There are three of us old timers who meet each month... we visit the local buffet, and then return to my house for a few hours of gaming. Jim Butters, Cliff Sayr and I did this in late April, and upon returning to the house, Cliff treated us to a film he had taken while on active duty in the Navy. This was circa 1947... pre Korean War... Cliff had had the local video store take his film and record it on video tape. As a young Lt. j.g., he was stationed aboard a minesweeper (I think) assigned to convoy duty. Jim, Cliff and I had each served in the Navy, and while Cliff and Jim can speak intelligibly about Navy-things, my knowledge is quite restricted... as I have mentioned before, I learnt that a ship has two ends, one of them pointy, and that is the end that usually goes first. But after the film session, it was off to the gaming room for the Battle of the Titans. Yankee General James Tecumseh Sherman "Scorched Earth" Butters ('Scorch' to his friends), versus Clifford Jeb Steuart Beauregard Sayr ('Beau' to his intimates), heading the Confederate forces. The earth trembled to see the outcome of this match of titans. The rules with which we played evolved due to two reasons. a. First, at COLD WARS, in March, I had purchased a number of 54mm ACW Britains cavalry figures. I already had a collection of 54mm infantry, and for some time, had been looking for the cavalry-people. Now, at last, I had a full complement of forces. b. Second, another incident at COLD WARS set me to 'athinkin'... this was a remark made by Marc Mcguire, who hosts fantasy games (Princess Gogol vs Darth Vader and the like) at the conventions. As I was passing his table, I heard Marc say: "Wow! The Space Marines have suffered heavy casualties!" It was the term 'heavy casualties' that set me off. In the firing and melee procedures, let's forget, as best we can, about modifiers, and specific losses, and focus solely on the extent of casualties. And to this effect, I generated the following table: 01 to 33 : Heavy casualties 34 to 66 : Medium casualties 67 to 100 : Light casualties When a unit fired, one toss of the dice on the table above determined the 'extent' of casualties. I have 3 types of casualty figures for my ACW 54mm set. A low dice toss of 'heavy casualties' and a prone man was set beside the target unit. A medium dice toss for 'light casualties' and a kneeling man, holding his aching head, was placed with the unit. Lastly, a high toss of 'light casualties', and an off-balance wounded fellow, arms akimbo, went to the unit. Now, it's true that you can't completely forget about all modifiers, and so, if the target was in cover, you'd add +10 to the dice throw, causing the total to be increased. Note on the above table that low numbers produce 'bad things' to the enemy, hence by adding +10 to the dice for cover, the modified total would tend to increase toward the 'light casualty' region. The first thing that 'Scorch' Butters and 'Beau' Sayr did, as they reviewed their forces at tableside, was to select a value for each of two parameters: Control. This was the percentage chance that, when a unit fired, it immediately reloaded. It was also the parameter that governed the number of losses taken by a unit in fire and melee. Morale. When a unit incurred casualties due to enemy fire, it took a morale test to see if it held its ground, and this was the pertinent factor. This parameter also determined if, in melee, a unit would support a fellow unit. Each player was given 140 points to be divided between the two factors, and here are the values they chose: Selection Butters Sayr Control Level 70 100 Morale Level 70 40 It was immediately obvious that General 'Beau' Sayr was the more adventurous of the two combatants. My own thought was that Beau had made a dreadful mistake and overbalanced his parameters far too much toward the Control factor. True, a Control factor of 100 would guarantee that his units would always reload after firing, but a Morale Level of 40 would seem to guarantee that, most of the time, his units would run. Objective The objective of the battle was to gain control of the Brown Farm, situated in the center of the field. The forces on both sides were similar. Each had 2 brigades of infantry, and one of cavalry. The basic force component was the regiment, composed of 5 figures. A brigade contained 2 or 3 regiments, and so the sides each had a total of around 40 figures on the field. When an infantry regiment fired, it immediately took a 'reload weapons' test, based on its Control factor. You'll note that because of his choice of parameters, Beau's men always reloaded immediately, while Scorch's men only had 70 percent chance to do so. If a regiment had unloaded muskets, we placed a special figure with the unit, holding a vertical musket, to indicate its status. On the western side of the field, Beau's units advanced in column through the woods, and, unfortunately, failed to deploy in line before Scorch's troops were on them in hand-to-hand contact. In melee, the casualty table was the same as that given above for the firing procedures, hence the intent of both sides, when dicing, was to toss low, thus inflicting 'heavy casualties' on the opponent. I found that I had to include more modifiers to the melee dice throw than when firing... for example, a nearby support unit subtracted 10 points from the dice throw, and a cavalry attack subtracted another 10 points, and if you caught an opposing unit in column of march, you subtracted another 10 points, so on. This first dice toss was the 'casualty phase' of the melee. Depending upon the modified dice throw, the affected units were given their appropriate casualty figures, and then, via a second dice toss, it was decided which side actually won the combat. The outcome was decided by multiplying three factors: (a) first, the values of the casualties you had inflicted on the opposing unit, (b) second, the number of men in your unit, and (c) third, a 10-sided die toss. The high product won. Each casualty figure had a value: Prone man : 4 points Kneeling man : 2 points Wounded man : 1 point Scorch's Yankees easily defeated Beau's men in the woods, and Beau's troops fell back. Beau suffered another defeat in mid-field, as the Yankee cavalry contacted another of his units. In truth, things were not going well for the Confederacy. And when one of Scorch's infantry regiments took up its position in the Brown Farm, it looked like the war was just about over. But what was most interesting to me about the battle, was the fact that, despite the abnormally low morale level (40 percent) that Beau had selected for his side, most of his units seemed to pass their morale tests. Beau continually tossed low (below 40 percent) each time the Yanks fired on his men, and his units stood their ground. What Beau failed to do, however, was to toss equally as low during the melee procedures... low dice tosses in melee produced 'heavy casualties', and Beau didn't inflict as many casualties on the Yanks as they did on him. Another offshoot of Beau's choice of a low morale level for his side concerned the ability to bring up a support unit in melee. When called upon for support, a nearby unit (a) had to be within 10 inches of the melee, and (b) had to pass a morale test. Beau failed most of his 'support tests', and his units fought alone. In contrast, Scorch almost always was able to bring up an assisting unit for the combat, giving him a valuable negative modifier to his dice throw. One of the last phases of the half-bound was to determine the actual effect, i.e., the "real" effect, of all the casualty figures the units had collected during the previous firing and melee phases. Each unit with casualties took a test, removed the appropriate number of men from its ranks, after which the casualty figures themselves were removed. The test looked at the Control factor which had been selected by each side, and the following chart was used to see how many men were lost by each affected unit. --------------------------------------------------------- Lose 2 men Control % --------------------------------------------------------- Lose 1 man 1/2 Control % --------------------------------------------------------- Lose no men --------------------------------------------------------- Note that with his Control percentage of 100, each of Beau's testing units was guaranteed to not lose more than a single man. With a 100 percent Control factor, Beau couldn't toss over the 100, and thus could never lose 2 men at a time. In contrast, with his Control of 70 percent, Scorch Butters, with a high toss over 70, could lose 2 men. Back to PW Review May 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