It took three turns before Fred Haub battered down the gate to Castle Corth. His center army wing (a "battle" to you true medievalists) of foot knights, men at arms, archers, etc., kept the defenders busy while the men of the Gate-Smashing Guild, Local 34, trundled up their gate-smashing tree-trunk-on-wheels and battered away. Each turn, Fred tossed a 10-sided die; he needed a total of 20 points to destroy the gate, and in three turns it was accomplished. I took the part of the Earl of Corth, playing defensively. The Earl was no stranger to having his fortress battered, his gates destroyed, his walls breached, his moat filled in... we've played many a game besieging Castle Corth. But the Earl is a good fellow at heart, and he always comes back for more. Evidently, he likes the medieval rules I use. Can you blame him? The battle itself lasted about seven turns. Three of these were used in moving the attacking force up, and the last four involved the gate-battering procedure, coupled with an assault on the walls. The sequence for the half-bound provided for (a) The active side's movement. Here, the active side advanced ' while its missile troops got a chance to fire. Advancing units remained a minimum distance of 3 inches from enemy troops. (b) Defensive reaction. The non-active side returned fire. (c) The active side's units closing for contact. All units that had moved, in phase (a), to within 3 inches of the enemy could close. Melee was then resolved. (d) A rally phase for both sides. On this phase, the sides could attempt to rally troops placed in the Rally Zone and to remove casualty markers. Each type of unit had a critical number of hits it could take before it lost a stand. For example, when mounted knights accumulated 6 hits, one stand was removed. Similarly, trained archers lost a stand when a unit received 3 hits. The lost stands were defined, not as "killed", but as temporarily disorganized, discombobulated; they were placed in the "Rally Zone", hence out of the combat until rallied. During the rally phase, these stands could be brought back to the field. Each stand tested, and if it failed, it was at that time declared to be destroyed. Note, therefore, that stands were killed only during the rally phase. One item of note concerning the use of a Rally Zone in a set of rules. Since stands are taken off the field, but permitted to return, the concept, in essence, prolongs the life of a unit. The practical effect of this, as stands flow into the Rally Zone and out again, is that it permits the use of a smaller number of stands in a unit. One doesn't need to mass, say, 6 or 10 stands in a unit. In these medieval rules, for example, a unit is defined as 3 stands. Back to the battle. The Haubian attackers had three ladder-bearing parties, which, on Turn #4, during the movement phase, all reached the base of the wall at the same time. On the close-to-contact phase, each ladder-bearing party had a 70 percent chance to erect a ladder, and then, if successful, a nearby assaulting unit had a 70 percent chance to rush, quick like a bunny, up the ladder and close with a defending unit. Two out of the three ladder-bearing parties were not successful; they missed their 70 percent rolls. It appeared that the men of the Ladder-Bearing Guild, Local 57, were not as well trained as those of the Gate-Smashing Guild, Local 34. But the third ladder-bearing party proved a winner. Up went the ladder, and then after a second successful 70 percent toss, up went a unit of dismounted foot knights. Perhaps not quick like a bunny, but quick enough. Here's where the defenders, my boys, ran into trouble. What I should have done, the turn before the attackers closed, was to withdraw the archers firing from the wall section that was to be assaulted, and send in a heavier unit. But no, I waited until it was too late, hoping to get in that last round of firing against the assaulting troops. No use. Since my archers remained on the wall, the assaulting foot knights contacted my bowmen. These two units were defined as the lead units in the melee, and each side tried to bring in a supporting unit to assist. I had a unit of foot knights within the castle, all primed and ready to go to the aid of the archers... or so I thought. The Earl of Corth, as leader of the castle's defenses, was given a data sheet on which he had a series of "Support Percentages", about 6 different numbers, i.e., 6 percentages which represented the basic chance of a unit in his command dashing over to support an allied unit in melee. The support percentages ranged from 80 down to about 60. For this critical melee on the walls, I chose the largest one available, a base of 80 percent, and adjusted it by the following: First, I subtracted the distance the supporting unit was from the melee, in this case, about 8 inches. Second, I subtracted the distance that the Earl himself was from the melee, in this case, about 6 inches. The total of 8+6, or 14, when subtracted from 80, gave a final percentage of 66, thus, according to my way of doing things, the knights had a 66 percent chance of rushing in to assist the archers. I tossed my percentage dice... a 73!! 'Twas evident that my knights could care less about what happened to the archers. This proved to be the only opportunity to assist the archers. All other units in the castle were still undeployed, and by definition, undeployed units cannot assist in melee. Fred Haub's attempt to support his assault group proved more successful ... he made his required "support die roll", and up the ladder raced another unit to assist. Each unit in melee receives a basic number of 3 Hit Dice (HD), 10-sided dice, wherein a roll of 1, 2 or 3 is a hit on the opposition. My archers got their 3 HD, plus one other for an advantage in defending the wall, a total of 4 in all. The lead assaulting foot knights got their basic 3 HD, plus another HD per stand for being foot knights. This gave them around 6 HD. Added to this were the HD of the supporting unit. The result was that Fred tossed around 10 HD to my 4, both of us looking for rolls of 1, 2 or 3. Neither Fred nor I were surprised when my archers suffered badly and fled. 'Twas the Rally Zone for them! This meant that not only were the gates of the castle opened, but a large section of the wall had been occupied by the Haubian forces. Even the Earl of Corth, despite his optimistic outlook on life, agreed it was time to run up the white flag. Castle Corth had fallen again. Back to PW Review October 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 (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com