Lots of 'thank yous' to Scott Holder. Scott recently contributed the sum of $450 to the PW coffers. In his researches, he had taken, from an old REVIEW (circa 1984), a set of Seven Years War rules, modified 'em, modified 'em even more, then modified 'em again, interested Arty Conliffe (of TACTICA fame) in publishing them, and they're now in stock at WARGAMES, Johnson Hood's outlet. PATRIOTS AND LOYALISTS (PAL) is the name of Scott's rules for the American Revolution... they cost $20 and all devoted PW subscribers should order a copy. Just prior to publication, Scott was soliciting a name for his rules... I suggested what I thought was a superior name... "STICK IT IN KING GEORGE'S EAR!", but this was rejected. As compensation for the rejection, Scott mailed PW his check. Again, many thanks. Of interest is a statement by Scott in his introduction to his rules. He thanks PW and its members for its assistance in "formulating the original mechanics and concepts" of the rules, and then he states that we... PW, that is... "still play a wildly mutated form of the game" Hey, guys, wait a minute! Who's playing a "mutated form" of the game? We didn't I mutate' it... Holder was the prime 'mutator', certainly not us. In fact one could go so far as to term him a 'mutilator' rather than a 'mutator'. In any case, while he gets a lot of 'thank yous', he's certainly not getting his check back. Action in Unarmed Combat Apropos of nothing, but as a devotee of action movies, I have decided that there are two basic methods of unarmed combat... the Chuck Norris method and the Steven Seagal method. I shall explain both. Chuck Norris and the Bad Guy look at each other from about 15 feet apart. The Bad Guy thinks he's pretty safe... after all, he's 15 feet away... when WHOOM!, Chuck reaches out with his 20-foot-long legs, and kicks the Bad Guy twice in the head. Each kick is sufficient to fracture the Bad Guy's skull... but he just stands there and laughs. He doesn't realize that Chuck's legs and feet are not normal legs and feet... that they're each 20-feet-long and tipped in depleted uranium boots... And so Chuck reaches out again... WHOM... and twice more, he kicks the Bad Guy in the head. This time, the Bad Guy knows he's in trouble, but it's too late to retreat... the fight is over. Now we switch to the Steven Seagal style of unarmed combat. Here, instead of acting at a distance, as does Chuck Norris, Seagal quickly walks right up to the Bad Guy, until they're head to head, nose to nose, belly to belly. And here, too, the Bad Guy is laughing. But not for long. Seagal immediately unleashes a torrent, a whirlwind, a tornado, of amazingly fast super-blows at the Bad Guy. They are so fast, you can hardly record them on film. Any one of these blows would put me in the hospital for three months. As usual, the Bad Guy laughs... and this only provokes another tornado of blows from Seagal. No more laughter. I have assiduously studied these styles of combat, perched before the TV in my easy chair, a large platter of ice-cream on my lap... and so I am obviously an expert on the subject. I may even drop wargaming and open the Simon School For Unarmed Combat. In my ever-increasing old age, more and more do I become irritated by what I term a I non-review' of a set of rules... an article in which a writer purportedly looks at a set of rules, states that he's never played them, but that the author of the rules has obviously done a superb job, that the game will prove exceptional, and that everyone should rush out and buy a copy. Non-Review In perusing MAGWEB on the internet, I recently came across a type of non-review, but in this case, not only was it a non-review, but the article focused on what appeared to be a 'non-set' of rules. One of the almost-50 magazines featured by MAGWEB is a magazine called the AFTER ACTION REVIEW (AAR), and in the AAR issue dated January 1998, appeared a write-up of a set of rules called DESCENT. One of the first things to catch my eye in the DESCENT article was the statement: "The map was originally designed as an area movement map, but after playtesting it was determined that many players felt lost and needed the familiarity of a standard hex map." That seemed strange to me, for the very raison d'etre for the area map is to get away from the restrictive. nature of hex movement, and the limitation of the six hex-sides. The review of DESCENT doesn't mention the publisher, the price, the era covered by the rules, the scale, the size of the units... nada, nothing. But it does end up stating: "After playing several games, including two lengthy campaign games, I still have no idea exactly what this game is about." And then the final touch, at the end of the review, is the statement: "I would recommend this game to players who are comfortable making up their own rules where the original design is lacking." Why was the writer recommending anything? And what was he recommending? I get the feeling I missed something, somewhere along the way. Back to PW Review August 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 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