Fred Haub and I tried out a set of English Civil War rules, using my collection of 30mm figures. This set of figures is mainly composed of what I term 'stretchies'. I added to my basic collection of 30mm Surens and Tradition figures, by taking a number of regular 25mm figures, cutting them at the waistline, adding sufficient lead and solder (about an eighth of an inch) to stretch them to 30mm height, and popping them in a mold to produce them en masse. In our encounter, I, as commander of the defending force, started off with three divisions of troops two of infantry and one of cavalry. Fred, as the attacker, had 4 divisions three of infantry and one cavalry. Each division was composed of some 4 regiments. For example, a pike regiment consisted of 2 pike stands and 2 musket stands. Each side had gun batteries (a single gun model each) Fred had two of these, I had one. And each gun was given 4, 5, or 6 rounds of ammunition to fire, which, since they fired twice per bound, made them completely useless as they rapidly ran out of ammunition. As for objectives, there was a road leading from the western-most town, Weston, to Dunton, the central town, and in Dunton was located Captain Jiggs' Battery. Captain Jiggs' guns were not like the others on the field, which had been given a finite amount of ammunition. As long as the road from Weston to Dunton was held open, Captain Jiggs' gunners could continue to fire, drawing an 'automatic' ammunition supply from Weston. My three divisions were set up to hold the center of the field... in each of the three mid-field towns, I placed a pike unit, other muskets and pike, and had my cavalry somewhere in the backfield. A town was restricted in its 'holding capacity'... only one regiment was allowed in. Fred decided to completely ignore the town, Weston, on the west side of the field, even though Captain Jiggs was drawing his ammo supply there, and he advanced his troops toward both Dunton, in the center, and Upton, on the eastern side. I had placed an entire division of three regiments on the west side to protect Weston, and Fred's sudden movement took my three infantry regiments near Weston out of the battle. The basic intent of the battle was to check out the melee procedures. For melee, I had prepared a matrix of the types of units on the field heavy cavalry versus pike, and sword and buckler versus muskets, and medium cavalry versus heavy cavalry, and so on. In each pair-off, one type of unit had an advantage. For example, when pike fought cavalry (any type of cavalry), the pike had a basic 80 percent chance to hit (Probability Of Hit, or POH), while the cavalry had a 40 percent POH. Nothing new about the above, but it was how the results of the percentage dice throws were handled that was the key. For each of the POH dice tosses, I employed the usual Simon 3-tier system of assessing casualties, wherein if your dice toss was less than half of your POH, you'd score high, and if it exceeded the POH, you'd score low.: Unit takes 1 casualty figure, No morale test POH ------------------------------------------------------ Unit receives 1 casualty figure, Takes morale test 1/2 POH ------------------------------------------------------ Unit takes 2 casualty figures, Takes morale test Thus if the pike, with their POH of 80 against cavalry, struck with a dice throw of 34 (below half of 80), the cavalry unit would take 2 casualty figures, and take a morale test. At the end of the bound, with many units bearing several casualty figures due to fire and melee, both sides would decide exactly what the incurred casualties meant to each unit. Percentage dice would be thrown, and the effect of each casualty figure evaluated: 01 to 33 Each casualty figure deducts 2 from unit Efficiency Rating 34 to 66 Each casualty figure deducts 4 from unit Efficiency Rating 67 to 100 Each casualty figure deducts 6 from unit Efficiency Rating All regiments were tracked for two parameters on a data sheet. Each started with an Efficiency Rating (ER) of 100 percent. The effect of the casualty figures thus deducted from the ER and when the ER reached zero, the regiment was removed from the field. Note that the ER had nothing to do with the morale level of the unit it dealt solely with the 'existence' of the unit... either it was there or it wasn't. The total casualties taken by the regiment were also recorded. These did have an impact on the unit's morale level 1 point was taken from the morale level for every recorded casualty. But wait! There's more! The initial morale level of a unit was determined by three factors: First, each unit started out with a basic 60 percent Second, each regiment was given a pennant bearer. The bearer added +10 to the morale level. The pennant bearer was removed when the unit's ER was reduced to 70 points. Third, all division commanders were given 2 adjutants. Each adjutant added +5 to the morale level of every unit in the division. Each time a unit in the division lost a melee or failed a morale test, divisional points would be lost, and POOF every 5 such points and an adjutant would disappear. In the battle, Fred's surprising maneuver to the eastern side of the field easily won for him the towns of Dunton and Easton. He drove my defending units out of the two towns, and occupied them with his own troops. With the bulk of my force left hanging around Weston, defending Captain Jigg's ammunition supply, there was little I could do to recapture the two towns. To add insult to injury, as Fred's units converged on Dunton, where Captain Jigg's brave men fought so fiercely, I called upon a nearby unit to see if it would help the unfortunate Captain. There is a rule regarding the combat capabilities of artillery gun crews... in a word... none! When attacked, the gun crew will not fight, but will call upon an allied unit to defend its position. The allied unit must pass a morale test to run over and assist, and in this case, in Dunton, the potential assisting unit failed its test, leaving poor Captain Jiggs and his crew to their fate. The Captain and his men are probably still running from the battlefield. Now, looking back at the battle, and putting all the above rules and ploys together, you get a host of inter-related events: First, a unit would collect casualty figures due to fire and melee. These would accumulate for the entire bound, at which time their effect would be assessed. Second, the unit's ER would be reduced as the value of the casualty figures was determined, and the casualties themselves were recorded. Third, a regiment's initial morale level (summing the basic percentage of 60 and the effect of the pennant bearer and the divisional adjutants) totalled 80 percent, and as the battle progressed, it went down due to the deductions both of the recorded casualty losses, and the eventual removal of pennant bearers and divisional adjutants.. Now, in light of all these parameters the Efficiency Rating, the regimental pennant bearers, the casualty figures, the divisional adjutants, plus the need to keep a record of each unit was it worth it? And the answer, well, sort of This first battle proved interesting to me because I was trying to assess the way all the parameters interacted. However, as for my worthy opponent, it was obvious that Fred Haub wasn't as fascinated as I was but he stuck to it, nevertheless, as a personal favor to me he's used to my ways. But both of agreed that the requirement of tracking the above factors bogged down the game. The emphasis should be on unit action and unit movement, and we were taking much too much time for recording purposes. In essence, we agreed that the game, as a game, 'worked', although there was too much grunge thrown into the system, purportedly, to make the rules interesting. And the result proved the opposite. Nothing surprising here. It's back to the drawing board. Back to PW Review October 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