Many years ago when I was a wee lad in High School, and a brand spanking new member of PW, I experienced a phenomena that I rarely feel nowadays; ENERGY. I decided to build a 25mm town wall to stretch 8 feet and consist of wall sections, towers, and a gate. Then I built it! After that, I built a siege tower, and another siege tower, a battering ram, a palisade wall for the besiegers, tents for a camp, and ladders and miscellaneous equipment. Cecil B. DeMille would have been impressed. I'm impressed wondering where I got the patience! The name for the game came from, who else, Walter Simon, when I hosted the game back around 1980 (this is an oldie and so am I). I set up the game again at the December '96 meeting, and it kept 8 guys busy and happy. I gave the attackers 3 to 2 odds in troop numbers, which turned out to be more than enough. We used my old Minifig 25mm Normans/Saxons and Terry Sirk's old Minifig 25mm Alexander Nevskyites. The attackers started about two moves from the wall. Movement was eight inches for light troops and six inches for medium and heavy. The sequence was the classic, old fashioned, you go/I go. You either moved your figure or fired him, not both. The attackers charged up to the base of the wall, ladders in hand or pushing siege towers. They took a hail of fire coming in. Firing rules used the "five men" rule. Five figures fire together at the same approximate target, and roll 1D10. A result of 1 through 4 is one dead man, and a 5 through 8 is two dead men. The dead man "owner" chooses the first figure to die and the firing player chooses the second. This way all the best or worst troops aren't killed off first. Also subtract 1 from the die roll if the target is heavy infantry, and subtract 2 if under cover. Morale was also done using the "five men" rule. For each casualty, four other living figures next to the dead man are included in the morale check. The base morale is 100 less 20 for every figure less than five. So, if one figure was killed, four men would check with an 80%. If one figure was killed but there were only three others nearby, then the three would check with a 60%. If a group failed morale, they would fall back twelve inches and automatically recover. This gave the attackers a chance to get onto the wall and the defenders a chance to surge back. Up went the ladders. Down came the ramps on the siege towers. The big fight was on. For melee, troops were classified as: Heavy Medium Light Peasant Each fight was figure on figure and employed a comparative die throw, like DBA. Both sides threw 1d10 and compared the result. The higher number was the winner and the loser had to retreat twelve inches. If the winner's number was twice that of the loser or more, the loser was killed. The troop classes above were used to modify the die roll. For each class above the enemy, a +1 was added to the die roll. Therefore, if the attacker is a heavy infantryman and the defender is a peasant, the attacker will add +3 to his die toss. This factors in better armor, weapons, and training into the melee. Remember, these rules are purposely simple to allow for a fast playing, big game with lots of figures. There are a few extra rules. Defenders can fire flaming arrows at the towers and rams. For this, each figure rolls independently, and if a 1 is rolled, a fire is started. Eight fires destroys a tower. The troops in the tower can attempt to put out the fire, but they must also roll a 1. So fires are difficult to start and difficult to put out. The battering ram rolls 1d10 per turn. The first two turns, it will smash a hole in the wall with a roll of 1. After that, a +1 is added for each successive turn, so by turn five they are looking for a 4 or better. And those are the rules. Simple and to the point. The results of the game were that the attackers, after taking heavy initial loses, took the wall and won the game. The game lasted about three hours and took about thirty minutes to clean up. Everyone was happy, so I guess I'll be hosting the Great Wall of Haub again this coming December '97. Back to PW Review January 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 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