start of the game, the deck is shuffled and each player is dealt a hand of six cards. The rest of the pack is placed face down as a draw pile. Players can look at the cards in their hand. , A Description of the Turn Every turn begins with each player replenishing his hand to six cards by drawing from the facedown pack. The players then execute a number of "Rounds", until both have either Passed or exhausted the cards in their hands, at which point the turn ends. The number of Rounds in each turn will vary from one to six, depending on how players use their cards or pass. At the end of each Round, all melees, resulting from Charges made during the Round, are resolved. Rounds Each Round is played according to the following steps: 1) To start a round, each player chooses a card from his hand. These are revealed simultaneously. The player revealing the highest ranked card is the First Player, his opponent is the Second Player. 2) The First Player performs actions with his units (the type and number of actions per unit being determined by the suit and face value of his card). The First Player may now either: a) reveal another card from his hand and use that card to perform actions (this card MUST outrank the first card played, and he can continue playing cards from his hand in this manner as long as each card he plays outranks the previous one), or b) allow the Second Player to use his own card (go to step 3). 3) Once the First Player has completed his card play(s), the Second Player performs actions with his units (the type and number of actions per unit being determined by the suit and face value of the faceup card that he revealed in Step 1). The Second Player may now play additional cards from his hand, as long as each new card outranks BOTH the previous card he played, AND the last card played by the First Player. 4) Once the Second Player has completed his card play(s), all melees are resolved (in an order determined by the player who initiated the most charges during the current Round). 5) All cards played during the Round are discarded. Passing. At the start of any Round, a player may choose to "pass" by not revealing a card. Once a player passes, he may not participate in any subsequent Rounds that turn. His opponent may continue to initiate Rounds himself, as long as he wishes and has cards to do so. A player holding no cards must pass. An Example of Play General Grant begins a Round by revealing a 10 of Hearts. General Lee reveals a 5 of Clubs. Grant's card outranks Lee's, so Grant goes first. Grant's four-figure strong 999th Indiana regiment is 9 inches from the battered, three-figure 548th Virginia regiment. The 999th performs two actions (allowed by the card's 10 value) to engage the Virginians. The first action is a 6" MOVE (allowed by red suit) that brings the Hoosiers within 3" of the Virginians. The second action is a Charge (allowed by Heart suit) that moves the 999th into contact with the rebels with 3" to spare. Noting that Lee's faceup black 5 will enable the Virginians to blast the Hoosiers with a 2 action volley before melee can be resolved, Grant decides to retain the initiative a moment longer. He plays a Jack of Spades from his hand (the Jack can be played because it outranks Grant's 10). Since it's a Spade, the new card could be used for a RALLY action (in an attempt to bring the Hoosiers up to full strength). But Grant decides a FIRE action (allowed by black suit) would do more good. So the 999th performs one FIRE action (the maximum number allowed on a face card). The volley misses. Grant has no cards in his hand that outrank his Jack, so he is forced to allow Lee to play his 5 of Clubs. Lee's Virginians deliver a two FIRE action volley (permitted by the card's black suit and 5 face value) into the ranks of the 999th. Two yankees fall... Although the Virginians now have a slight numerical edge for the upcoming melee resolution, Lee wishes to hedge his bets by bringing up some support. Fortunately, he still holds a Jack of Hearts, carefully hoarded in his hand from the first turn. Lee plays it now. He can do so because it not only outranks his own 5 of clubs (obviously), but his Jack outranks Grant's Jack (Hearts outrank Spades), the last card Grant played . Although a Jack only permits one action per unit, Lee has the fresh 828th Arkansas regiment within 6" of the hapless Hoosier flank. The Arkansans Charge (allowed by Heart suit) into the melee. Lee is still holding a King of Clubs in his hand (which he could play now -- it outranks both faceup Jacks), but he decides to save it for later Rounds. Therefore, he announces his card plays are complete, so melee is resolved. The Indiana/Virginia/Arkansas melee is settled by the UCT. Sheer numbers prevail, and the sole surviving Hoosier and his standard bearer are hurled back 12 inches. This was the only melee that arose during the current Round, so once it's resolved the Round ends, and a new one begins (both Grant and Lee still hold cards and neither has passed yet). Some Final Thoughts Thus ends a description of my current turn sequence experiment. It's my fifty-eighth version of an idea first suggested in an article by Roy Beers ("Poker in Wargaming") in an old issue of Miniature Wargaming. It's a simple sequencing system (simpler to use than describe, certainly) and fairly interactive. The trade-off between initiative and number of actions gives players something to think about during card play. Simulationists would be appalled, of course. But a case might be made that the luck of the draw reflects (if only through a glass darkly) an abstract caricature of some problems of command, .control, and confusion. Some simple variants in procedure came to mind during testing: the maximum number of cards in a player's hand can be varied to reflect differences in CinC ability; a player's hand maximum could be permanently reduced by one card each time he fails a "critical dice roll" caused by the 10 Victory Point gap; --cavalry could be permitted to Charge on either red suit, and artillery allowed to fire on all suits. Some rules conventions I use that may be altered to suit other tastes: Once a melee is joined, units outside the melee may not fire into it...units involved in the melee may fire at each other (and are allowed to attempt a rally); A unit contacted by a Charge may not move (it can fire or rally, see above); --Each card allows a total of six actions to be performed ...these six are allocated among a player's units as he sees fit, within the limits of actions-per-unit determined by the card's face value (larger games may require more than six actions per card to keep the game moving). Editor's Experiments When I first experimented with the Haggerty system, a problem arose. Evidently, as I grow older (not necessarily wiser), not all of my little gray calls blink in synchronism all the time, and I had difficulty in remembering what a spade stood for, and what happened if a heart was drawn, and what card permitted a unit to close, and what a jack stood for, etc. After some cogitation, what I did was to draw up my own deck of cards, 20 in number, essentially paralleling the functions represented by the parameters of the cards of the regular 52 card deck. On each card I noted the functions to be performed (move or fire or both), the number of actions, and a priority number used in determining which side wins the initiative. 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