Some time ago, in downtown Washington, DC, there was a store called Brother John's Discounts. Brother John sold "seconds"; items that the factory quality control inspectors, with tears in their eyes, whisked off the assembly lines. For example, one could purchase an undershirt at Brother John's which had a few stitches misplaced, and if one was a dwarven humpback, the undershirt would fit perfectly. Similarly, one could purchase a pair of socks at Brother John's - also with a few stitches misplaced - and if one had a size 77 left clubfoot, the socks would fit perfectly. Recently in Washington, DC, there have sprung up a series of successors to Brother John's, termed Dollar Stores... everything is a dollar or under. I haunt the Dollar Stores... I visit every one I can. I have picked up little soldiers, little airplanes, markers, little houses, little ships... each Dollar Store is a virtual treasure trove for the curious wargamer. My most recent purchase consisted of two tablecloths, each measuring 54 inches by 72 inches. Two of these covered my ping pong table. The tablecloth pattern was a green-white checkerboard of 2-inch squares. As I laid out the cloths on the ping pong table, I said to myself: "Surely, there's a game here somewhere." And There Was 15mm Napoleonic figures were used; a unit, defined as a brigade, could have from 3 to 5 stands. Stacking limits on a per-square basis were: Trained infantry 2 stands per square Regular infantry 1 stand per square All cavalry 1 stand per square Artillery 1 stand per square An interesting problem arose in our very first game: how does one define a melee? In Sketch #1 (next page), one can see that Side A's troops - with Side A being the active player - have advanced into contact. Side A is strung out along a fairly wide frontage, and his units make contact with a number of Side B's. One could consider the entire line of contact as a single humongous melee, or one could break it up into a series of smaller engagements... but how? Of interest to me was the similarity between the line of contact which developed in the game as shown in the sketch, and the lines of contact which appear in the DBA/DBM games. In both instances, many, many stands, each side-by-side, come into contact. Our game used the concept of "units"I i.e. multi-stand groups of troops which have some common association. Thus one of our "units", in a single line, could contact one or more of the enemy's "units". DBA/DBM, in its search for vigorous historical veracity, seems to have won the hearts and minds of the wargaming world by simply disregarding the concept of a "unit". All stands, i.e., all elements, are independent of one another; each stand, in effect, is a separate "unit", with no ties to the neighbor next door. The definition of what a stand represents in DBA/DBM, i.e., what an "element" represents, is carefully hazed over... there is no command structure, elements have no common organizational bonds, and all stands are free to wander anywhere they please. What is particularly neat and clever about the DBA/DBM gaming system is that, because of the lack of a command structure, each stand in melee essentially fights on its own. When a stand, i.e., an element, loses an engagement and falls back, then, because of the lack of common organizational ties, there is no resultant impact on any other stand. The "neat and clever" part means that DBA/DBM can ignore the troublesome problem of defining a "unit" melee because there is none. Look at the diagrams in FIRE & FURY and ARMATI and other current rules sets and note the arbitrary ways in which the authors approach the multi-stand-unit-melee problem, breaking them, i.e., the melees, up into sometimes weird configurations. I give full credit to the DBA/DBM authors for their solution to the problem... they simply avoid it. However, the lack of a command structure means that all the good stuff that is broadcast about the ability to "recreate history" with the DBA/DBM rules is as big a pile of crappola as one could wish to encounter. In short, DBA/DBM is an interesting game, and nothing more than a game, and has as much to do with history as Syria's desire to get back the Golan Heights has to do with its desire for a "lasting peace" with Israel. Having finished unleashing my monthly supply of venom at DBA/DBM, let's return to the gaming table of 2-inch-squares. During the movement sequence, units must remain one square away from enemy troops; it's only during the melee phase that units actually close by moving one square directly forward. Digression In just about all the rules sets I've ginned up, I mandate that units cannot contact the enemy during the regular movement phases. They remain 2 inches away, or 3 inches away, or 4 inches away... a function of the scale of the game and the size of the figures used. A fire phase usually follows movement. With the attacking and defending units a finite distance apart, the picture is much clearer as to which units are involved in the fire calculations, i.e., who can fire on what. With the charging unit halted "in midstream", so to speak, the configuration permits defending units other than the one that is being charged to provide support fire. Many rules allow immediate contact during movement, and only the defending unit, the one being contacted, can fire at its oncoming adversary; supporting defensive fire by allied units is not permitted. This is so arbitrary a rule, it borders on the bounds of being unreasonable, let alone illogical. In an attempt to solve this problem, some rules authors permit "pass through" fire, i.e. firing at a unit where it's been and not where it's at. FIRE & FURY does this, thus permitting defensive supporting fire all along the path traced by the attacking unit. But once the can of worms of "pass through" fire is opened, several other wormy cans appear. I've played less than a dozen games of FIRE & FURY, but I noted that in those in which I did participate, and in which my own troops charged in, my units were deluged with all sorts of musket balls and roundshot, as my opponents took advantage of the opportunity to fire units which, ordinarily, sitting well in back of the front line, would have been completely out of the action. And, I have to admit, I, too, took advantage of the rule... war is hell... In all, therefore, I shall continue to beat the drum for the "halt before contact" mode of operation, and he who games at my ping pong table is stuck with it. End of digression. Back to the Game On the 2-inch-square table, with the units halted one square away, defining the extent of the melee begins with the active side, Side A, moving up one unit into contact with one of Side B's. Side A has now def ined his own lead unit, together with the defender's lead unit. Side A now brings forward all those units which can fill boxes (squares) adjacent to the lead unit. At this point, after Side A's 1-box forward movement, the stands of A's involved units may be in contact with the stands of several of Side B's units, units other than B's lead unit. Side B is now given the opportunity to withdraw any and all of his stands in contact, except for those of his lead unit, which are "pinned" in place. The reason for giving B this last minute chance to pull out is as follows: a.As Side A moved forward, one of his stands might have contacted a single stand of, say, a 5-stand unit of B's. Side B has the option of letting this single stand add its combat points to the melee, or withdrawing it. b.If the stand remains in place, and joins the engagement, then even though only one out of five stands partook, the entire 5-stand unit is subject to the outcome of the melee. c.The melee-outcome rules state that if Side B loses, every stand of every unit in the combat is swept off the field and placed in an off-board rally zone, from which the stands may or may not recover. d.Hence Side B's commander must judge the risk to which his 5-stand unit is subjected... the unit adds only one stand's worth of combat points to the melee (which may not even be significant) , and yet, if B loses, the entire unit may find itself whisked away, and placed in limbo. So much for the logic used to def ine the extent of the melee. Having done so, we now hand out 10-sided Hit Dice (HD) to the sides. Each engaged stand receives 2 HD, and others are added for advantages, for officer assistance... for all the good things you can think of that might augment a unit's combat value. When the dice are tossed, hits are scored as follows: 1: One stand (selected by owning player) to rally zone 2: One stand (selected by owning player) test reaction 3 to 10: No effect Note there's a fairly low probability-of-hit on a per-die basis; only "1s" and '2s' score hits, hence for each die, there's only a 20% chance of hitting. But with all the dice tossed (many melees required tossing well over a dozen dice), there are bound to be several hits. The melee outcome is a function of two parameters: HThe number of stands forced out of combat via a reaction test or placed in the rally zone S The number of your own stands in the combat Each side computes a product, P, and the higher product wins the melee. P = 10-sided die x (S + H) The losing side simply scoops up the stands of every unit that contributed to the melee calculations, and places them in the dreaded rally zone, while the winning side laughs. Melee, therefore, is an all-or-nothing affair... if you lose, you lose big; if you win, you laugh big. Note that the dice-tossing combat chart on the previous page does not result in stands eliminated or destroyed. Instead, the worst that can happen, a toss of a 11111, simply results in a stand being placed off the field in limbo land, in the rally zone. At the end of every half bound, both sides get to attempt to rally these stands and have them rejoin their units. The end of the half-bound is when "true" casualties are inflicted, since it's during these rallying procedures that stands may be completely removed from the battle. Each side takes the stands it has placed in the rally zone and divides them into groups of four. Percentage dice are thrown for each 4- stand group and the following chart referenced. Note that with a series of low dice throws during the rally phase, the results may be disastrous as the rally zone is completely cleared out. 01 to 33 4 stands are eliminated 34 to 66 2 stands rallied, 2 eliminated 67 to 100 4 stands rallied The sequence of the game has three basic phases to it: Side A's tactical move/fire, Side Bfs tactical move/fire, and then a strategic movement phase. During the strategic phase, which is defined as a relatively long term affair as compared to the tactical phases, units may make long distance moves. This is done via the officer corps of each side. Each officer is graded either 20, 30 or 40 points. During the tactical phase, officers are placed at critical locations. There is a "sending" officer and a "receiving" officer. Add the grade levels of both officers, throw percentage dice lower than this total, and a unit may immediately travel from sender to receiver, from any point on the table to any other point, in a grand strategic move. Back to PW Review June 1995 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