For the last time? I practiced (not too arduously), I studied (not too intently), and I registered (not without fear and trepidation...one fear and two trepidations) in the WRG tournament at the COLD WARS convention. Jeff Wiltrout had acted as my mentor, training me in a series of some four or five games, and having faced Jeff's archers and heavy cavalry and elephants and scythed chariot, I thought I was ready for anything. Scott Holder runs the COLD WAR tournament, and he informed me that, for the first round (there were three), I had been matched against a very nice, easy-going fella, and that I should take my place at Table No. 17. To give you an idea of the size of the tournament, I think there were some 40 tables altogether... but some of these were reserved for a DBM tournament, others for DBA, and I never did get to note the exact number of how many played which game. There I sat at Table No. 17... awaiting my opponent. I should note that, aside from my army, I had come absolutely, completely unprepared... no average dice, no regular dice, no rule book, no terrain pieces, no terrain cloth... no nothin'. In his introductory remarks - screaming at the top of his lungs to make himself heard above the ambient noise level - Scott Holder had indicated that a note of respectability had come to the WRG games. Henceforth, shouted Scott (turning blue with the effort) no one was permitted to play on a bare table; a green cloth was de rigueur, and he who hadn't come prepared might just as well go home. I was saved by the sudden appearance of my opponent, who waved his green cloth, set it on the table, and we were off. MWO My Worthy Opponent (henceforth referred to as MWO) and I diced for terrain pieces and there mysteriously appeared on the table several woods and hills, etc. Then we set up our forces. Tom Elsworth had sent me, some months before, a Patrician Roman Army. I knew, when I had first unpacked the box, that something was wrong. These were no Romans as I knew Romans... I saw no strong, pilum-armed, lantern-jawed warriors in red plumes and red cloaks, looking like Charleton Hestons... these were scroungy-looking Eyetalians, backed up by a couple of units of Franks. It was obvious to me that my Romans came from an era well past the hey-day of Rome. But it mattered not... I, as King Of All The Romans, was ready to defend the honor of Rome, anticipating a great victory pageant in the offing. And so, my army was set up, and I looked across the table to view that of MWO's, seeking to note where it was he had placed his scythed chariots. What! No scythed chariots! Not even an unscythed chariot! What to do? I was well versed in anti-chariot tactics, having faced Jeff Wiltrout's unit in each of our test games. I had studied the anti-­chariot maneuver manual, and I had trained my troops in adroit side-stepping techniques. To what avail? Not a chariot in sight! But what MWO did have was elephants. He fielded a Burmese army, a veritable corps of pachyderms, evidently all the elephants in Burma. He had three main battle units, each consisting of three elephants - nine stands in all - and very little for the remainder of his force. Each of his elephants had an archer clinging to each ear, an archer clinging to each tusk, and an additional archer hanging on to the tail. Not content with this, he had "purchased" other archers, 2 for each elephant base, so that each elephant stand had a total of 7 archers on it. This meant that a 3-elephant unit had some 21 archers in it, a fairly large amount of arrow-power. Unlike a normal archer unit, in which the archers are side-by-side, thus somewhat limiting their fire power since they fire straight ahead with only a one-stand overlap, each 7-archer group on an elephant base was all scrunched on a small frontage... this permitted the entire 3-base entourage of 21 archers to inundate a target. A secondary effect of the scrunching syndrome was that it was very difficult to score hits on the 21-man elephant units. WRG 7th uses a casualty procedure in which you record a hit on the target only when you get enough fire power to inflict one-casualty-per-figure on a unit. Thus, when my troops fired on an elephant unit, I had to score 21 or more hits on the unit before it could be affected. I think that, during the entire battle, in which my entire army was wiped out, despite all the firing I did, despite all the melees in which I engaged, I scored 2 recorded hits on the Burmese devils. MWO's data sheet, on which should have been recorded a series of bloody setbacks, unbearable casualties, and an infinite number of routs, remained essentially untouched! At battle's beginning, MWO ran up his elephants, set them into line, and began showering my forces with arrows. The first of my units to try to make contact was the Frankish 12th Cohort, some 32 men strong, the largest unit on the field. After the movement phases comes the firing phase, and WUP! WUP! WUP!, MWO's archers scored many hits on the Frankish 12th. So many hits, in fact, that the number of hits equaled 2-casualties-per-­figure. Scoring 2-casualties-per-figure is bad business for the target unit, for it is then required to take the dreaded Waiver Test, the WRG equivalent of a morale test. Low numbers are bad, and my dice toss for the 12th Franks couldn't have been worse... a "1"... indicating they were "shaken" and could no longer move a muscle until a general arrived to sooth them. Sad to say, my general had other pressing problems... he never arrived to help the 12th Franks out... and they were eventually eaten alive by the elephants. Note the sketches. One 3-stand elephant unit charged the 12th Franks as indicated in Sketch #1. In my previous battles, I had been given reason to believe that when making contact for the first round of melee, a unit could not break its formation, but would align itself with the target, and only those stands in contact would be involved in the first round. The second round, I had been informed, was when any overlapping stands could come in, wrapping around those stands already in combat. Helas! Either my information was outdated, or MWO hadn't heard of the rule... he moved his 3-stand elephant unit into contact as shown in Sketch #2. One stand came in frontally, while the other two hit the flanks of the Frankish 12th. 'Twas no contest, as my shaken Franks were ground up. What actually happened was that the Frankish 12th took so many casualties, without being able to fully strike back, that they broke and routed... and off ran the 12th. But now, having a unit rout requires that all other units within 3 inches take a Waiver Test, and so my llth Frankish Cohort tested, along with a couple of units of nearby cavalry. When the 11th Franks tested, they were already in contact with the Burmese, but WRG rules decree that all melee results be handled sequentially across the field from the right to the left of the general that has penetrated farthest into enemy territory. And so, when the 12th Franks broke, the 11th Franks, situated on the left of the 12th, immediately tested before they even resolved their own melee. No surprise... the 11th Franks emerged "shaken"... they, too, became impotent, their very manhood stripped from them. What was interesting about the melee in which the 11th Franks were engaged was that I had managed to get some light cavalry around to the flanks of MWO's elephant unit. Despite the 11th Franks to the front of the enemy unit, and the light cavalry gnawing away on its flank, I failed to score a single casualty on the Burmese unit. These were tough mammas, these elephants. Don Lambert, who accompanied me to the convention, and witnessed my demise, stated that the elephants were the equivalent of gunships. My own thought likened them to a number of T-72's. A moment later, and just about every unit I had, was either fleeing or shaken... with the exception of the light cavalry unit, which, like a stubborn pit-bull, still clung to the flank of the elephant unit, refusing to let go. But the light cavalry were useless... no matter how high a die I could toss in melee, their points were such that it was impossible to score the requisite one-casualty-per-figure amount on the 21-man elephant unit, hence the entire operation was an exercise in futility. Under the WRG rules system, when a command has a certain percentage of its units routing or shaken, it must commence to retreat. Having passed this threshold three times over, I ordered my Patrician Romans to run like hell... the first battle was over. I should note that MWO, supposedly a WRG guru, and quite familiar with the rules, still took an inordinately long time, each fire phase, and melee phase, to read the charts, tote up factors, reference the casualty table, etc. And this also occurred in the second game, wherein I was again paired with someone familiar with the proceedings. Second Game My second game pitted my Patrician Romans against a Carthaginian Army. Now here, I reasoned, here my boys should shine... surely they can manhandle a few troops from Carthage. My new MWO was a very meticulous fellow. During the order writing phase, in which each command is given a one word order (such as "attack", or "probe", or "rush", etc.) he took some five minutes to consider all the possibilities and permutations permissible. He finally committed his one word to paper... I had taken all of three seconds and had simply written "attack" for my Romans... as King Of All The Romans, I was going to show very little mercy to the Carthaginian rabble. During the terrain-dicing procedures, MWO set out two wooded areas, one on each flank, in the center of the field. I managed to place three hills along his baseline. MWO's cavalry advanced up the center of the field, between the two wooded areas, and I advanced to meet him. On my right flank were my Heavy Cavalry, the dreaded Alpha Squadron, and at midfield, they charged an opposing light cavalry unit which had had the gall to march right up to them. The opposing lights easily evaded the Alpha's charge, moving back beyond charge range, and the Alpha Squadron plowed ahead, smacking into a column of enemy heavy infantry. I thought I had hit the flank of the heavy infantry, but MWO indicated that since I hadn't started my charge "in back of" the front rank of the infantry, the charge was a frontal one. During my WRG training sessions, I had been told that the WRG rules had a very liberal interpretation of flank attacks, and that, regardless of the starting position of a charge, if a unit could contact a flank, then a flank it would be. Not so, said MWO, and the Alphas were thusly deflanked. Having completed the charge phase, we were coming to the melee phase of the bound, with the Alphas now locked in combat with the heavies. There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to score heavily! Suddenly: bad news! MWO explained that the actual resolution of the combat would come, not on this melee phase, but on the melee phase of the next bound. This permitted MWO, during the movement and charge phases of the next bound, to bring three additional units into contact with the Alphas to assist his heavy infantry. In charging ahead, the Alphas had penetrated so deeply into Carthaginian territory, that they were literally surrounded by enemy troops. And this time, MWO made sure - no questions asked -- that his units smashed into the Alphas' unprotected flanks. Things were not looking good for Alpha Squadron. Speaking about things not looking good... about this time, I glanced at the adjoining table, where my previous opponent, he of the Burmese Elephant Corps, was fighting a huge array of troops. The Burmese were up against 10 24-man units... I had never seen so many little people on the table. I think they were Persians... I asked about their nationality, and due to the noise level, the answer came across as "Prussians". It must have been Persians. And these 24-man units were simply inundating the elephants in a series of "wave" attacks. As fast as the elephants sent one unit fleeing, another would take its place. The result was that the elephants were being worn down... and there were only three elephant units to begin with, against 10 opposing units. It appeared that the Persian commander had solved the secret of doing battle with elephants. But back to my Patrician Romans. On the next melee phase, Alpha Squadron got zonked... they broke, routing for the rear. And once again, all of my surrounding units had to take a Waiver Test, and once again, my dice throws were not of the best. First, my other heavy cavalry unit, Beta Squadron, failed. Beta had already been "shaken" due to enemy fire, and since 2 "shakens" equals 1 rout, off went the Betas. And a Frankish unit broke. Everything was quickly unraveling before my eyes. The battle started only 2 turns ago, and I had had such high hopes due to Alpha Squadron's quick rush into the enemy lines... alas!... the world was turning upside down. And then... the clincher! During the setup, MWO had placed his wooded areas on either flank... I had ignored them, blithely running my cavalry around the perimeter of the wooded sections. Suddenly, out of the woods on my left flank, came the Spanish cohorts of the Carthaginians, charging into the flanks of my cavalry units. As they materialized and contacted the cavalry, MWO explained that, prior to the first bound, he had forced marched several units through the woods just for situations such as this. With enemy units popping out of the woods, my own units had to take a "surprise test"... yes, once again, the dreaded Waiver Test reared its ugly head. By this time, I was beginning to take a fierce dislike to this Waiver Test. My cavalry quickly became "disordered"... one level better than "shaken". One bound later, a similar surprise appeared on my right flank, as Carthaginian troops poured out of the woods. But here, I lucked out. As the troops emerged from the woods, magically materializing, so did Scott Holder. He happened to be passing by, and inquired as to what was going on. "Aha!", said our beloved Umpire, "Hang on a minute!" I didn't quite get the full portent of what Scott said, but the gist was that if the hidden Carthaginians were at the woods' edge, close enough to charge out, then, the turn before, when my cavalry rode up, the horsemen should have spotted them. Thanks to Scott's "Aha!" rule, my right flank was temporarily saved. I say 'temporarily' because, once again, my Patrician Romans went down to defeat. Just about all my die rolls were extremely unlucky... if I needed a high toss, I rolled low, and if I wanted to toss low, I rolled high. The only good die roll I remember making involved the Frankish 12th Cohort... the one handled so roughly by the elephants. The Franks had been charged on the flank by a small Carthaginian cavalry unit, which took its "free hacks" at the 12th for the first melee round. Despite being battered, the 12th Franks hung in for a second round of combat, and prior to the second round, they tossed a "6", permitting them to turn and face the cavalry, thus deflanking them. This was the high point of the battle for me. I noted that MWO's generals were all over the place, riding up and down the field, rallying units. My own generals performed no such function. They each headed an Extra Heavy Cavalry unit, and they were constantly in the thick of battle. If one of my units routed or broke... tough! My generals had more important things to do than to ride over to rally a fleeing group of cowardly deserters. Toward the end of the battle, I overheard a comment at a nearby table which seemed quite apropos to my own situation; the remark was to the effect: "I don't think I've got any troops left!" MWO's plan was quite clever... he had inserted some of his troops in the woods on the flanks, and marched up the center of the field, thus drawing in my own forces. Then, when I least expected it, out popped the flankers. As for me, I had no overall plan, other than to kill the enemy. If I saw a flank, I charged it. And even if I didn't see a flank, I charged. I follow the "target of opportunity" school of combat. Unimpressed Was I impressed with the WRG rules system? Nah! Do I want to play again? Nah! Not knowing enough about the WRG system to argue, I simply accepted the rulings offered by my opponents, and ate all that was placed on my platter, good and bad. I am surprised that after all these years, there still seems to be no complete and definitive WRG rules set, encompassing all play including that at tournaments. In my practice sessions, Jeff Wiltrout had one interpretation of a given situation, MWO in the first game had another, and MWO in the second game seemed to have yet another. Can this be the reason for the fascination with WRG, and its continuing popularity? Back to PW Review March 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 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