For me, order writing has always been the worst possible way to sequence a game. For that reason, I've always advocated alternate move systems, procedures which permit each side to independently perform whatever actions they desire.
Alternate movement has always seemed to me to produce a "cleaner" game. There's no hassle concerning which unit is active, or, more properly, which unit is the "more" active, as the participants in a simultaneous movement system, many times, will tend to disagree on who is doing what to whom.
The ultimate in simultaneous movement would be a game in which both sides would tell the umpire exactly what each unit planned to do each bound, and then they would sit back. The umpire would then take over and move the units himself, adjudicating every movement, every firing procedure.
But to give credit where credit is due... in Hal Thinglum's Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter (MWAN), the March/April 1994 issue (Volume 12, Number 4), a fellow named Sam Maxwell published a set of single-figure skirmish rules which set out an idea or two concerning the writing of orders, and which caused me to take another look at the simultaneous movement system.
Sam's basic idea was to place three chits beside each figure, each chit containing an order. Then, as the chits are read around the table, from top to bottom, each of the figures on the field does what is indicated as the specific order is revealed.
No time indication per bound was given in the article, so there's no way of knowing just what Sam's time span per bound was, nor how far into the future you had to look ahead to plan the actions of each of your men. Evidently, however, the entire bound consisted of a time increment of only a few seconds, as the orders encompassed such actions as "shoot" and "grab" and "load", and "grab", "lead: .
What caught my eye was Sam's listing of actions, a very short, succinct, tabulation. I presented Sam's thoughts to a group of gamers around my ping-pong table late one Saturday night, and we went through several scenarios, each time modifying the approach, and as the listing of orders finally evolved in our own version, they are:
- Contact Sam's original order was "Grab", indicatinq that a man could pick up objects or search an area for them, or "to start a brawl". We kept only this last definition; the order .3s changed to "Contact" and a man with this order could initiate combat with anyone within 2 inches of him.
Fire Whether with revolver or rifle or pistol, a man could fire once.
Move Sam's movement procedure was to toss three dice for the total movement distance. We simply let each man move forward for about 12 inches. Mounted men moved somewhat more.
Load One weapon could be fully reloaded.
Delay Sam's original order was "Watch", which enabled a man to 'move to the end of the line' and hold fire until all other men had moved. We changed it to "Delay"; a man could still be the last in line to act, but he had the opportunity to choose one of the following: move 6 inches, or fire once, or reload.
Regardless of the background thoughts, the crux of the game is developing a method to implement these orders, and for that, we look to Fred Haub, who during the course of our scenarios, came up with the basics of a very workable plan. The scheme uses several special card decks, each with 5 cards, each oriented toward a specific order.
I've noted that, in the past, the mere mention of a card deck is enough to send one or two gamers running out of the room. But the use of a deck, its very essence, provides the game with an enjoyable air of the unknown, as the sides await the outcome of each card draw.
For our skirmish, the key deck, called the Phase Deck, of 5 cards has, on each card, one of the 5 basic orders: Contact, Move, Fire, Load, or Delay. This card, therefore, tells you which order is to be implemented. Next, there is a separate 5-card deck for each of these orders, which designates who does what and when. The entire i cycle of the boud consists of several subphases as follows:
- a. Each player has a listing of his men, and for each bound, he simply writes one of the one-word orders next to the man's name. There is no need to elaborate on specific actions to be undertaken, only the one word is sufficient. This restricts the man to carrying out his order; how he does it is determined later on in the sequence.
b. Now, with each man having been given his single-word order, one of the Phase Deck's cards is randomly drawn, determining which order is to be carried out. Note that because of the Phase Deck, the sequence in which orders are carried out will vary from bound to bound.
c. Having drawn a Phase Deck card denoting a specific order, we now go to the 5-card deck for that particular order, and draw them randomly. If, say, the order "Fire" is to be implemented, the 5-cards for the "Fire Deck" contain such directions as "1 man on Side A fires", or "3 men on Side B fire", etc. It well may be that several men on Side A can empty their weapons before the men of Side B even get to draw their own.
Note, however, that not all men on both sides can partake of the firing actions... only those who were given the order "Fire" can blast away. Having gone through the "Fire" deck, we return to the Phase Deck.
d. Another card from the Phase Deck is drawn. Assume it's the "Move" card. Now we turn to the "Move Deck", and start to draw the move cards. They are annotated "1 man on side A can move", or"3 men on side B can move", etc. Note, again, that not all men on both sides can move. Movement is restricted only to those who were given the "Move" order.
e. In this manner, we go through the bound: first, a Phase Deck card is drawn to select an order to be carried out, and second, the 5 cards from the particular order Deck is drawn.
As each card in the 5-card Order Deck is drawn, the same man can be called on for card after card after card... the only restriction is that he must have that particular order next to his name for that particular turn.
Another item of note. Each of the 5-card Order Decks contains one card annotated "End Of Phase". When this card is drawn, that particular order is no longer carried out... we terminate that particular Order Deck, and we return to the basic Phase Deck. Without this "End" card, then since all cards in the deck will be drawn, all men who are assigned a specific order are guaranteed an opportunity to be able to carry it out; with it, no one is guaranteed anything, since the phase may be cut short.
We went through about five or six different scenarios using the above sequencing system. I dusted off my 54mm western gunfight figures, and each player handled two men. At the end of each scenario, we changed the rules accordingly, and went on to the next.
My 54mm skirmish collection depicts each man in 3 poses: standing, kneeling and prone, each with its own attributes. Several of the men have a fourth pose, on horseback, but not everybody owns a horse.
Our game recognized only two basic weapons... revolvers and rifles. A man could fire 6 shots with a revolver or 10 shots with a rifle before having to reload.
On the draw of a "Fire" card, a man with a 'Fire' order could shoot one round.
The firing procedure was simplicity itself... a roll of 7, 8, 9, or 10 on a 10-sided die was a hit on the target. If the target was in cover, only 8, 9, or 10 was a hit.
At first, I put in weapon modifiers, and range modifiers, and other grungy modifiers, but after a while decided that the basic distinguishing parameter between revolver and rifle was the relative range of the weapons. The revolver fired for 20 inches, and the rifle for 50 inches... and that seemed to convey enough of a distinction without the need for assessment of other factors.
When a figure was wounded, we'd roll percentage dice to see how many points were to be knocked off the poor man's Combat Efficiency (CE) tally.
Each man started with 100 CE points. There was a 10 percent chance that the man was killed outright... if the percentage dice toss was 11, 22, 33, 44, etc., any "doubles", we'd remove him from the field.
If hit, after we deducted the "casualty points" determined by the percentage dice throw, the man's remaining CE points were looked at to see how he reacted.
As an example, if, having been wounded, a man had 40 casualty points taken off his CE total, leaving him with 60, his reaction chart looked like:
- -------------------------------------
- Fall prone on back
- Fall prone on stomach
- No effect
Thus a percentage dice throw of 30 or under and he'd remain on his feet, while higher than 30 would cause him to fall. The distinction between falling on your back or on your stomach was significant. He who fell on his back, was fairly helpless, and had to be given a "Move" order for the next turn, as all he could do would be to roll over on his stomach.
A man on his stomach was a perfectly functioning fellow, and could be given any order desired.
John Shirey ran 2-Gun Brown, a fairly ferocious fellow who seemed to fill the air with lead. With both barrels smoking, 2-Gun must have knocked off 7 or 8 of his enemies, a fine total for a single day's work.
2-Gun led a charmed life. The worst that ever happened to him was, I remember, one time in one of the battles, when John, having given 2-Gun orders to reload, couldn't complete loading of both weapons. In the 5-card order Deck for reloading, the "End of Load" card appeared after 2-Gun had reloaded only a single weapon.
To my mind, hero of the day was my own man, Jim Blue. True, Jim died in every one of our scenarios, but he died well. Before each game, Jim would tell me: "Death and I are no strangers!" and he was quite right.
What impressed me most was Jim's determination. I kept giving Jim "Move" orders, wanting him to get within 2 inches of an enemy, for my intent was then to furnish him with a "Contact" order, so that he could close with an opponent and battle him mano-a-mano.
Unfortunately, every time Jim got to within 2 inches, "Fire" phases seemed to come up before "Contact", and in most instances, poor Jim, who had run up alongside a potential victim, only too eager to begin throttling the poor fellow, had the whatsis shot out of him before he could even lay hands on the enemy.
But finally... the glory day! Jim moved to within 2 inches of Ed Grey, a detestable fellow. Naturally enough, the "Fire" order appeared and Ed, according to his own orders, promptly shot Jim twice, and Jim fell down... but fortunately, on his stomach, so that he still functioned adequately. But then came a "Contact" phase, and, in accordance with his orders, Jim, from his prone position, reached up at Ed, and smote him fiercely!
So fiercely, that Ed collapsed on the spot! I think he lost about 94 CE points in one fell swoop. He died without knowing what had hit him!
Not content with this, on the next turn, I again gave Jim a "Contact" order, and, this time, Jim lunged toward another of the dreaded enemy... horrible gurgling sounds resulted, another 90 CE points lost, and another enemy bit the dust!
Jim expired soon therearter, but he definitely left his mark. The Wild West could have been won only with men like Jim Blue...
The single-word order system seems to flow nicely. The card-draw sequence permits alternate movement within the order phases, and the orders themselves restrict the action only to those men who have been given the order. More later on this...
Back to PW Review Nov/Dec 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