In the Mesopotamian Valley, near the great Platitude Rift, around the year 1300 BC, was fought one of the most critical of all historical baffles. We re-created this event on the ping-pong table, and the men in charge were, first, Tony Figlia as the leader of the Kingdom of Hisn, and Bob Hurst, commanding the troops of the Kingdom of Yurs. As I noted to Bob at the beginning of the battle, "These men are Yurs, and the others are Hisn." Enough said. 25mm troops were used, my own figures, all based on 2-inch-squares to my own demanding specifications. The field consisted of a table-size layout of 2-inch-squares, hence each stand nicely fitted within the gridded terrain. Each side had three divisions of troops, about 15 stands per division. Not a large layout, and not-too-many troops to push around. The types of troops were nine in number, and each had its own Combat Value (CV): Elephants Heavy Cavalry Medium Cavalry Light Cavalry Horse Archers Heavy Infantry Medium Infantry Light Infantry Foot Archers CV= 7 6 4 3 2 5 4 3 2 At the start, each division had, according to the above table, exactly 45 CV. The victory conditions stated that Men a division lost 18 CV (40 percent of its strength), its remaining troops would flee the field. Total victory would be achieved when two enemy divisions fled. General Bob's center division scored first; around Turn 6, the Figlia center disappeared, having lost over 18 CV of troop stands. I should note that stands were eliminated in an unusual way... not for us was the typical "bash the enemy and wipe him out" procedure. Before I explain this, let me outline the sequence. The sequence consisted of four main phases per half-bound: 1. First, the active side moved. All units were given 4 Movement Points (MP). Movement from square to square cost one MP. Turning within a square cost one MP. Hence movement on the gridded field was fairly restricted. 2 Second, all cavalry units on the non-active side were given two MP. This permitted them the opportunity to evade, if the active side's units - during the first phase - had closed to contact. 3 Third, the non-active side's missile units fired. 4. Fourth, melee was resolved between the units remaining in contact. Note that when a side was active, all of its troops moved equal distances on Phase 1. It was on the second half of the bound, Men the side was non-active, on Phase 2, that the cavalry was given its capability of moving an additional increment.. Phases 3 and 4 were casualty-producing phases. For example, on the firing phase, foot archers could reach out some 10-squares. Their basic probability of hit (POH) was 60 percent, and each range-square reduced the POH by 5 percent. If a hit was scored on the target stand by the firing unit, the side causing the casualty was given a marker termed an Impact Marker (IM) , a marker earned for producing an impact on the enemy. The target stand stood there... no morale test, no fall back, no decrease in combat value, no reaction... nothing. The same occurred in the melee phase, as opposing units struck at one another. Each side earned IM's for causing impacts on the opposition. What was happening, therefore, during the firing and melee phases, was that both sides were accumulating IM's. As the turns progressed and its IM supply built up, a side could, on its active movement phase, Phase 1, decide to strike out. Just prior to moving its units, it could select a number of IM's, point to the opposition, and demand that it remove a certain type of troop stand. For example, according to the table of Combat Values given above, 6 IM's could be used to 'kill' a heavy cavalry stand. Or 7 IM's could be used to permanently remove an elephant stand. And so on. Obviously, the weaker stands (foot archers. and horse archers at 2 CV, etc.) were easy targets, but it didn't pay to focus on the weak links; since one had to destroy 18 CV of an enemy division, the higher value stands were the ones to eliminate. Use of the IM's was the only way in Mich stands 'died'. In melee, for example, when a side lost an encounter, the losing stands were not deemed destroyed, but they'd be whisked off the field, and temporarily placed in a rally zone, from which they could be recovered. I commanded the left flank division of Yurs, fighting most bravely under General Bob. On Turn 7, my division received reinforcements... these poured out of the rally zone, and consisted of a medium cavalry stand, plus two light cavalry stands. The manner in which they arrived was as follows: First, a stand that lost an encounter in melee was placed in Rally Zone #1. On the next turn, there was a 60 percent chance that it made its way to Rally Zone #2. If it failed the test, it remained in Rally Zone #1, and the opposing side earned an IM. Second, when a side became the active side, then just before it moved all its troops, then those stands which were in Rally Zone #2. i.e., had successfully passed the test last turn, were placed on the field. And so my reinforcements arrived, but alas!... one turn later, the opposition chose to focus on my division. and used its IM's to remove enough stands so that my entire division had reached its critical point, the 18 CV loss point, and the entire wing left the field, reinforcements and all. Thus at this point in time, each side had lost one division, and the battle would be won by the side which first eliminated the next enemy division. It was up to General Bob... he had to earn sufficient IM's to eliminate the division opposing him. Which he did... his archers fired, his stands were victorious in melee, his IM's piled up, and POOF! off went the enemy division. The Kingdom of Yurs was victorious. Hisn wasn't. I should note that the Kingdom of Hisn came in second because of a disastrous series of dice tosses one or two turns before. Generals Figlia and Haub, the Hisn boys, had accumulated a large number of IM's. And when it came time to allocate the IM's for elimination of enemy stands, they decided to chintz... and chintzing will getcha, every time... For example, from the Combat Value chart, 6 IM's are required to destroy one stand of heavy cavalry. Instead of using a full 6 IM's to knock off our heavy cavalry, they tried to 'stretch' their IM's and use only 5. Instead of 100 percent chance, therefore, they thus had 5/6, or 83 percent chance to destroy one stand. They tossed the dice... and a 93 appeared! Which meant that the 5 IM's were discarded, and we kept our heavy cavalry. Not content with this omen, the Hisn boys tried it again... and again they failed. They didn't not lam nothin'... tossin' away about 10 IM's, which meant the difference between victory and defeat. Is there a moral here??? Ask the Hisn boys about the merits of chintzing... Back to PW Review June 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