At the December PW meeting, Fred Haub set up his Great Wall Of Haub scenario, a presentation he hosts every year or so. Many years ago, perhaps 12(?) 15(?), Fred constructed a huge, detailed 12 foot section of a medieval wall for 25mm figures, and it's these wall sections that comprise the Great Wall Of Haub. The walls are complete with towers and ramparts and gates and whatever walls should be made of. Each section is about 9 inches long, and when properly placed, the total display requires two long tables placed end-to-end on which to rest. I should note that at the December meeting, Fred really didn't present the actual Great Wall Of Haub... it was a Quasi-Great-Wall that he erected. Only sections for six feet of the total 12 feet were set up... which was quite adequate for six participants, three per side. Fred also furnished his huge collection of 25mm Minifig medieval figures, all single-mounted. The Minifigmen were designated to attack and breach the wall, while its defenders were composed of another large collection of medieval Essex figures, painted by Bob Wiltrout, which his son, Jeff, had brought to the meeting. There were some 250 attackers versus about 127 defenders. The troop types were simply designated as heavy (armored knights), medium (half-armored), and unarmored. These last were the peasants, the street people, the common-folk, the dopers, the cheapies, used to 'soak off' casualties. In the firing routines, each group of 5 archers fired together, tossing a 10-sided die, and the resultant hit numbers were: 1,2,3,4,5: 1 hit (1 figure removed) 6,7,8,9,10: 2 hits (first figure selected by the owning player, while the second was selected by the firing player) Note that, ordinarily, any number tossed resulted in a hit... but the dice throw was modified by three negative factors... deduct -2 from the die: If the target was armored If the target was under cover For everyman missing from the firing group (every man less than 5) Thus, on occasion, the modifier would go negative, and the archers would register a miss. Note that when two hits were registered, the owning player selected the first man removed, and the firing player selected the second. The tactic, therefore, was to have a lot of cheapie figures in the front rank as potential targets, using them to soak off the hits, thus preserving your heavier armed men from destruction. Sometime into the game, when the defenders' losses were mounting, one of the three defending players was heard to voice the comment that was taken as the title of this article: "We're running out of cheap people!" Most probably, during the entire history of mankind, this cry could be heard during every battle ever fought on the planet. And so was it here. Besides their archers, the attacking force was equipped with an assortment of assault towers and ladders and ballistas (ballistii?) and at the beginning of the battle, huge losses were taken by the defenders manning the walls. To appear on the walls was to die. The sequence was alternate... each unit on a side could either move or fire, and as the attacking assault groups moved up to the walls, all of their stationary missile groups fired to remove the defenders. The 'move-or-fire' routine meant that in a given turn, as defending archers moved onto to the walls to replace casualties, they could not fire, but were subject to a round of fire before they could place an arrow on their bows. This produced a double-whammy for the defenders... as the attacking forces approached the base of the walls to set up their ladders, not only could newly arrived archers not fire, but the defenders had to man the walls with armored troops ready to repel boarders, and these heavier troops became the immediate targets of the attackers' archers. Although firing was predicated on groups of 5 archers, subsequent target morale tests were based on groups of 10. Note that in my description of the battle, I haven't used the word 'units'... there were no 'units' as such. When a casualty or casualties occurred, the targeted player simply selected the 10 nearest men, and the Morale Level (ML) of the group was defined as 10 minus the number of recently caused casualties. Thus if 2 casualties occurred, the ML became 10 - 2, or 8... a toss of more than 8 on a 10-sided die caused the entire group that was testing to run back. This 'group-of-10' method occasionally caused an entire section of defenders on the walls to fall back, but fortunately, for the most part, their morale tosses were fine, and they bravely held on. In contrast, a large number of attacking groups fell back due to the defenders' fire. But evidently, not enough. The attackers possessed a huge battering ram which they continually smashed against the main gate. On Turn #1, a toss of 1 would shatter the gate, on Turn #2, a toss of 1 or 2 would shatter it, and on Turn #3, a 1,2 or 3 would do it, and so on. I think it was on Turn #4 that the gate fell off its hinges and the attackers entered. Fred Haub adjudicated all the man-to-man combats... this guy would engage this guy, and that guy would fight that guy and each was assigned a modifier depending upon his armor class or cover. Each player tossed a 10-sided die, added his modifier, and the man with the higher sum disposed of the man with the lower. Quarter was neither asked nor given. These boys were tough. In looking at the defending force, I noted that the King himself had been placed in that section of the wall which was under attack from the assault tower. As the assault tower lowered its ramp, it seemed as if a dozen warriors poured out, and the King was definitely in the forefront of battle. But the King got a +2 for his Kingliness, another +2 for cover, and he seemed to hold his own. But 'twas all for nought. Sheer numbers prevailed, as the attackers poured over the walls via their ladders and towers. A good game, quite fast and quite simple, which kept some six players well entertained for the evening Back to PW Review November 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