In a previous article, I mentioned a 'modern' game I saw at HISTORICON, 'modern' in the sense of the Vietnamese War era. The table-top was gridded into 8" by 8" boxes, and the commanders fought for control of the map. Each commander, American and Vietnamese, was given a couple of cards at the beginning of the bound, and as play advanced, they could play their cards to their advantage. For example, if the Americans entered one of the squares held by the Vietnamese, the Viet commander could play a card stating: "You have encountered 2 companies of my troops.", or "You've entered a mine field; dice for casualties." Similarly, the American could call on his own cards: "Captured two caches of ammunition." or "Helicopter gun ship called in." In response to this last, the Viet commander could now play: "My troops have fired a SAM at your helicopter with 80% chance to hit." And so it went. The game host seemed to have the proceedings well balanced, in that the card play didn't overtake the miniatures portion of the game, but was kept well within the limits of competition between the players. Cards and More Cards were not only dealt to the players, but were also placed at random in the squares on the map. Some cards denoted 'bad things', some 'good'. For example, the Americans, upon entering a square within which was a card, could uncover A and read: "Captured 2 Vietnamese." But, here, too, there was a chance of uncovering something bad. I liked the mechanics of the game so well, that at HISTORICON, I stopped by Jerry Lannigan's table in the dealer's area and bought a quantity of 20mm modern-era figures, determined to present my own version of the set-up. - All the figures were eventually mounted on metal washers. Incidentally, I found out why people mount their figures on pennies... the cheapest washers I could find at the hardware store cost 2 cents each! In the Lannigan Brigade, I define a stand of 5 figures as a company. The stand is almost 2 inches square, and is made of magnetized material, making it easy to pop the washermounted men on and off as the company takes casualties. I've found that terming a stand a "company- sets a good median level for the game. There's no need to go down to basic levels such as tracking the assets of individual men, nor is there the need to keep records of the company ammunition supply. I also borrowed a ploy from Bruce MacFarlane's current modern-armor set of rules. The Lannigan Brigade has many, many prone men, firing automatic rifles, LMG's, etc. Instead of having these weapons fire on their own, they blend in to the company's firepower using the simple rule that if one (or more) of the five men on a stand are prone, then the stand is defined as a 'heavy weapons company' and gets a 'plus' in firepower. First Test In our first test game, Fred Haub and I opposed each other. Note that this differed from my original concept, which was to present a one-sided solo game, with everyone on one side, essentially playing against the random cards which seeded the field. The field we used was a gridded maps of random sized areas, on which the areas were drawn so that they could comfortably hold some four stands. The stacking limit per side was two company stands, and the requirement to hold four stands arose from the possibility of encountering two additional enemy stands in the same area. The sequence was the alternate you go/I go affair. Each side was given several cards, and could use them defensively, against the active player. Each card contained a 'bad thing', an unhappy event for the targeted unit. The cards were not permitted to be used by the active player. Thus if I was the active player, and I moved a company of troops into an area, Fred could play one of his defensive cards, such as "Mine field! Dice for casualties." Many of the cards stated items such as: "Encounter two enemy companies. 80 percent chance they fire first." Here, therefore, there was a chance of an ambush. In all. there were over 40 cards in the deck. Everything from "Helicopter gunship appears" to "Mortar barrage falls" to "One company panics and retreats two areas". We tried the game for about an hour, trying to assess a sense of balance between the cards being played and the actions of the active player's troops. If, for example, every time the active player's units advanced, they were swamped with enemy cards, the game would deteriorate into a simple card-fest, instead of remaining a table-top tactical operation. I wasn't really satisfied with the sequence which permitted the cards to be played only by the inactive player. It seemed to me that the active player, as his troops advanced across the field, should also have a chance to play some of cards to assist his attack. This would permit one side to play a card to counter a card as used in the original game at HISTORICON, i.e., if the defense's card stated "Helicopter gunship arrives", the active side could play "SAM missile fired 80 percent chance to destroy helicopter." In our second game, we set up the scenario as I had originally envisaged... Fred and I were on one side, and the cards were on the other... a true solo game. We each were given 7 company stands, and our orders were to sweep up-field as fast as possible. The 40 cards were then laid out on the map, one card per area, and off we went. It was noted that on several cards, there was an annotation similar to: "One company of reinforcements appears", and if this card was revealed, the additional company would join our ranks. As we proceeded up the field, an assessment of our risk was the number of cards we purposely uncovered. In other words, our units had two choices: (a) they could advance in a risk-free fashion into areas in which no cards had been placed, or (b) they could enter an area in which a card existed, reveal the card, and take the consequences. Most of the time, the 'consequences' were bad... but occasionally, something good occurred: "Captured an enemy general", or "Discovered an arms cache", or as indicated above, "Reinforcements arrive". Since we never knew ahead of time whether the results would be bad or not, the total number of cards we uncovered were part of our victory conditions. Also used in the assessment of victory was a casualty count of the enemy. This, too, was a function of the number of cards uncovered, for if your troops took the easy way out, and simply walked up the field through-uncarded' areas, you'd never encounter the enemy, hence never have a chance to inflict casualties. Sequence The sequence was basic: (a) We'd first move our company stands into adjacent areas on the map, and if a card was in the area, reveal its contents. If required, enemy troops would be placed in the area and a fire fight resolved. (b) At the end of the fire fight, each side took a morale test; an enemy unit that failed was removed from the field, while if one of our own companies failed, it would retreat several areas. If both sides passed, the fire-fight continued into the next bound. (c) On occasion, our troops would move into an area in which there was an existing firefight (neither unit in the previous turn had failed a morale test),and so they'd join in the battle. At the end of the battle, Fred had captured 23 cards; I had over-run 19. He also uncovered, as part of his booty, about 4 reinforcement companies, which added to his ability to spread out and reveal even more cards... I think that in the next run-through, we'll give the players a couple of cards with which they can counter the cards they find on the field. There was too much one-sidedness here. The firing procedures looked at the number men on the firing company stand. Add the number of men firing to a 10-sided die... a total of 11 or more resulted in a casualty. Note that a 5-man company can knock off only one target figure. I mentioned before that prone men indicated a heavy weapons capability... this added 'plus 1' to the company's total. There is always a tendency to draft a fairly simply set of boardgame rules and then, as the players' inputs come in, graft on all sorts of grunge and detail to please everyone... and with a modern game, there's no lack of grunge to overload the system. In the past couple of weeks, I've been exposed to Sam Mustafa's BATTLE GROUP, Arti Conliffe's SPEAR HEAD, and Rich Hasenaeur's BATTLE GROUND. I can assure you, there's more than enough grunge to go around. Back to PW Review September 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