A couple of issues ago, I reported on a set of skirmish rules which we used for a western gunfight. A complete overhaul of the procedures and we were ready to use the basic sequence for a scenario set during the French and Indian War. An Indian encampment was placed in the middle of the field, protected by 12 of the Red Brethren. The camp was situated on the banks of Rapahonka River, a veritable torrent which required a dice toss of 70 or under to cross... and even if a man was successful in forging his way to the other side, he still lost a point or two on his data sheet. There were 16 colonial figures making their way to the camp. Their objective was to free four or so luvverly maidens who had been captured and made prisoner by the Indians. The Native Americans, of the Alcohonka Tribe, were determined to wed and bed the maidens. I asked Uncas, one of the two Alcohonka Chiefs, why the white wimmin were more desirous than those of his own nation. "They're much more preferable," he said, "They come with Social Security and Medicare benefits, and they're willing to get a part-time job. Our own squaws are content to simply squat for days on end, doing nothing but chewing deer skins and sewing moccasins." Uncas' Indian force consisted of 12 stalwart braves. Eight of them were in the camp, while the other four, including Uncas, started out on the northwest corner of the field. Record Sheet NAME TURN # ORDER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 EFFICIENCY: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 WEAPON: AMMUNITION: 0 0 F L F L F L F L F L F L (F = Fire; L = Load) Sections The men on both sides were grouped into "sections" of 4-men each, simply because each data sheet had room for only 4 record sets. The data sheet content for two men is shown above; note that each man has 7 Efficiency boxes... when these are crossed out, he's dead. The oncoming colonials consisted of four sections of 4-men each. Two of the sections were composed of British troopers, led by Lt Hambone. The other two sections were woodsmen, well versed in woodland lore. Heading this group was Grit Steele, whose daughter was amongst the luvverly maidens. "Mah dotter ain't never gonna marry one o' them blasted Injuns" said Grit, when interviewed by a visiting news team. The map is set out below. The four colonial sections entered the field along the southern baseline. Note that three of the four had to cross the Rapahonka; only Grit's section was on the "right" side of the river. Orders Note that on each man's data sheet is a place for orders. These were six in number: MOVE If given this order, a man could move 10 inches. Indians were not impeded by any terrain features and could glide across the field effortlessly, while the colonials had to pass a "70 percent rough terrain test" if they entered woods or any sort of rough ground. The 70 percent rule saved the day for the Alcohonkas, for late in the game, British Sgt Mushe's section was within a move of the enclosure in which the luvverly maidens were held, but none of the 4 men in his section could scramble up the hill to free the girls. All four men simultaneously failed their 70 percent test, and this one move's delay enabled the Alcohonkas to run up several reinforcements. FIRE Here, if a man's weapon was loaded, he could fire by tossing a basic 1,2,3,4,5 on a 10­sided die. Once he fired, he crossed out an "F" on his data sheet, his weapon was unloaded, and he had to be given a different order to reload. If a man was hit, he'd take an immediate morale test. FIRE/RELOAD This was a more popular order than just plain FIRE, for a man could both fire and reload (in any order desired). The penalty was that if he did so, he was defined to have fired hastily, and the required die toss was a 1,2,3, which was 20 percent below the probability of hitting on the regular FIRE order. CONTACT A man given the MOVE order could come no closer than 2 inches to an opponent. Only when given the CONTACT order could he close. If he engaged an opponent who didn't have a CONTACT order himself, he was given an advantage. At the end of combat, each of the opponents took a post-melee test. If a man failed, he temporarily fled the field, and had to be given the RALLY order. RALLY A man who failed either a morale test or a post-melee test was removed from the field. He was deemed to be in so shaky a frame of mind as to be completely helpless, somewhat similar to the state of the members of the Board of Directors of HMGS. The RALLY order permitted him to recover; if he did, he reappeared, fresh as a daisy, beside his leader. Each remaining box on a man's data sheet counted for 10 percent in his rallying effort. Thus if he had only 5 boxes left, he had a 50 percent chance to rally. If he failed, he remained off the board, and lost yet another box. It turned out that just about every man that fled stayed off the field for the remainder of the engagement; none seemed to be able to rally. DELAY This order permitted a man to wait and see what everyone else was doing during the bound. After everyone else carried out their orders, he then had the choice of carrying out one of three functions: he could fire hastily, he could reload, or he could move 6 inches. To implement the above orders in the sequence, we used a deck of cards, each containing one specific command. When a card was drawn (at random) all men with the command noted on the card could carry it out. For MOVE, i.e., when the MOVE card appeared, dice were tossed and the high number moved all men with that command. The opposing side then followed. For RALLY, all men that had fled off-board simply tested to see if they'd rally. The sides tested simultaneously. For the other commands (FIRE, FIRE/RELOAD, CONTACT, DELAY), when their cards turned up, another deck was referenced. This second deck, termed the Action Deck, was composed of 5 cards. Four of them had a number indicating the number of men that could carry out the command. The fifth was annotated "End of Phase". For example, if the order to be carried out was FIRE/RELOAD, and an Action Deck card displaying a 3 was drawn, then: a. The side's diced to see which one got the "3". b. Then that side selected up to 3 men to FIRE/RELOAD, i.e. , carry out the assigned command. c. The next Action Deck card was drawn and the opposing side could FIRE/RELOAD the number of men so designated. d. This went on until the "End" card appeared, and the phase was terminated. Note that of the 5 Action Deck cards, one is the "End" card. During the game, it turned out that this card was appearing too frequently, cutting off the action prematurely. In other words, not all the men with a given command were given a chance to exercise their orders; the phase was ending too quickly in terms of proper game development. "I wuz gypped!" was the cry when the "End" card popped up too soon. The solution to this was affected by implementing the condition that when the "End" card appeared for the first time, dice were thrown, and there was a 50% chance that the phase ended. The second appearance of the card mandated that the phase truly ended. We thus maintained the surprise factor of having the phase end before a man could exercise his orders, only it happened less frequently. The Battlefield On the field, the colonials were making a valiant attempt to get to, and liberate, the wimmin. The men wanted to free the women and bring them home again so that the women could rightfully resume their life of drudgery, of slaving away in a hot, sweaty, smokey kitchen from dawn to dusk, of cleaning windows and floors incessantly, of working in the fields for hours at a time, of serving their menfolk like menfolk ought to be served... It was no wonder that as the colonials approached the hill, we could hear tiny, teeny, shrill voices from the women's compound: "Get away! Don't come any closer! Don't you bother us!" This did not deter the intrepid colonials. With the Alcohonkas diverted by the rest of the colonials, one section of 4 British soldiers, the one led by Sergeant Mushe, finally reached the hill on which the compound was situated and each man tried to climb up by tossing a 70 or less on percentage dice. As I mentioned before, none made it. Each failed his dice throw. This was probably the slipperiest hill in North America, because, of the 16 colonials, only two ever managed to clamber up its slopes. Lt Hambone was one - he was rapidly engaged by an Indian opponent and sent down again - and Private Drabble was the other. Drabble made the history books by engaging and defeating one of the Indians, but in the end, he, too, failed. During one of the firing phases, Bert Franklin (Ben's younger brother) was wounded and took his morale test. He had the ignominious honor of being the first to fail; he was immediately sent to sit down in the Rally Zone, awaiting a RALLY order. When Bert took his test, he and two of his buddies participated, making three in all. He could call on any two of his allies on the field. Each of the three men were "worth" 25 points, giving a total of 75 Morale Points. Deducted from this total were the distances of the selected allies; in this case, one friend was 5 inches away, and the other was 4, producing a total deduction of 9. Bert's final Morale Level was, therefore, 75 - 9, or 67 percent. Unfortunately, Bert failed to toss 67 or below with percentage dice, and off he went. As indicated on the data sheets, we played a total of 12 turns. The first four turns or so consisted solely of the colonials advancing, and the Alcohonkas positioning themselves. The pace really started to pick up around Turn #6, when the opposing forces found themselves within firing range (15 inches) of each other. As I mentioned, only two colonials ever made it to the top of the hill; the Indians maintained tight control of their encampment throughout the engagement. Back to PW Review February 1995 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com