In early March, HMGS held its COLD WARS convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A successful sell-out. Many, many dealers, and many, many gamers for the three day affair. The registration rates were $8 for HMGS members, and $10 for non-members. The program booklet was nicely done... Iistings were by game eras for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, instead of all being mashed together for a single day. The program listed 245 games; some were repeats, of course, but 245 is still quite a handful I played in only two games during the weekend. The last was on Sunday, shortly before I left for home. I was wandering around the gaming area, when someone said: "Wanna play?" This fella was putting on a game using BATTLE STORM rules, Ral Partha's answer to WARHAMMER 40,000. WARHAMMER has nothing to worry about. As the game host was describing the rules, Rich Hasenaeur, of FIRE AND FURY fame, appeared and volunteered to join in. Rich's force consisted of four 25mm units: 3 were 'people' units, and the fourth was a 4-headed Hydra. My force, also of 4 units, had a Gryphon, 2 units of archers and one of mounted knights. Talk about dice-crazy... every die in the book was in play... 4-sided, 6-sided, 8-sided, 10-sided, 12-sided, 20-sided, even 30-sided (which I had never seen before). This unit struck by tossing three 6-sided dice, plus one 10-sided die... that unit struck by tossing four 4-sided dice plus a single 6-sided... the target unit had savings throws of three 4-sided dice plus an 8-sided... and so on and so on About the second turn in the game, Rich's Hydra had eaten my Gryphon, and both Rich and I were yawning severely. I have to hand it to the host... he had memorized every parameter required to play the game. But even so... BATTLE STORM is not on my list of favorite sets of rules. There were many WW II games, both micro-armor and 15mm armor; these games seemed to far outnumber those in other eras. Most of 'em used home rules sets... there were several COMMAND DECISION scenarios, I saw one SPEARHEAD game (two were listed), and, surprisingly, I saw only one CROSS FIRE encounter. One interesting set-up I noticed was for COMMAND DECISION 3 (CD 3). Here, there were 5 American tanks on the field... that's all... 5 American tanks. No enemy tanks or infantry around. The players explained this was an experimental scenario for CD 3. The umpire ran the always hidden enemy forces, and the player commanded the 5 lonely American tanks. Another surprise... there were about six 54mm games at the convention... games in different eras. I watched one for a while... THE BATTLE OF CHATEAUGUAY, October 26, 1812. The Americans were invading Canada, and the Brits and Canadians combined forces to stop them. The host was Ross Macfarlane, who had described his rules in the COURIER. And I have to give Ross credit... he actually used casualty figures, placing a casualty on the field when a man was hit. I asked Ross... "Where's the chateau?., since there were no buildings on the table. He replied that Chateauguay was the name of the river on the field. This was a fairly slow game... all figures were single mounted... the American units had either 16 or 32 men in them, and pushing them across the table took a lot of time. Especially so, because the movement rates were small... infantry moved 6 inches plus the toss of a 6-sided die. Musket range extended out to 12 inches (this was long range, where only a toss of a d6" on a 6-sided die was a hit). If I were presenting the game, I would have doubled everything, movement and weapon range, just to get the game going. And the sequence wasn't conducive to fast play either... draw from the 52-card deck... a red card and the British commandeer designated one unit to move; draw a black card and American commander designated a unit. This was the ol' SWORD & FLAME sequence. Before moving a unit, you had to test its reaction... toss a 6-sided die, and a result of 3, 4, 5, 6 and the unit obeyed your orders. Toss a 1 or a 2 and the unit retreated. This set of rules was not, if you'll pardon my mixing metaphors, my ball of wax, and I moved on. Another 54mm game pitted the Germans versus the British (WW II), and bore the name of A BEER AND PRETZELS SKIRMISH.. Apparently, this was to indicate that here was a lighthearted, non-serious, fun, quicky game, available to all. Despite this initial disclaimer, I noted that the host had reams and reams of charts through which to dig, thus belying his 'beer and pretzels' approach. Hits on figures were registered by putting colored pipe cleaners on the figures. Yuch! In all, slow going. A note to the wise... whatever you do, guys, don't advertise your game as a "beer and pretzels" affair. Next door was something of interest. Columbia Games published the WAR OF 1812, a boxed boardgame set that uses blocks of wood to indicate unit strength. NAPOLEON was the original "block" game. Here, the boardgame map was set-up, and the block-tokens moved on it. When two tokens (armies) met, action was moved to a miniatures set-up. In the battle I saw, 4 small 15mm units on one side attacked a town. There appeared to be 6 stands per unit. The battle field was approximately 2 feet by 2 feet. I couldn't quite make it out, but I think the players were using NAPOLEONS BATTLES for their table-top effort. This looked like a neat aftemoon's campaign. I sat down to watch the tail end of a 25mm BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER game... the rules which I've been pummeling in the REVIEW. There were 3 players per side, and the game flowed smoothly, because the host knew all the rules, knew all the holes in the rules, and could instantly fill in the blanks when asked a question. For example, conceming the issue of simultaneous action. All units on the field have a card in the action deck, and a unit moves when is card is drawn. Each phase, 2 cards are drawn, so that 2 units may move, fire, etc. If the cards are for units on the same side, all is well, but if they're for opposing units, the rules are silent as to who goes first. The host answered this by saying that you simply look at the cards... the unit with the higher numbered card has priority. But that's not in the rules book. Priority numbers? What priority numbers? There's nothing about priority numbers on the cards in the action deck. One of the players was both a law enforcement officer, an ACW re-enactor, and a black powder devotee... he stated he'd like to change several things. One in particular concerned defensive fire during a charge to contact. Simply put, there is no defensive fire in the rules. If a unit's card appears, it charges into melee immediately. The re-enactor stated he thought a musket-bearing unit could load and fire rather rapidly before the attacking unit made contact. In the dealer's area, ROUNDHOUSE MINIATURES won my award for the clever idea of the week. The firm had an ACW diorama set up, showing its 25mm figures firing at each other. Five stands of Berdan's Sharpshooters were behind a wall, firing away. A line of smoke puffs was in front of the unit. The clever idea was that under the smoke puff placed in front of each stand, was a small light. The lights, powered by a battery, continually flickered on and off in random fashion, as Berdan's men poured it on the enemy. I was invited to participate in Dave Waxtel's 25mm THEY DIED FOR GLORY, his FrancoPrussian War rules set. I was all set to do so, when I noticed in the program bulletin, that Dave had advertised for 20 players, and that the game was to last for 6 hours. No! No! and No! I did watch for a while. Two thin French lines stationary, against a horde of advancing Prussians. The Prussian units (there were 14 of them... battalions?) were in mass column... it didn't look good for the French. I came back a half-hour later. The French were still in place, while the Prussian mass had moved some 2 feet forward, still short of contact. The Prussians had, however, pressed forward in the center, it was their flanks that were stationary. My flanks were not stationary...! moved off. I visited the DBM toumament area, observing Tom Elsworth's 15mm battle. Tom had flown across the Atlantic for the privilege of registering in the toumament. Tom's army was circa 1200 AD, some sort of medieval force. Opposing him was a force of Patrician Romans, circa 500 AD. This put the two armies only 700 years apart in time. This was all so perfectly historically accurate and proper, that the players just took it in their stride. To top off the matter, Tom pointed out to me that in his army, there were, or should have been, units called "hordes." Unfortunately, he had run out of "hordes," and in their place, he was using small stands of Goblins from his HORDES OF THE THINGS army. This substitution, too, seemed rather right and proper. In all, I came away with the feeling that my own distorted view of history on the table-top wasn't, perhaps, so distorted after all. DSSS DUTCHMAN, SPANIARD, SWITZER, SWEDE (DSSS) was used in a 15mm Thirty Years War scenario. About 27 units on each side, and this was slow going, for the players diced for each and every unit to see how many operations (actions) it received. On one side, a musket and pike unit consisted of 3 small stands... 2 musket, 1 pike, each stand about 3/4 of an inch square. The other side, however, for its musket and pike unit, used a single huge 3-inch by 3-inch stand, with all musketeers and pike mounted. A unit could receive a maximum of 3 actions... at a movement speed of 3 inches per action, the maximum movement forward was 9 inches. Musket range was 3 inches, artillery range was 12 inches. I note that in most games, the weapon range is restricted to its actual, historical range as reflected in the game scale. Here, for example, in DSSS, 3 inches appeared to be 100 yards, hence the muskets only reached to 3 inches. Simon's thoughts on table-top gamery are much different. For about all my 25mm and 15mm games, my musket ranges extend to 15, perhaps 20 inches, much further than their actual historical capability. The rationale here is that it's not so much the musket balls hitting the target that cause casualties, it's also the morale effect. on the men in the target unit, causing them to lose their aplomb under fire, and run off to safety. Whether a man is hit, or whether he runs, his unit strength is still decreased. And a secondary result caused by extending weapon effects way, way out, is that it speeds up the game. As I watched DSSS, units kept charging into contact, but melees were not fought instantaneously. Only afler both sides had moved all of their 27 units during the bound, did a melee resolution phase occur. In combat, certain modibers were added to a 10-sided die roll. I'm not too certain, but it looked like if you double your opponent's total, he routs; otherwise, a number of stands equal to the difference in the total scores was removed, or casualty caps placed on the involved units. The immediate problem to these tired old eyes was the use of casualty caps. More Yuch! Here we had a field of very nice looking 15mm troops, and all the guy could think of to indicate casualties was to place these horrible-looking black caps. over the heads of the troops. Definitely, a double Yuck! But to give credit where credit is due, I noted that, in all his pike units, the pikes were raised in the vertical position, not extending out horizontally. Brian Dewitt has an ECW army, and several of his pike units have the pikes held horizontally, and pJaying with these is torture. The pikes continually get in the way and are constantly breaking off. Back to DSSS. I abandoned my position table-side, and resumed a half-hour later. Gone were all the neat lines of troops... units were all over the place. I watched for another 10 minutes, and then I was off again. As I get older, my 'patience factor' (or, perhaps, my 'impatience factor') gets smaller and smaller in that I want games to move more quickly. If nothing seems to be happening on the table, I quickly lose interest. In the gaming area, there was a large scenario being prepared for what looked like the Dieppe commando raid in 20mm. Many single mounted hgures, and a large (perhaps 3-feet in length) model of a destroyer in the locks. There were several airplane games, with the aircrafl mounted on auto antennas, so that their heights could be adjusted. And there were several other aircraft games with planes simply mounted on a 6-inch stick... this, to me, was rather silly, since the game was essentially being played on a single 2dimensional plane, and the aircraft tokens could have been placed directly on the mapboard. One of the cleverest 3-D games concerned a bunch of frogmen, about 54mm in size, mounted on adjustable-height stands. This was hand-to-hand underwater combat, wherein the frogmen had to contend with, not only their opponents, but with a shark or two in the water. Another clever set-up concemed a 15mm armor game. Here, the host had set up an elevated platform, about 8 inches above the table, for his terrained playing field. This plafform was supported on 4 legs, and the 8-inch space underneath permitted the participants to park their spare armor tokens, their rules, their sodas, their pizas... it kept the actual playing area clear of clutter. A superior idea. Otto Schmidt presented his 12-inch 'hex game', with 25mm figures. Circa 1500, with Turks and Francs and Florentines versus Hapsburgs. I have never joined in a Schmidt game... there are always a 1,000 or so gamers table-side, having a roaring good time, and I'm just not a bigcrowd- man. Otto sent me his rules... his games are played rapidly, and his figure mountings are unique (a 25mm pike unit, for example, consists of stands each with 16 pikemen mounted on them). There are no 'casualties' as such... units simply go down in capability and effciency (I think there are 4 levels in all), until they're completely destroyed. Other 'mass games' in which I never participate are (a) the attack on the Alamo, and (b) about a million Zulus versus the British. By 'mass', I mean both the number of figures used, and the number of players surrounding the table. At COLD WARS, there was the ever-present Alamo attack, and the equally-as-ever-present Roarkes Drift Zulu game, each with 10,000 figures on the table, and with many, many, happy, dice-tossing. delirious, shouting gamers. Day of Battle I mentioned, at the start of this article, that I had actually played in two battles. The second was Chris Parker's DAY OF BAULE (DOB) encounter, a medieval affair in 25mm. Some years ago, Chris had authored another medieval set of rules, which I had written about in the REVIEW and been very favorable impressed. DOB is his up-to-date version of the earlier set, and I'm even more favorably impressed. I've got a copy of DOB, and intend to play a scenario or two at home, and describe the rules system. In particular, I like DOB's command-and-control system. In my army, for example, there were three 'divisions', each of 4 to 5 units. Each division commander has an eff'ciency rating, somewhere around 15 to 18. He also has a command number, perhaps 3 or 5. Toss a 20-sided die (the entire game is played only with 20-sided dice) and if you roll the leader's rating or below, he gets cards equal to his command number. If he misses his eff'ciency throw, he gets one less card. A card is essentially an action point, permitting a unit to move. In our game, our left flank commander got himself killed in battle, and, therefore, could draw no more cards for his command. Which meant that the other divisions had to 'feed' the dead commander's division, giving it cards from their own divisions... slowing down the entire side. At the request of one of the newer PW members, I lugged my entire stock of 15mm ECW figures to the March meeting. Down went the green terrain cloth, down went the trees and wooded sections, down went the towns, down went the little men, and we were ready to go. At the very start, I knew I was in trouble... for one, I had brought my collection of "proper" dice, i.e., 10-sided dice... and Marc said "We don't need them... I've got my 6-sided dice." For two, this turned out to be a 'casualty cap' game, wherein those black-cap abominations were to be set out on the heads of each poor little guy who took a bullet. Fortunately, I was spared the traumatic use of the casualty caps, for the simple reason that I didn't bring any. We kept a data sheet for each unit recording its hits. Marc was playtesting a set of ECW nules called FOR GOD, KING AND COUNTRY (GKC). He had a copy of the rules, the "beta test version.. In this computer age, all such test copies are "beta test"... indeed, all my own rules are "beta test", for they never get beyond the "beta" stage, so rapidly do they change. Marc had the "beta 5.1 version"... which meant that the copy he had was the fifth rewrite of the nules. I must mention that, at the end of the battle, I envisioned the "beta 100.1 version" before the rules would be ready for prime time. The game began slowly. Dice for each unit... to start a unit going forward, you had to toss a 6sided die such that the Turn Number plus your die roll was equal to, or less than, your rating. As I remember, I think my rating was -2. Thus, on the first turn, Turn #1, only a "1" would set one of my units going. My opponent was worse off... I think his rating was a "1", or, perhaps, it was a zero. Infantry moved 6 inches per tum, the side were about 30 inches apart, and in this do-nothing mode, it would take a long time to get the opposing forces to get within musket range (6 inches). Seeing the agony writ upon my countenance, Mark took pity on me: "Let's increase your rating to a 5." And he also increased my opponent's rating proportionately. The forces got within musket range and several units fired. So help me, I just couldn't follow the calculations. Depending upon range, a unit received 1-die-per-2-figures (close range), or it received 1-die-per-3 figures (medium range), or 1-die-per 4-figures (long range). Then Marc began to go down the list of firing modifiers... I forget what they were... I really didn't care... but the end result was that you took the dice allotted to the unit, tossed 'em, and divided the sum of all the dice by a number, called a divisor, to get the hits scored on the target. Most of the time, the number-divisor fumed out to be either "9" or "10". Yet, for each firing unit, every bound, we had to go through the litany of summing and subtracting modifiers to get the requisite "9" or "10". This repetitive series of calculations drove me bonkers. Why couldn't the author simply have settled for either a constant "9" or a constant "10"... but no, in the name of historical accuracy, he had to get the gamer to read off, turn after turn, modifier after modifier. And the same repetitive procedure was applicable to the melee calculations... toss a number of dice for the unit, and divide by the divisor. Too much for poor old Unca Wally. GKC is definitely not to be listed under my favorite sets of rules. Perhaps around beta version 67.9, but not much sooner. 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