I spent some time during my vacation with Robin Peck, and he and I whiled away the time at his house with an assortment of games and rules systems.
Hastings
One of the first games we set up was the Battle of Hastings, to be played with a mixture of DBA/DBM rules. In 1066, a Norman force attacked a defending Anglo-Saxon force stationed on a hill, and eventually wore them down. The set-up was taken from a recent issue of WARGAMERS ILLUSTRATED. The author had given William the Conqueror, the Norman commander, his full allotment of 12 stands, 12 elements, while the defending Anglo-Saxons were given only 10. The author intended that, as occurred in 1066, William should win the battle, but in our five replays of the game, the Norman commander never came out on the upper end.
It was immediately obvious to me that the purportedly superb DBA/DBM rules were somewhat lacking in historical veracity, and to make up for this deficiency, we diddled a wee bit with the system. The author of the article on which the game was based had already devalued the Anglo-Saxon forces. As I noted, first he had given them a lesser number of stands than the Normans. Then, he decreed that their combat values be reduced by "1" to account, I presume, for their hasty march to the battlefield from the Stamford Bridge encounter some days before.
Nothing helped, mainly because the staunch Anglo-Saxon line couldn't be forced to break up for any length of time. If the Normans charged forward and contacted the line, and the Anglo-Saxon element lost the combat and fell back, the recoiling Anglo-Saxon element could immediately pop back into line before the Normans could take advantage of the break.
Similarly, if the Norman element lost and recoiled, there'd be no reason for the Anglo-Saxon element to break formation, and it would stolidly hold itself in place.
Robin and I then instituted a "follow 'em up" rule. Whenever a Norman element contacted the shield wall and lost, and then recoiled or retreated or routed or whatever, we required the victorious Anglo-Saxon element to come out from the shield wall and pursue. This, we thought, would lead to the gradual disintegration of the Anglo-Saxon line.
Except for a warband or so sprinkled throughout the DBA/DBM booklets, when elements lose a combat, and fall back, there is no requirement that the victors follow up.
For our battle using the new rule, we expanded the scope, using DBM rules and expanded to some 30 stands per side. William had a good looking array of 18 mounted knights, but despite their impressive bearing, they fought with only a "+3" against the Anglo-Saxon spear value of "+4", which composed the bulk of the Anglo-Saxon front line.
The Anglo-Saxon +4 for spears was reduced by 1 for "tiredness", but increased by 1 again for the high-ground advantage; thus it remained at +4.
The Norman commander decreed that he'd use one knightly element as a pawn, and this valiant Sir Pawn would charge the shield wall all by himself, would lose, would recoil, would thus force the winning Anglo-Saxon stand to pursue, would thus break the solid Saxon line, and would thus give the remaining knights an opportunity to engage at an advantage.
And so Sir Pawn commenced his knightly charge and smashed right into the center of the Anglo-Saxon line. Sir Pawn was thus overlapped on each flank, and so his combat value decreased from +3 to +1, while the defending stand's value remained at +4. One would think that the Norman plan would be successful... wouldn't one?
Sir Pawn, however, would have none of this; his honor was at stake... he tossed a "6", his opponent tossed a "1", and Sir Pawn, instead of losing, won!!
The opposing Anglo-Saxon stand recoiled, Sir Pawn stood victorious, and we all gaped. While we had a rule that a victorious Saxon element must pursue, there was no such rule for the Normans! Sir Pawn had fouled up our plans!
Eventually, while the Anglo-Saxon line did break up, the knights still couldn't win enough combats to be victorious.
I must admit that our series of replays of Hastings was a definite non-success, historically speaking. We just couldn't seem to tilt the battle in William's favor. And so we went on to other things.
British Victorian Colonial
Robin has a not-yet-published DBM clone for the British colonial period, and here, we set up a British column advancing along a rather winding road, an obvious target which the dreadful Zulus could attack and vent their spleen on.
According to the rules' point system for setting up the game, each British stand was worth 4 points. With a stand defined as a "half-battalion", therefore, a full 2-stand battalion of British troops cost 8 points in all.
The total value of the British force, counting a gun, 4 stands of lancers, and 8 stands of infantry, came out to 56 points, 13 stands in all.
Using the same 56 point total, we then amassed our Zulus. One stand of native troops cost only 1 point, and so in theory, we could have put 56 Zulu stands on the table, but again, too much of a good thing is too much, and we set out only 40 stands.
In our "surprise attack on the British column" scenario, it took only 5 bounds or so before the Brits were completely inundated and wiped out. No one lived to tell the tale.
Popping out from ambush, the first wave of Zulus, moving at 3 inches per turn, contacted the British battalion of infantry as the British column moved along the road. In accordance with DBM rules, as each British element was contacted by a Zulu element, it turned to face its attacker.
In one sense, the ambushing Zulus were deprived of their surprise factor by the "turning to face" requirement, i.e., there are no "pluses" in the DBM rules system when one stand contacts another on the flank. A single stand can never "surprise" another single stand. It takes two to ambush... you can get a plus factor only by overlapping the ambushed stand with one of your own.
What the immediate contact did do for the Zulus, however, was deprive the Brits of their firepower, for the fire phase comes after movement, and stands in contact cannot fire.
In the combat phase, each British stand adds +4 to a 6-sided die roll, while each Zulu stand adds +3. The objective is to total more than your opponent:
- a. If you merely exceed his total, his stand recoils.
b. If you double his total, you wipe him out.
The relatively high value of the British and Zulu factors (+4 and +3, respectively) means that there are few wipe-outs (there's only an 11% chance for the +4 British to do so, while the Zulus with their +3 cannot wipe-out a British stand). The numbers mean that a little over one-half of the time (58.3%, if you must have the exact number), the British will win.
The remaining one-half of the time, the Zulus force the Brits back. Here is where the overwhelming number of Zulu stands counts, for excess Zulu elements, tippy-toeing around to the back of the British line, and contacting the British stands in the rear, prevent them from recoiling, i.e., falling back.
He who cannot recoil, under the DBM system, goes to heaven.
An interesting aside concerns what I thought was a devaluation of the mounted Lancers' combat factor, who are given a +2 in combat. When pitted against the Zulus' +3, the Lancers will win only 28% of time.
But, as if to atone for this devaluation, if a Lancer stand does win against its Zulu opponent, then regardless of the relative totals, there is no recoil or fall back... the Zulu simply dies. Despite this, there were sufficient Zulu stands in the action to surround the Lancers, wear 'em down, and wipe 'em out.
I also noticed that in this DBA/DBM clone, elements with generals on them do not get a "+1" in combat as in the regular DBA/DBM rules. Evidently, the authors feel that the rather large, overweight, red-coated British generals were well past their prime, and didn't fight as well as commanders did in ancient times.
In a nutshell, the point values for this set of rules were way off. I assume that the difference in cost of the 4-points per British stand versus 1-point per Zulu stand was based on the fire power of the British element, which ranged out to 12 inches. But even if we had set up a level playing field, requiring the Zulus to charge in from maximum range, there would have been no contest.
With some 8 British stands firing, then, as noted above, on every volley, with 58% chance of success resulting from comparing the Brits' +4 to the Zulus' +3, the British rifles would have stopped some 4, possibly 5, Zulu stands. But with around 40 or more stands charging in, I would not like to have been in amongst the thin red line.
One other item of interest in this DBA/DBM clone, which is supposed to cover the entire 50 years of the latter half of the 1800's (from the American Civil War to the British colonial era), is that the combat results table applies to both the winning and the losing stand.
In both DBA and DBM, the combat results table affects only the losing stand... it recoils or routs or is destroyed, and the table is silent concerning the winner.
In this version, there is provision for the winning stand to follow up on a voluntary basis. It would seem to me that this rule would be even more applicable to the ancients era covered by both DBA and DBM; the authors simply left it out.
It appears that as the scope of the DBA rules books is broadened, more and more ploys are being added, not necessarily because of the historical verisimilitude involved or the appropriateness of the procedure to the era in question, but simply to differentiate one set of books from the other, thus justifying their sale.
Half-Hour Campaigns
Robin Peck pointed out a very interesting series of articles in WARGAMES ILLUSTRATED (starting in #10, June '88) by a fellow named Roger Underwood. We used these to set up a battle, resulting from a very brief pencil-and-paper-oriented "half-hour campaign".
Underwood provides what he terms a number of modules, based on a given situation. A module is nothing more than a description of the situation, such as "Side A is on the hillside, while Side B approaches". The module is not as brief as this, for Underwood actually expands on each situation, fleshing it out, giving each side its own descriptive paragraph.
Then, after its description, each side is given a number of choices, and each choice is numbered. For example, for the above situation, Side A, perched on the hillside, might be given the following three choices, each with its number:
- 1 Side A decides to attack immediately
2 Side A decides to attempt to flank Side B during B's march forward, and moves out to the right.
3 Side A decides to withdraw.
Side B also has its list of choices. But B's three choices are numbered 0, and 3 and 6. Then, after each side selects its option, the two numbers are added together.
Note that with one side given numbers 1, 2 and 3, and the other 0, 3, and 6, then, when they're added together, the answer will range from 1 to 9, creating 9 more possible situations.
Underwood describes these 9 situations, and for each one, again gives a list of choices to the sides. Again they choose, and again they add the numbers, and again, they reference the paragraph denoted by the sum.
As the list expands, so does Underwood's effort... he must have put in a year's worth of man-hours in his listings.
As you make your way through the lists, then after perhaps three choices, during which you attempt to outmaneuver your opponent, you'll finally come across a descriptive paragraph that says something like: "Side A will attack; half of Side B's forces will be initially deployed; see Map #4".
You reference Underwood's Map #4, set up your units, and the battle is on.
We used the Underwood module system successfully; Don Lambert and I each tried to outmaneuver the other with a pike and shot army. Finally, I got lucky, for as Don tried to outflank my force, I chose to surge forward to the attack, and the module description indicated that I had caught the Lambert army while it was strung out in column, crossing my front.
DBA/M Romans
Peter Dennis and I were invited to a game hosted by a friend of his, and when we arrived, it turned out to be... yes!... another DBA/DBM affair. I noted that everytime someone put on one of these games, they used both rules books as guidelines. The DBM book is more detailed than that of DBA, but both are far from perfect, and the DBA text, i.e., the simpler version, is used to help out in interpreting just what it is the author is saying. This, of course, is the main weakness in the entire WRG series of rules books... no one, to date, has ever figured out just what it is that the author is saying.
Peter and I were given 4 15mm Roman forces (call them cohorts) of 12 stands each. A cohort had 2 cavalry units, 2 infantry "spears", and the remaining 8 units were infantry "blades".
Facing us were 6 anti-Roman 12-stand forces... Gauls and Carthaginians and Numidians and so on... whoever fought Rome had been placed on the table. Each of these enemy cohorts had 4 elements of cavalry, 8 of infantry.
The table was some 6-feet by 12-feet long, and the forces were initially set up the long way, i.e., some 12 feet apart. The host wanted the armies to approach each other from this initial position, but Peter and I brought out the fact that the movement distances in the rules system are fairly small, and even with light cavalry zipping along at 5 or 6 inches per turn, it wouldn't be until Christmas before contact was made. We finally settled for the forces to be placed about 3 feet apart.
At first, we thought our 4 cohorts could easily handle 6 non-Roman forces... how wrong we were!
Two procedures proved to be our undoing. First, the movement system.
The Pip System
A group is defined as a number of stands touching each other, and the sequence mandates that the number of groups that may move on any given turn is denoted by the pips tossed on a roll of a 6-sided die. For the first 3 turns or so, each of our cohorts formed a single group, and was thus maneuverable, but as soon as contact was made, and each cohort broke up into several groups, disaster struck.
As Peter and I diced for each cohort, for the number of groups within it that could move, we tossed nothing but "1's" and "2's". This meant that as the enemy forces enveloped us, there was absolutely no response from our cohorts. These supposedly welltrained Roman warriors, the scourge of the ancient world, all stood there, thumbs in their mouths, and placidly watched the enemy forces encircle them.
At first, we thought this rather humorous, but as the battle wore on, it became obvious that complete reliance on the random movement system was making a "non-game" of the affair.
Supposedly, the pip method, with its built-in fog of war, simulates a battlefield command and control system... at least, that's what the author crows about... but, to my mind, it goes a wee bit too far.
In looking at the gaming aspect, there's nothing wrong with a run of bad luck producing a series of defeats on the field, but it shouldn't affect the procedures so much that it produces a "nongame".
In other words, while rules can mandate that tossing a series of bad dice can, to some extent, weaken a force, the force shouldn't be made completely impotent. The gamer himself has got to be included somewhere in the command structure, otherwise the game reduces to a die toss, and may the highest number win...
It's my thought that total reliance on the number of pips tossed is not quite the way to go. I've discussed this with several people, each of whom has their own idea of a "fix".
At a visit to Duncan MacFarlane's home, for example, his suggestion was use of a "pip bank"... at times, one tosses a high number, more than sufficient to move the requisite number of groups, so that there are "unused pips". Why not put these unused pips in the bank, to be drawn on later, says Duncan?
My own solution is to completely turn the movement system inside out; my thoughts are summarized in a recent monograph titled "Inverse Pip Theory" (Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis, 1994). Perhaps more later on this.
Back to the massacre of the cohorts. I mentioned that the first reason our cohorts were defeated was our rotten dice tossing. The second reason concerned the relative combat values of the troops involved. The greater portion (8 stands) of our Roman 12-stand cohort consisted of blades. Blade elements are super-duper (+5) against opposing infantry, but they're like teddy-bears (+2) against cavalry.
Each of the six non-Roman forces had 4 cavalry stands, and the commander simply came forward with his mounted troops (+3), and with their greater mobility and combat factor, chopped up our blades.
I think the horsemen moved 5 inches per turn, while our Romans moved only 2 inches (that is, when they moved at all). Which meant that there was no need for our opponent to push his infantry forward at all.
Our brave Romans rarely saw an infantry element against which to swing their blades... all they saw was wave after wave of horsemen surrounding them, cutting them up.
As the battle drew to a close, I took the remainder of my once proud force and formed square. Even this didn't help, and not a single man survived to inform Roman headquarters that their weaponry and tactics, when faced with enemy cavalry forces, was totally insufficient to meet the challenge.
Which brings up the question... was Roman infantry as truly impotent against enemy cavalry as prescribed by the DBM rules?
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© Copyright 1994 Wally Simon
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