The time is 1776, and the British Commander thinks it's about time to end all this revolutionary foolishness. He's massed some 4 brigades, each of 2 regiments, and he's about to march on Philadelphia, jail all the troublemakers, capture the Liberty Bell, melt it down, and cast little bronze sculptures to sell in London at bring-and-buy affairs at a vast profit. There are some five small towns on the table between the Brits and Philadelphia, and located in and around these towns are 4 American brigades, each of 2 regiments, plus 3 unattached regiments, which answer to no one, but are free to roam o'er hill and dale as they wish. The battle thus pits 8 British regiments against 11 American regiments. Some notes preceding my description of what occurred in the battle. First of all, this was a solo game. I was looking for a way to kill about 2, a maximum of 3, hours on a Sunday. Nothing mind-bending, nothing complex. And so I laid out on the ping-pong table my huge, green, vinyl tablecloth with 2-inch squares on it. Next, the towns... each town occupied an area 4" by 6", six squares in all. Then some woods and a couple of hills. Next, the figures, my collection of ARW 35mm men... I've spoken of these warriors before... they are mounted singly, most of 'em have no discernible faces, their paint-jobs are pitiful, but, regardless, they still fight fiercely. The week before, I had tried out the basics of a combat system for what I term 'an afternoon's campaign'. There would be strategical movement on an area map, and when two opposing commanders encountered each other in the same area, we'd set up and fight a quickie tactical battle. I use the term "quickie", because I didn't want the tactical encounters to delay for too long the strategic portion and movement of the campaign. After the Americans were set up in their defensive positions, on came the Brits. Each 35mm figure was placed in his own 2-inch square, and members of the same regiment had to remain adjacent to one another. The 2 regiments in a brigade could be separated by a couple of boxes. I speak of 'regiments' and 'brigades', but that's only to give a little pizzazz to the battle description. A regiment, for example, was composed of 5 men, 5 figures, hence looking at the table with all these individual men marching forward, you, in effect, were looking at a table-wide skirmish encounter. With a force of 8 regiments, each of 5 men, the total number of British tokens to be pushed across the table was 40 men. Each side had a movement deck, containing cards on which were annotated numbers from 3 to 6. When the Brits appeared, they drew a "5", hence five of their regiments could move. Note that since the Brits had 8 regiments, plus one battery, they could never move all their people at once. The Americans were in a worse predicament, for they had a total of 11 regiments, hence if they drew a "6", they'd only be able to move about half their force. In truth, however, the Americans really didn't suffer that much, since they were holding their positions and playing defensively. If the number of regiments on a side was "N" (8 for the Brits and 11 for the Americans), the number of action cards in each side's deck was "N+1". The "N+1" came about because I added one card to each deck, on which was stated "Recycle". If this card was drawn, the side reshuffled its deck. These movement decks were not only vital to the movement procedure, but to victory itself. a. Each time a unit lost a melee or failed a morale test, one card was taken from its deck. Thus, as the game progressed, the number of cards in each side's deck decreased. When a side had only two remaining cards... then POOF!... by definition, it had lost the battle, and we could go on to bigger and better things. b. When a side drew a card indicating how many units it could move, it had the option of "reserving" one point. After a side moved, a fire phase followed. If the side moved the number of units indicated on the card, firing was simultaneous, all units on both sides fired. If, however, a side "reserved" one point, then only that side fired. Thus if you drew a "5", and moved only 4 units, your own men could fire, but the enemy couldn't. How far can you move? Dice for it... a percentage dice toss of under 70, and you could move your units 4 squares. If you failed the toss, the units could move only 3 squares. On the middle of the field was the town of Cervex, occupied by the American 1st Regiment. The 1st was well named, for it was the first to flee. I can't blame the 1st too much, for (a) it was one of the American unattached units, hence had no support, and (b) in contrast to the other 5-man regiments, the 1st had only 4 men. Up marched the British and fired. Both in firing and melee, I decided to use the 'Deadly Divisor' (DD) method. The SYW rules, AGE OF REASON, uses this method. At the COLD WARS convention in early March, I had observed a game which employed a similar procedure. A week before I fought this battle, I had worked out my own DD method. And surprisingly, at the March PW meeting, the ECW game in which I participated, used it also. For some reason, the air was permeated with the DD method. In AGE OF REASON, when a unit fires, you figure out, using the appropriate modifiers, etc., the number of 6-sided dice to be tossed by the unit. Then you toss all your dice, divide the total by "6", and that's the number of hits inflicted on the target unit. Why AGE OF REASON uses a divisor of "6"... I don't know, except that it presents an acceptable level of casualties. In the ECW game at the PW meeting, the author took a different approach. His Deadly Divisor (DD) wasn't constant... via a series of tables, he figured out a different divisor for each situation. He used 10-sided dice, tossed a handful, and it turned out that his divisors usually came out to "9" or "10". Three Step Approach In my ARW battle, I used a 3-step approach: a. Every man firing yielded 50 Fire Points, hence in each 5-man regiment, 250 Fire Points were produced. This was essentially a constant. b. I assumed that British volley fire was more effective than American fire. Obviously, an issue about which to argue, but due to this assumption, I gave the British a DD of "3", and the Americans a DD of "5". c. For the British, divide their 250 Fire Points by their divisor of 3, and for the Americans, divide by 5. If you round up, this gives the Brits 90 Combat Impacts, and Americans 50 Combat Impacts. d. All the above is fairly quick and deterministic... there's no thinking nor randomness involved. Here's where we toss in the random parameter. We use percentage dice, and use the following chart: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- No effect Combat Impact % -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unit crosses off 1 box on its data sheet ½ Combat Impact % -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unit crosses off 3 boxes on its data sheet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thus if the Americans fired, and tossed below half their percentage (half of 50 is 25), say, 17, on their dice, they'd score 3 hits on the target. When the British charged the American 1st defending Cervex, the melee procedure closely tracked that of the fire procedure. Again, each man in the regiment generated 50 Fire Points, giving a 5-man regiment a total of 250 Fire Points. This time, in melee, however, I reversed the Deadly Divisors. Note that a lower DD, when divided into the regimental Fire Points, produces a higher number of Combat Impact points. And so, here, the DD for the Brits was a "5", whereas for the Americans, it was a "3". Summarizing the table for both sides: Side When firing In melee British DD = 3 DD = 5 American DD = 5 DD = 3 Why did I give the Americans a greater combat effectiveness? Perhaps because they were fighting for liberty, for freedom, and for defending the Liberty Bell. Besides, reversing the DD's evened out the game. In the first melee of the battle, the British 131st Regiment assaulted Cervex, closing with the American 1st. Each unit accumulated its Fire Points, used its DD to obtain its percentage, tossed percentage dice, and the 131st (tossing low) scored 3 Combat Impacts on the 1st, while the 1st (tossing high) failed to score at all. Three boxes were crossed out on the 1st's data sheet. We had gone through the casualty determination... now it was time to determine the winner, and see which unit was driven back. Here, a simple calculation was performed; the winner was the higher of: (10-sided die roll) x (Number of men in your unit + Number of hits on the enemy) Remember that I said the American 1st was one of the unattached units in the defending force... it had only 4 men in the regiment. Hence the British multiplier was [5 men + 3 hits], while the American multiplier was [4 men + 0]. No surprise when the British won, and the 1st fell back 5 squares. Here, due to the British victory, one card was taken from the American movement deck. Once in Cervex, the Brits brought up reinforcements, but couldn't seem to fight their way out of the town. Since Cervex was only about 12 squares from Philadelphia (3 British moves), the Americans were determined to bottle up the Brits in Cervex, and prevent any more forward movement, hence they, too, brought up several regiments. Better Luck The Brits had better luck on their left flank, where they attacked the Town of Noburg. Both of the defending regiments, due to low British tosses on the fire phases, incurred several hits, took and failed a morale test, and fell back, permitting the Brits to enter and hold Noburg. As both units failed, 2 cards were taken from the American movement deck. When hit, a target unit took a morale test... the reference level for the British units was 85%, while for the Americans it was 80%. For every hit recorded on the unit's data sheet, a factor of "-2" was used to reduce the morale level. The additional 5 percentage points for the British regiments might not seem significant, but I remember only one British unit, the 131st, failing a test... it had taken 12 hits on its data sheet, hence subtracted 24 points from its reference morale level of 85%. The guiding rule was that if a unit reached the '10-hit' level, and if it then lost a subsequent melee, or failed a morale test, it would be removed from the battle. And so the once proud 131st exited the field. But kudos for the day were won by the American 401st. They were on Brown Hill, near Cervex, and were given orders to hold at all cost. A British victory at Cervex, coupled with one at Brown Hill, would essentially open the door to Philadelphia. I must note that the 401st was an unattached unit, with only 4 men. As the British 121st advanced up the hill, the 401st opened fire. With only 4 men in the ranks, the unit had a total of 4 x 50, or 200 Fire Points. Using their DD of 5, their Combat Impact percentage was 40. Despite this small percentage, the 401st caused both the British 121st and its sister regiment, the 7th, to fall back. Then, when the 121st and the 7th rallied and rushed up the hill, the 401st again poured it on, and defeated both of them in succession. I could hear little, tinny cries from the 401st of: "Brown Hill for the Americans! British go home!". I should mention one of the poorer British units, the 4th Royal Hormonial Artillery. The gunners of the 4th arrived rather late, set up their piece, and managed to fire twice in the battle. The gun fired with the effect of a 5-man British regiment... the difference was that the gun had range of 20 squares as opposed to musket range of 4 squares. The 4th failed to hit anything. But now we come to "Alas!' time. Alas! despite the excellent showing of the 401st on Brown Hill, the Americans were slowly crumbling. A look at the number of cards in the two opposing movement decks shows an ever increasing deterioration of the American army as the Brits, more and more, came into control of the battlefield. Turn Number Number of British Cards Number of American Cards #1 9 12 #4 7 6 #6 6 4 #8 6 2 And so it was on Turn #8 that the American army pulled back and acknowledged defeat. The Liberty Bell was in enemy hands! Back to PW Review March 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