Toward the end of September, I was visited by a local teacher, unfamiliar with wargaming, who was interested in using miniatures as a tool in teaching history. His kids ranged from 11 to 14 years old, and he had already "tested" them out with a very simple game derived from the DBA booklet. Most interesting of all, they hadn't even used figures for the game, but had cut out a series of cardboard tokens to be placed on the board. He indicated that he had, in the past, spent a hundred or so dollars of his own in previous efforts to approach teaching from a new aspect. And he was prepared to sink in some more of his own funds for this new task. A dedicated man. My first, and obviously politically incorrect thought, was to contact the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS), and see if, in any way, the organization might contribute to his efforts. After at least five seconds of concentrated thought, I abandoned this line of thinking... there was no way that HMGS would assist him; that organization's basic function - which, by the way, it does very well - is to build up its treasury, and even thinking that it would shell out its hard earned dollars in support of an educational project was ridiculous. Exit HMGS. I spent a couple of hours with the gentleman, and I agreed that the simplest method might be to take the DBA/DBM approach to table-top gaming in presenting an historical battle or two. The era under study in his class was that of Marlboro, the early 1700's; the students were focusing on a study of Russia under Peter the Great. One approach that I suggested was to draw out, on a ping-pong table-size paper, a huge map of Russia and Europe, and, using 15mm figures, go through the mechanics of how the various powers of the era sought to conquer territory. In the end, I lent him all my DBA/DBM books, even tossing in HORDES OF THE THINGS for good luck, plus some thoughts on an update of the DBM procedures for the horse and musket era. I also gave him my latest copy of MWAN, in which, quite by coincidence, Jim Birdseye had authored an article in which Doctor Jim described his own experiences in hosting a series of teaching sessions with the young 'uns on the art of wargaming. And I told the gentleman that if he appeared the next Saturday at my house, we'd have a Seven Years War (SYW) battle. Alas, I have no Marlburian figures, and the closest I can come to the era is my collection of 30mm SYW figures. At the least, the SYW battle would introduce him to a full scale wargame, which might stimulate additional thinking on both our parts. Saturday arrived... and so did Messrs. Fred Haub and Brian Dewitt, but no teacher (he turned up the next day, Sunday, having been unavoidably detained). And so there we were, the three of us, with a SYW setup... we began the battle ourselves. The map shows three towns in which General Haub, on the defense, was permitted to set up shop. Of interest is the line of defensive works set out in mid-field, manned by a full regiment (two battalions) of Haub's troops. The offensive Dewittian/Simonian forces, fighting for truth, justice and liberty, had the same number of infantry units as did the defense. And the same number of cannon. We did have two more cavalry units, but this proved to be no big deal. What was of importance, however, was that the Haubian units manning the defensive works in the center of the field were crummy militia, with very little staying power. This, in effect, was a sort of Guilford Courthouse battle. General Haub's front line consisted of militia, who were expected to fire a volley or so and then take to their heels. The gap left by the fleeing militia would then be filled by better trained troops. But the true Haubian defenses consisted of the town of Glopp on his right flank, and Glitt on his left flank. My task was to (a) assault the militia in mid-field, which we thought would withstand very few volleys, and (b) assault the town of Glitt. It turned out that Glitt was a hard nut to crack... Haub had placed there a regiment of grenadiers, who never once failed a morale test, and continually gave more than they received. But the militia in the center did prove to be an easier target. Under our rules system, every time a unit is hit, it must take a morale test. If it fails, it falls back and receives a marker. This can be done only a finite number of times, since the unit disintegrates upon receipt of the fifth marker. The rules are called POUR LE MERITE (PLM), and PLM is a morale game. Neither figures nor stands are removed, and the only indication of unit strength is the number of markers attached. All battalions start with 6 stands, and end with 6 stands; only by looking at the attached markers can you determine unit status. There are three unit grades: Militia... Morale level is 70 Regulars... Morale level is 80% Grenadiers... morale level is 90% In the alternate sequence, each side draws an "Action Card", on which is denoted the number of actions (3, 4 or 5) given to every unit on the side. Infantry move at 3 inches-per-action, hence a "5" card permits them to advance 3 x 5, or 15 inches. Alternately, if they fire, the firing action sequence is FIRE/LOAD/FIRE/LOAD/FIRE, etc., so that a "5" card would allow 3 volleys. It is assumed that there's a "free" LOAD action between bounds, hence all firing sequences commence with a FIRE action... this means there's no need to track each unit to see if its weapons are loaded. When one unit fires on another, three factors are pertinent: V... the number of volleys fired (maximum of 3) S... the number of stands firing (usually 6) RF... the range factor, as explained below The range factor, RF, is defined as the ten's digit of the range measurement. Thus a range of 22 inches yields an RF of 2, while a range of 37 yields an RF of 3, and a range of 5 inches yields an RF of 0. For musketry fire, RF is subtracted from 3, i.e., the factor 3-RF is calculated. A quick look at this factor indicates that if RF is 3... a range measurement in the 30's... the factor of 3-RF is zero, i.e., there is no range factor. Which simply means that muskets do not range out to the 30's; their maximum range is 29.999 inches, at which point, RF is 2, and 3-RF becomes 1. At the other end of the scale, below 10 inches, where RF is zero (there is no ten's digit), the factor 3-RF becomes 3-0, or 3. What the Range Factor 3-RF does, therefore, is to present an attenuating factor proportional to range, automatically limiting the range of the weapon to less than 30 inches. Putting the three firing parameters together, the effect, E, on a target unit is: E = V x N x (3-RF) To illustrate the above, in the battle, as my units advanced upon the militia in mid-field, I drew a "3" card, which, if my unit didn't move at all but simply fired, permitted the unit to FIRE/LOAD/FIRE, or have 2 volleys. The range was 12 inches, hence RF was 1, the Range Factor 3-RF was 2, and the fire effect, E, was: E = 2 Volleys x 6 Stands x Range Factor of (3-1) E = 24 This value of E was defined as the fire effect on the morale level of the target unit, momentarily decreasing the morale level and causing a morale test. Since the militia's base morale level was defined to be 70%, the instantaneous effect of the volley caused the level to drop to: Morale level = 70 - 24 = 46 It becomes obvious why the militia can't face more than a couple of volleys. With morale levels dropping to the 40's, the tendency is to run. PLM procedures allow unit officers to step in and add a maximum of 20% to the unit's level, but the officer is then at risk for whatever points he contributes (for example, if he adds 15 points, the probability of his getting potted is 15%). There are a limited number of officers, and once they're gone, there's nothing to hold a unit in place. And so, unsurprisingly, the Haubian militia quickly vacated the mid-field works as we predicted. As I mentioned before, taking the town of Glitt was a different proposition. The defending grenadiers' morale level, starting at 90%, gave them a leg up, a full 20 points above the militia, and they refused to budge. If Glitt was not to be had, this left the town of Glott, where the Dewittian forces were attacking. PLM victory conditions state (a) each side totals its Victory Points, VP, receiving 1 point for every unit - infantry, artillery, cavalry - and that (b) each time a unit fails a morale test, 1 point is deducted from the total, and that (c) when the zero VP point is reached, the entire force may flee the field. Our attacking force had 15 units, giving us 15 VP points, while the defenders totaled 13 points. When the Haubian militia took off, this knocked a point or two off the defenders' total, and this, together with several other morale test failures on the part of the Haubian forces, brought Haub's VP down to about 7. Things were looking good for the offensive. I should note that when a unit fails a morale test, and receives a marker, the marker cannot be removed, and it then permanently lowers the unit's morale level by 10%. Thus once a militia unit failed a test, the unit's subsequent base morale level for the morale test was 70-10, or 60%, and the resultant chance of holding position when fired on was even less than before. A second marker reduced the morale level to 50% and so on. Units have a very finite life in PLM. The good General Dewitt approached the town of Glitt with 2 regiments, 4 battalions in all. The town defenders were composed of a single regiment, 2 battalions. As Dewitt drew near, both sides kept firing, both sides took morale tests, but all parties held up well during the required morale tests. During the active side's movement phase, its units must remain at least 2 inches away from enemy troops. After the active side completes its movement, a melee phase occurs and the side then selects one unit to close. There are three subphases within the melee phase: 1. A 10-card Melee Deck is drawn from. These cards are annotated "Attacker fires", "Defender deploys", Defender fires if deployed", "Defender tests morale", and so on. The intent is to reproduce the effect of a small firefight between the two lead units before the attacking battalion closes to contact. Cards in the Melee Deck are drawn until the card stating "End of Phase" appears. 2. Next we draw cards from the Support Deck. Another 10 cards make it impossible (almost) for the attacker, the active player, to gang up on the non-active, non-moving player's unit. The attacker draws the first card, and the card draws alternate between the two sides. The cards state "One unit may advance", or "Two units may advance", or "no units may advance", and so on. Each "advance" means that a unit may come forward 4 inches, attempting to reach the two lead units already in contact. As soon as one unit arrives, another may be selected. Cards are drawn until a card appears which states: "Resolve Melee". 3. Now that we've defined the number of units in the combat, casualty calculation occurs, followed by a test for the post-melee disposition of all the concerned units. General Dewitt chose one of his 4 attacking battalions to close with the town defenders, and the Melee Deck cards were drawn. As the cards were selected, the lead units of both sides fired at each other, tested morale, etc., but neither would give an inch; both passed all required morale tests. Finally, an "End of Phase" card was drawn, and we turned to the Support Deck. This was critical for the Dewittian troops, since for Brian to bring in his 3 supporting battalions, he couldn't afford to have the "Resolve Melee" card appear before he could walk the supporting units into the combat. Brian lucked out... by the time the card with "Resolve Melee" was drawn, all 4 of his battalions were in the thick of the fight. The Haubian defenders consisted of the original 2 battalions... no other units were close enough to have been drawn into combat. In the melee procedures, infantry stands were valued at 2 points each, hence with 4 battalions (a total of 24 stands), the Dewittian total combat effect came out to be 2x24, or 48 points. These 48 points were now apportioned between the 2 Haubian units, or 24 points each. As in the firing procedures, the combat effect on an opposing unit is to lower its morale level, hence since both Haubian battalions were of regular status with a base morale level of 80%, each defending battalion now tested at: Morale level = 80 - 24 = 56% The effect on the attacking units was less, of course, since there were fewer defenders to generate points. Using this resultant morale level as a base, dice are thrown to determine the casualties, i.e., markers, incurred by the sides. In the above case, if the toss is above the percentage of 56, the unit receives 2 markers; if in the top half (29 to 56), then one marker is received; and if in the lower half (O1 to 27), no markers. Unfortunately, in this marker-determination phase, our forces of liberty and freedom and justice lucked out... Brian had a series of horrible dice throws, and we picked up 8 markers total! The defenders suffered about 5, and the ultimate result was that they held, and our men were driven back. What was worse was that our remaining Victory Point total was down to about 3 out of our initial 15, i.e., 3 more markers and we'd give up the ghost. At this time, Haub's remaining total VP was 2... And what happened?? No need to ask... General Haub's troops fired a timely volley on our marker-bedecked boys... 3 morale tests, 3 consecutive failures. End of battle. Back to PW Review October 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