In the flea market at COLD WARS, Joe Walakonus, a fellow PW member, had set out his handiwork... "A great price for you, Wally", said he. "What's in the boxes?" I asked, and Joe pointed out a lot of renaissancish mounted knightly knights and some crossbowmen and some rough looking warband types... all in 25mm. "Enough!", said I, "Here's a check. This will see you through college, permit you to pay off your mortgage, and provide a dowry for your three daughters." And off I ran with Joe's boxes. At home, after the convention, I closely examined Joe's work. Very nice paint jobs. But suddenly, my eyes opened wide... there, in the middle of one of the warband stands, stood a nekkid lady! True, she wasn't entirely nekkid... one of her bosoms was covered up... but t'other was exposed to the world as was the rest of her. She was a truly inspirational figure (at least to the warriors in her unit), and it was obvious to me that the Nekkid Lady Brigade was destined to do great things on the wargames table. A Saturday or so later, all the figures were set out on the table for their first encounter. About 9 or 10 units per side, with unit size ranging from 2 to 6 stands. I was on the side opposing that with the Nekkid Lady Brigade, and I kept close watch on her. Her unit was ordered, early in the game, to advance up a hill, and for 3 or 4 turns, it refused to budge. A dice throw of 70 percent or less was required to move up the rough terrain, and the requisite dice roll didn't show up. It may well be that the men in her unit preferred to stand and ogle her, rather than to rush into battle... if this be the case, I shall make it clear to them that sexual discrimination and/or harassment of any sort has no place on my gaming table; the men are paid to run forward and whup the enemy, and not to admire nekkid bosoms. Even though the Nekkid Lady Brigade took no part in the action, the other units on its side did good work and, at the end of some five bounds, that side was declared the winner. The nekkid lady evidently brought them luck. There were four basic phases to the sequence: 1. Dice were tossed for initiative; call the side that won 'A', the other 'B'. The very first action consisted of a number of cavalry charges by Side A; B sat there and took it on the chin until A was finished. At that point, B declared countercharges with his own cavalry against A's charging units. While B could not initiate his own charges, he could attempt to cut off A's charging cavalry from making their desired contacts. To countercharge, a B unit merely had to pass a morale test; if it did so, it and the A unit it was intercepting were both placed at the half-way point of A's charging distance. If B did not designate a countercharging unit, then A's charging unit was simply placed into contact with its target. All contacts for this Phase 1 were immediately resolved; the winning unit held position, and the losing unit moved to the rear. What was unique about this phase was that there was virtually no distance limitation placed on any of the involved cavalry units. The ping-pong table is 5 feet across, and if you wanted a cavalry unit to charge, or countercharge, clear across the 5-foot dimension, so be it. 2. The second phase consisted of the 'regular' movement of the units on both sides. Units that had just taken part in the first phase could not move... they were pinned - perhaps a better word is 'riveted' - in the position in which the melee left them. They could form up, they could change face and formation, but they couldn't move. Which means that the active commander, during Phase 1, could take one of his cavalry units and, by charging an enemy unit, could essentially immobilize the enemy unit during the regular movement phase, i.e., take it out of the fight for the remainder of the half bound. In similar fashion, the non-active commander could choose not to countercharge with his units... leaving them free to move during the regular movement phases. Each side had a movement deck of 6 cards. There was a '3' card, three '4' cards, and one '5' card. In addition, the 6-card deck contained one which stated "End Of Phase" . The numbers indicated the number of actions permitted each unit on that side... draw a '3', for example, and all your units could advance for 3 actions (infantry went forward for 3-inches per action, cavalry for 5-inches). During this regular movement phase, no units could approach an enemy unit closer than 4 inches... closing to contact was reserved for the final, melee, phase. On this second phase, the sides diced for initiative again, and A, the winner, commenced to draw a card, followed by B. If either side produced an "End Of Phase" card, the phase was over and movement ceased. 3. Phase 3. Note that nothing has been said thus far about firing during the first and second phases. It was on this third phase that firing was simultaneous for both sides; it took place immediately after the movement phase was completed. Target units that were hit took a morale test. 4. The fourth and final phase was melee. Here, all units that had approached the enemy to within 4 inches could close. The melee procedure stole a page from the DBA/DBM/DBR manual. Here, the stands in combat were paired off; each tossed a 10-sided die, added its Combat Value to whatever modifiers were applicable, and the results were: a. If your total was greater than the opponent's, his stand was forced out of combat, and took no further part in the melee. b. If your total was double that of the opposing stand's, he was destroyed. As an example, an enemy unit (medium cavalry with Combat Value (CV) of 4) composed of 4 stands charged a mounted unit of mine... 2-stands of mounted Men-at-Arms (Combat Value (CV) of 6). Since the enemy unit was greater than mine by 2-stands, it got a bonus. For the first 2 rounds, i.e., comparisons, it got a 'plus 1'. Thus for every stand greater than the enemy, a unit got a bonus for that number of comparisons. In other words, if you had 4 more stands than the enemy, you'd get a 'plus 1' bonus for the first 4 rounds. In our melee, on the first round, my Men At Arms stand tossed a 7. It had a 6 for its CV, plus 7 for the dice throw, or a total of 13. The opposing stand tossed a 3. It had a 4 for the CV, plus 3 for the dice throw, plus a 1 for bonus (accruing because it outnumbered my unit); hence its total was 8. The result of 13-to-8 in my favor indicated that the enemy stand was out of the combat. My winning stand fought on. But not for long. Two rotten die rolls later, and my Men At Arms stands were both out of the combat; the medium cavalry had won. Note a couple of things about the above procedure. First, since on every round, a stand from one side or the other is forced out of combat, the winner is declared when only one side has stands remaining in combat. Second, the above procedure is really closer to the SWORD AND FLAME melee resolution system, rather than the DBA/DBM/DBR. In DBA/DBM/DBR, there are no 'units' as such... each stand is an entity unto itself (although I must admit that DBR makes a wee bit of an exception here). Combat, under these rules, always consists of a single one-stand-unit pitted against another one-stand-unit. With no multi-stand group-structure within a force, what happens to a neighboring stand (wipe-out, fall back, etc.) is of absolutely no interest to the folks on any other stand, hence the stands in a force, each an independent entity, keep coming forward time and time again, in truly historically accurate fashion, without looking to either side. DBA/DBM/DBR thus presents the zenith of absolute realism on the gaming table. SWORD AND FLAME, and the procedure I described above, mandates that entire units, i.e., a coherent group of several stands, enter into combat, and will win, or lose, as a group. Now I must admit, as I review DBA/DBM/DBR and their superbly accurate view of history, I oftentimes think to myself: "Am I missing something here? In espousing the role of 'unit/group dynamics', have I gone off the deep end? Perhaps the simple fact is that there were no units in battle, until WRG invented the concept in its Napoleonic rules set?" It's hard to calculate the number of hours of lost sleep I've devoted to the subject. A second game caused us to change the rules somewhat. In my description of the second phase of the sequence, the movement phase, it turned out there was too much movement... units kept zipping around the field in what seemed an endless manner, all wafting for the sequence card termed "End of Phase", so that the firing could begin. And so back we went to 'regular' movement procedures. In this second affair, Fred Haub and I attacked Castle Figlia. We outnumbered the defenders, but our troops were lesser valued. Which meant that in the comparison rounds in melee, the odds were against us. One wall section of Castle Figlia was rather smashed; nothing but rubble remained. But in the midst of the rubble was placed a bombard, which reached out to 40 inches. Fred and I were determined to capture the bombard and destroy itt. Bombard crews didn't engage in combat. they fired and then stood back, calling on a nearby unit (within 4 inches) to protect them. If the protecting unit was successful, the crewmen continued to man their gun, if unsuccessful, the gun was deemed destroyed and the gunners never seen again. The first unit attempting to clamber across the rubble was, of course, the Nekkid Lady Brigade. A toss of 70 or less on percentage dice was required to cross the rough terrain, and for two turns the nekkid lady and her cohorts were stuck in the rubble... they didn't move.... which gave the bombard crew two more chances to inflict casualties on them. But finally, the Nekkid Lady Brigade got moving, and charged into the crew. Who, of course, didn't stay for the proceedings, but let a nearby armored unit fight for their honor. Alas! The Nekkid Lady Brigade couldn't hack it... they were thrown back. And so were two other units that managed to cross the rubble. The bombard remained intact despite everything we could do. Although we couldn't dislodge the bombard, we did eke out a win under the victory conditions given for the contest. Each side started with 100 Victory Points (VP), and this total was reduced every time a 'bad thing' happened: (a). For failing a morale test, subtract the Combat Value of the unit. (b). If a unit lost a melee, subtract twice the Combat Value. (c). If a unit was destroyed, subtract three times the Combat Value. General Figlia, in defending his castle, had, time and time again, made good use of one of his heavy cavalry units, with a Combat Value (CV) of 7 points per stand . Every time we approached the castle walls, out would charge the heavy cavalry and drive us back. But each time, on its data sheet, the cavalry unit would get a wee bit weaker and weaker. And finally... disaster! The heavy cavalry lost a melee and was wiped out! In the above listing of VP deductions, the following happened: Under (b) above, deduct twice the CV, 2 x 7, or 14 points, for losing the melee Under (c) above, deduct thrice the CV, 3 x 7, or 21 points, for the unit's destruction In one fell swoop, 35 VP were lost; this, coupled with other losses, took the remaining Figlian VP total down to about 25 points. When an opponent's VP total gets low enough, a side may challenge the opposition, who then must toss percentage dice below his current VP total. If he doesn't, one of his units flees the field. And so Fred Haub and I took full advantage of the VP rule; once each half-bound, we challenged the opposition, chuckling each time one of the Figlian units fled, with the Foglian dice throw failing to come in below his current VP total. Historical note: I should note that, despite my constant references to the 'Nekked Lady Brigade', its 'real' designation was the Vinnitsa Foot, 6-stands strong. We all know, especially the history-sated lovers of WRG/DBM/DBR, that the Vinnitsa Foot played an important role in the battle of Testosterone, 1459, when King Wlechsa invaded northern Italy with his Lithuanian army. Back to PW Review July 1996 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 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