This is another in a series of articles on BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER (BAB), authored by Ivor Janci, a slick-covered, multi-color, glossy-paged set of rules for the American Civil War. I've set up a number of scenarios in an effort to become familiar with the rules... and each time I learn something new.
This time, it was my Confederate force of 2 squads (10 men each) against an equal number of Yankee squads commanded by Tom Elsworth. In previous set-ups, I had 'cheated' by not following the text's requirement that squads consist of 10 men. In my previous games, the squads had been composed of only 5 men each.
The book also lays out a couple of its own scenarios, each with about one hundred figures (10 squads) per side. For familiarization purposes, I didn't think it was necessary to fill the table with little people... I had previously set out forces in the order of 3 squads (5 men each) versus 4 squads (5 men each)... which gave us a game with a total of 35 figures on the field.
In this current game, however, the squads were up to strength at 10 men each. Each side had a commanding officer, and each squad was assigned a sergeant.
The battle was fought using my 54mm ACW figures; the rules mention using 25mm figures, but that's not mandatory... I like the look of the 54mm men.
After about 3 turns, the two sides were within short-range (20 inches) of one another. In moving up, we came across an anomaly concerning the crossing of rough terrain. Movement per squad requires the toss of two 10-sided dice... the sum is the distance the squad sergeant can move. Appropriate penalties are made for uphill movement, crossing a stream, encountering a fence, etc.
Movement?
After dicing for the squad's movement distance, the squad sergeant is moved first. He moves for the prescribed distance, and then the other squad members "... are placed anywhere within 6 inches of their squad leader...". Note use of the word "anywhere".
The text specifically states that terrain penalties are applied only against the squad leaders. Which means that even if the sergeant bumps up against a fence and is forced to halt, his men can still dash in front of him, since they're permitted to advance 6 inches in front of him. This means that the negative movement deductions for terrain don't really amount to much... they are swamped by the major governing factor, e.i., the movement dice toss.
In our game, one of Tom's squads charged one of mine, going into immediate contact. In normal movement, you can't move your men closer than 2 inches to the enemy... but if you give a charge order to the squad (officer must be within 6 inches), the men can dash into contact. Sergeants cannot issue charge orders, only company officers can.
And so Tom placed each of his Yanks in contact with one of mine. I've mentioned this before, that the rules require the attacking force to place his men, one-on-one, in contact. He can double-up if he's got more men than the defender.
What's screwy about this one-on-one set-up is that if the defenders have more men than the attackers, then the 'excess' defending troops cannot move into the melee, but, apparently, must stand and watch. Another puzzling rule looks at sergeants and officers...
- "During a melee, Squad Leaders and Company Officers may become engaged in melee. Company Officers may be attached to a squad for purposes of melee if they are under 6 inches away from a defending squad at the time of melee. "
The way I read the above, only defending sergeants and officers can participate in the combat. This doesn't make sense... and I'm probably reading the rule incorrectly, but, in any case, the text could be clearer.
Prior to Tom's Yankee charge, his squad took a morale test... it drew from a deck of cards which has such results as "Officer killed", or "Test to see if one or more men run", etc. Tom's squad passed, and then my defending squad took the test.
Card
I drew the "Officer killed" card.
This is not a good card to draw, since there's a modifier of "-4" if you're "out of command". In melee, each man tosses a 10-sided die... the high modified total wins, and his opponent is dead. With a modifier of "-4" to each of my dice tosses, losing this melee was practically guaranteed.
But now comes time to admit there was a wee bit of 'egg on my face'.. in fact, a whole lot of 'egg on my face'. In previous games, I had bemoaned the fact that although the rules state that an officer or a sergeant got a "special modifier" in melee, nowhere, I claimed, did the rules state what the bonus was.
I had been referencing pages 14 and 15, which were devoted to the melee procedures, and which outlined the combat rules, and which gave a table of melee modifiers. The table did not contain the 'special modifier' applicable to either the sergeant or the officer.
Tom, however, in thumbing through the rules book, stated: "Look at pages 24 and 25." These pages contained a general summary of all the charts applicable to the game. And sure enough, there was another melee modifier table, and this one specifically contained a "+1" for the sergeant and a "+2" for the officer.
I hate to take all the blame for missing the modifier, but one would think that that in a "revised and expanded edition"... implying there's been a previous publication... the pre-publication review would have caught the fact that the charts didn't match up.
But back to the melee. I promptly tossed the sergeant into the melee for his "+1", but the "-4" on all of my tosses for the dead officer did me in.
Thus far, in our BAB set-ups, I haven't included either artillery or cavalry... to date, the encounters have included only infantry.
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© Copyright 1997 Wally Simon
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