Ali Akbar, noted troublemaker, is on the warpath again. The time is the 1850's, much before the zenith of the British empire, but we still have 13 native units charging in on the British positions... manned by Ghurkas, Sepoys, Highlanders, etc., a total of 8 British units. The units are in 25mm scale, all around 20 figures in size, all single mounted. The place is Bob and Cleo Liebl's house, and they're playtesting a scenario for presentation at the HISTORICON convention in late July. Of all the "units" on the table, the most impressive are those containing nothing but ladies... there must have been around 4 groups of the fairer sex. The ladies were crafted by OLD GLORY, and the sculpturing was perfect... I've never seen better. As an aside, if you want to give a gift or two to family and friends, purchase a pack from OLD GLORY with the ladies inside. The Liebls wanted to present a fairly simple set of rules for about 8 players at table-side, and their sequence was easy enough to remember: Side A move Side B fire Resolve melee Side B move Side A fire Resolve melee Nothing exciting about this time-tested alternate series of actions. When the active side moved into contact, the non-moving side was allowed a round of defensive before the melee was resolved. Throughout the game, we ran into only one anomaly concerning the sequence: a. Jim Butters' firearm-toting natives had approached the walls of a British position. By definition, the native units were all in 'open order', hence Jim's men were about an inch apart. b. When it came time for the British side to move, 3 Ghurkas dashed out of the position, went right through the 'open order' lines of Jim's native musketeers, and contacted a second unit, one without firearms, in back of the first. c. After the British move, it was time for the natives to fire, but since the Ghurkas had dashed right through the first unit, the men in this first unit weren't facing in the right direction and couldn't fire on the charging Ghurkas. d. Lottsa discussion followed. At first, Bob said there should have been 'pass through' fire, but I think this was voted down. Another thought was that the Ghurkas should never have been allowed to pass through the first unit. We'll find out at the convention as to which solution Bob and Cleo will adopt. I was in charge of 3 native groups (regiments? companies?), each around 20 men, all fighting for the British. On Turn #1, even before the huge regular native contingent hit the table, Bob said: "Toss a couple of 6-sided dice." I did... one die for each of my 3 units. The mounted native lancer unit got a "1"... immediate bad luck for the British... the lancers were instantly disloyal to the Crown, deciding to fight for Ali Akbar. Off they went. On the first turn, only a toss of "1" made a native unit desert the Brits and cross over to Ali's side. On Turn #2, a toss of "1" or "2" would do it. Turn 3 was a "1", "2' or "3"... and so on for every turn thereafter. The units were, therefore, inherently untrustworthy, and it was only a matter of time before they all deserted. My comment on the situation was that the first turn was way too soon to begin the 'desertion testing'. Perhaps around Turn #3, when the British positions were being pummeled on all sides, and the Brits would be looking to their erstwhile allies for support... then would be the time to see if the native units went "bad". On another note, to me, it looked as if Bob and Cleo had caught "PIQUET fever". The current rules set, PIQUET, employs a technique first seen in wargaming some 20 years ago in the CHAINMAIL rules. In this system, different types of units use different types of dice to fire, to melee. The Ali Akbar game followed the CHAINMAIL/PIQUET approach. For example, my lancers... that is, my ex-lancers... used a 10-sided die, while my other 2 infantry units used 8-sided dice. The British Highlander units used 12-sided dice, and the units that were composed solely of ladies all used 6-sided dice. I've mentioned before that I am no fan of the "groping for dice" system. It always leaves me confused as to which particular die I'm to pick up for my unit. And I am not the Lone Ranger. A couple of times during the game, the participants mixed up their dice, i.e., a 10-sider found its way into an assortment of 8-siders, and vice versa. I hate to tell tales out of school, but after one of Cleo's native units charged the British, and the melee was completed... many dice throws for both sides... Cleo suddenly exclaimed: "I think I was tossing the wrong type of dice!" But remember, you did not hear that here. If I had my druthers, I'd use only percentage dice, and the "groping for dice" system returned to CHAINMAIL limbo. But again, them's only my own druthers. What the use of the multi-dice system does do is to furnish a built-in probability table for the procedures of firing and melee. In the game, all units tossed their dice (one die per man - or woman - in the unit) , and hits were scored on a roll of "6" or more. The Highlanders, therefore, with their 12-sided dice, had a basic 58 percent chance to hit (seven possibilities, consisting of tosses of 6,7,8,9,10,11,12), while the ladies, using 6-sided dice, could only score on a toss of "6", a probability of 16 percent. Other modifiers changed these probabilities (hard cover, close or long range, etc.) a wee bit. Incidentally, the use of multiple dice and constant modifiers resulted in unequal percentage shifts: a. For example, if a Highlander fired at a target in soft cover, add "1" to the required die roll, so that instead of a "6" and higher, only a 7,8,9,10,11,12 would do it. Thus the Highlander percentage was reduced from 58 percent to 50 percent. b. My native units used 8-sided dice. Here, the basic hit percentage was 37 percent (tosses of 6,7,8). If the target was in soft cover, only a 7 or 8 would hit, giving a 25 percent chance of hit. c. So what we have is that the presence of soft cover reduces the Highlander percentage by 14 percent (a decrease of 8 points from 58 to 50), while the same soft cover reduces the native percentage by 32 percent (a decrease of 12 points from 37 to 25). Is this critical? Ya got me, buddy... but I thought I'd mention it. Back to Ali Akbar Now I must note that at the beginning of the game, the fella in charge of the British side, Terry (I didn't catch his last name), asked me if I had ever played a wargame before and if I knew how to play. I was caught between Scylla and Charybdis... should I stretch the truth, or should I admit my absolute and abominable ignorance of the entire hobby? I managed to hem and haw, and Terry took my answer for an affirmative one. Whew! On the table were 2 occupied British positions... one was a town, and the other a fort of sorts. When one of my native infantry units turned coat and went over to Ali Akbar, I ordered the unit to charge into the second position, the fort. And so right into the stone walls of the fort, BLAMMO!, charged my men. Lots of dice tossing and the deserters lost and ran off. A turn or so later, and Jim Butters' native troops approached the fort, and when he asked how he could effect an entrance into the fort, he was told that he could only do so via the 'door', the gate, in the wall. What door? What gate? No one had told me about a gate! My men had thrown themselves directly against, and butted heads with, the stone walls! Definitely not the way to win a battle! Bob took this in his stride, and merely commented that he wondered what my men had been doing. I hope that when the scenario is played at the convention, it's made clear to the native units that butting heads against a stone wall is a 'no no'. The game we played used some very pretty terrain boards, each 2 feet square. The table was 8 feet long (Bob indicated that at the convention, he'd add another 2-foot terrain board for a total length of 10 feet). The native units could advance at around 12 inches per turn. There was lots of firing, however, and after 4 turns, the natives had moved on only some 24 inches, i.e., they had held back to fire their jezails, a long-range weapon (I believe they reached out to 36 inches, while the British muskets went out to 18 inches). I think the game would have proceeded at a much more rapid pace if the initial native advance would have been done in "CROSS FIRE style"... patterned after Arty Conliffe's new skirmish rules. Here, you'd move up the natives a foot or so, and the Brits would pot away at them. Some of the natives would take a morale test. Most would pass, some would fail, and halt or fall back. Another advance of 12 inches, and more British fire. More morale tests, and more natives fall back. And so on. Soon the bulk of the native force would be within, say 15 inches of the British positions and the true nitty gritty of the battle could begin. Around Turn #5, the action picked up. Some of the native units were hitting the British positions and there were lots of hand-to-hand combats. Cleo's native troops were being zapped at a rapid pace, since they were directly charging into the Highlander-held positions, and the Highlander fire (a "6" or more on a 12-sided die) was devastating. Bob was called upon frequently to adjudicate the melees... i.e., who was fighting whom, and which figures could participate. It appeared that the front rank men of the attacking unit could be assigned to clobber the front rank men of the defending unit... a maximum of 4-men-on-1. In the first round of combat, men in the second rank just stood there, watching. For example, at one wall section of the British position, 3 Highlanders were defending... 2 men at the wall, and the third man just behind the others. Up rushed 5 of Bob's native fanatics, and Bob divided the first round combat into two separate melees... a 3-versus-1, and a 2-versus-1. The Brit in the back didn't participate, but stood there, shouting encouragement. I forget the exact modifiers, but I think the Highlanders got a +2 for the wall, and a +1 for having bayonets. Normally, a Highlander would score just by tossing his 12-sided die, but here, the modifiers indicated that he'd add +3 to his die roll. The natives got nothing for their fanaticism (Bob said their fanatic outlook on life only helped them in the morale roll), but they got a +1 for charging (into a wall?), and another plus for their friends, and another plus for becoming "impetuous" on the pre-melee morale check, so they, too, added around +3 to their die roll, when they tossed their 10-sided die. For each combat, each side tossed its die, added its modifiers, and the 12-sider was hard to beat. Both Scotsmen won, and the 5-man native force was thrown back. No wonder the third, back rank Highlander wasn't allowed to participate... he wasn't even needed! In looking at the melee and morale procedures, one thing I'd do differently (if I had my druthers) concerns the breakup of the various units into separate contingents. For example, the Highlander regiment was composed of 27 men. These 27 were assigned to different places within the British position... 5 men here, and 6 men over there, and 7 men at the wall, etc. Despite the scattering of the men in the unit, the various "pieces" into which the unit was broken all seemed to use the same reference for morale purposes. For example, when the Highlanders lost half their force (half of 27 men is 14), all the men in the unit would be given the same negative modifier for their morale tosses. So the 6 men at the north wall, knowing nothing about what was happening at the south wall, would still be affected by the fact that 4 Scotsmen at the south wall were killed. To my mind, there should have been some sort of 'isolated squad' rule, so that each of the small, separated components of the regiment were not affected by what they couldn't see or know. Early in the game, Cleo, seeing both sides tossing thousands of dice, brought up the possibility of compressing the dice tossing procedures. For example, instead of one die per man, have each 5-men toss a die. Bob rejected this... if you grouped the firers, he said, how would you know which particular man they were aiming at, and how many men fell down. He'd have to revamp all the firing and melee tables. I tend to agree with Bob. In essence, the intent of the scenario is to provide the players with lots of opportunities to toss dice. I've noted that, at the conventions, the guys who always seem to be enjoying themselves the most are the 'dice tossers'... those holding a huge handful of dice in the right hand, and a just-as-huge handful in the left hand. My only entry into the dice-tossing arena occurred many years ago, when Bob Hurst and I presented an ancients game in which the participants tossed some 20? 30? dice each for the firing and melee procedures. At that time, I noted that the players could have cared less about the nitty-gritty of the rules... their main interest was centered in the dice... the more dice, the better the rules. And there may be some truth to this. Look at all the Mexicans-against-the-Alamo games, the 1,000,000-Zulus-against-the-Brits games... if you can fight your way tableside, all you'll see are happy faces. In this sense, Bob and Cleo have a good thing going. The Ali Akbar scenario meets the qualifications of a good convention game. Back to PW Review July 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