1. About two months ago, I was appointed as Head-Vote-Counter for the HMGS election proceedings at HISTORICON. I had forgotten about it, until a month or so ago, I received about 30 envelopes in the mail, many with names of people with whom I am familiar.
I at first thought "Gee Whiz! ... all these people want to subscribe to the REVIEW!" But on opening the envelopes, all I found were votes! Not a single request for a subscription!
2. Scott Holder's article on his version of the rules POUR LE MERITE (PLM) starts this issue out. PLM is a set of rules for the Seven Years War which first saw the light of day in the REVIEW in June of 1986.
PLM is what I term a "morale game", in which (a) figures are not removed, and (b) when a player wants to cause an impact on an opposing unit via either fire or melee, he doesn't toss the dice, but his opposite number, the fella commanding the unit, does.
Under item (b), for example, if my unit fires on yours, I do nothing but point to your unit, and you take it from there. You simply deduct from your unit's morale level the percentage decrease caused by the impact; then you toss the dice and see if your unit can stand up and take it.
The sole factor of importance in the game, therefore, is the morale level of the units involved, and this is why Scott's article focuses on this aspect.
Since the unit morale level controls all, PLM permits the player to "assist" his unit during its morale test, instead of merely standing idly by, hoping for a good dice throw. Each side is given a couple of officer figures, and the player can augment a unit's morale level by some 20% by placing the officer "at risk" ... in other words, if the officer helps out and increases the morale level by 20%, then there's a 20% chance he gets winged. This, in essence, is the rationale behind the Command Point (CP) concept, which Scott finds as very appropriate for the American Revolutionary War period.
And also, as Scott points out, now that I've discovered there's a thread of historical authenticity in one of my rules sets, it's time to drop that set completely. I simply cannot be tied to realistic and historical concepts... for example, if someone were to approach and say: "Hey, you've generated a great set of rules for the medieval era!", my inner soul would shrivel, my creative juices dry up, and I'd go home and lock myself in the closet.
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© Copyright 1995 Wally Simon
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