At the HMGS convention FALL IN, in mid-November, I purchased a quantity of figures which I thought would fit right in with an existing boxed army of very old (circa 1965) and teeny-weeny 20mm figures. When I arrived at home, I took a closer look at my new acquisitions, and discovered that what I had bought were some very old and teeny-weeny 25mm figures... not at all compatible with the existing army. Which means that I now had a brand-new, very old and teeny-weeny army.
I mounted the figures at 3 men to a stand, with the stand measuring 2-inches-by-2-inches, and discovered that I had the following units, where a unit was defined to consist of 2 stands:
- 8 units of armored cavalry
11 units of heavy infantry
9 units of medium infantry
6 units of bowmen
About a week later, I split the units, and General James "Earth Scorcher" Butters faced Count "Bloodspinner" Sayr across the table, and the Earth Scorcher won the initiative. He drew a card from his action deck of 6 cards, and noted that each of his units were given 2 actions. An action permitted a unit to move 5 inches, or a bow unit to fire. With 2 actions, therefore, Butters could move each of his units forward a distance of 10 inches... he did.
The Count then drew from his own deck... the card stated that the Bloodspinner would acquire Activity Points (AP), which was a quite important event... for when a side's AP were reduced to zero, the battle was over. The more AP one accumulated, the more comfortable the feeling.
Each side commenced with 15 AP, and when the Count diced for the number of additional AP he obtained, a lucky dice toss got him 4 new AP... he now had a total of 19 AP.
The full bound consisted of the alternate draw, by each side, of its own deck of 6 cards, each annotated thusly:
- a. All units have 2 actions (each action is a 5-inch move)
b All units have 3 actions
c All cavalry have 3 actions
d CINC and bodyguard have 3 actions. This body guard of 2 stands always got a "plus" in combat... the bodyguard was the toughest unit on the field.
e All disordered units reorder, and the CINC may recruit new stands. The units started with 2 stands each, and could be raised to a maximum of 3 stands by spending AP. Another function to be performed on this card, was that enemy stands could be destroyed by an expenditure of AP.
f CINC augments his AP supply. Here, the CINC diced for his augmentation and could receive either 1, 2 or 4 AP
Earth Scorcher's next card draw gave each of his units 3 actions, a 15 inch move. He wanted his cavalry to charge those of Bloodspinner's. The target unit, however, was not directly in front of the charging unit, and the chargers had to pass a 'control' test to see if they could move from 'off-center' and oblique, or wheel, into contact. The chance of doing so was 70%... the charging unit passed and contact was made.
Anytime a unit moved 'off-center', and not directly straight ahead, it had to pass the 70% control test. If it failed, i.e., not received its orders, it could hold position, or move 5 inches.
Butters' cavalry charged forward to contact. Melee was decided immediately upon contact, and in the first phase of the fight, each side sought to draw in a support unit, which had to be no more than 5 inches away from the combat, and pass a control test (70%).
Unfortunately for Scorch, his support unit proved to have cold feet... it refused to assist, failing its control test. In contrast, the Count's supporting unit quickly came into the combat.
In the melee procedure, only the attacker tossed the dice, adding and subtracting his modifiers and looking for a net of over 50. The casualty table, Table #1, was formatted in terms of the CINC's AP totals, and looked like:
Table #1
| Dice Toss | Attacker | Defender |
|---|---|---|
| 01 to 30 | Lose 4 AP | Lose 1 AP |
| 31 to 50 | Lose 2 AP | Lose 2 AP |
| 51 to 70 | Lose 1 AP | Lose 2 AP |
| Over 70 | Lose 1 AP | Lose 4 AP |
Note that the attacker would like to toss high... the higher, the more the defender suffers. In this melee, Earth Scorcher's modifiers were:
- -10 He had dared to attack the opposing CINC and his bodyguard, which were rated as the most powerful troops on the table. If a unit of lesser value than the attacker had been charged, the modifier would have been +10.
-10 Earth Scorcher's support had failed to assist, while the Count's support was present. If both supports had been present, the 'support modifier' would have been a wash.
Butters now took his percentage dice, tossed a '43', subtracted his modifier of -20, and the result was 23... not good... according to the combat table given above, he suffered a 4 AP loss, while his opponent lost only 1 AP. This ended the casualty phase of the melee... it was time to see which side actually won the combat.
Both sides tossed a die and calculated the product, P, where the higher product won:
For Butters: Die x (2 stands + Enemy lost 1 AP) = Die x (2+1)
For Sayr: Die x (2 stands + Enemy lost 4 AP) = Die x (2+4)
With Butters' multiplier of 3 versus Sayr's multiplier of 6, it was no surprise that Sayr won. Earth Scorcher Butters' unit of cavalry retreated, and he lost another 2 AP. Sayr actually gained AP for winning the combat... he diced, and came up with a total of 2 AP.
The result of this first combat was that Butters had lost a total of 6 AP... he was down to 9 from his original 15. Another card draw from the sequence deck, another charge, another contact, another melee, another loss for Butters... now he was down to 5 AP.
Earth Scorcher, however, was not finished yet... his next card draw indicated that he could increase his AP by dicing for them. A percentage dice throw, and he added 2 to his total, giving him 7 AP. At this point, therefore, he still was down to almost half his initial AP, getting perilously close to zero. If only Butters could win a melee or two...
But, once again, it's "alas!" time. Alas!...it was not Earth Scorcher's day.
Bloodspinner Sayr showed no mercy... it took only one complete bound, and he drove Earth Scorcher into the dust, winning virtually every melee between the sides, decreasing Earth Scorcher's AP to zero. End of battle.
This entire contest took only about a half-hour, a much shorter time than I had envisioned. I was looking for a game about an hour long, and it seemed that, perhaps, I had given the sides too few AP to start with.
As listed in the cards of the sequence deck, one of the cards calls for 'recruiting' and for 'destruction of enemy stands'. Here, too, the AP total is a factor, for I noted that when this card was drawn, neither side wanted to spend AP to recruit a stand, or destroy an enemy stand... they were too busy conserving their own AP to bother about increasing the size of their own force or decreasing that of the enemy's.
In a sense, combat followed the procedures used in DBM, wherein stands can bunk heads time after time after time after time, and show no effect from exhaustion or decreased endurance. In DBM, this can keep on indefinitely... here, however, the effect of combat showed up, not in decreased strength of the individual stands, but in the decreasing AP total of the CINC.
With the first game giving me some thoughts about modifying the parameters, I set up Battle #2, a solo effort pitting Sorg the Sly against Null the Obnoxious. As I've mentioned before, use of a card deck to govern movement and other functions (such as recruiting stands, destroying enemy stands, augmenting AP totals, etc.) provides an ideal background for putting on a solo affair. The decks tell you who moves, what each side can do, and when the side can do it.
In this second battle, realizing that 15 AP were far too few for an initial assignment, the initial AP allotment to the sides was 25, rather than the 15 in the prior battle.
One of the first cards drawn for both sides gave them the opportunity to recruit... since there were 25 AP available, I decided that both sides could afford to be extravagant and spend a few AP. Sorg the Sly decided to 'buy' an armored cavalry stand, increasing one of his cavalry units to 3 stands, the maximum allowable. This cost him 8 AP.
In contrast, Null the Obnoxious decided to destroy one of Sorg's cavalry stands... this cost him 8 AP, and left one of Sorg's cavalry units with only 1 stand. It should be noted that the only way to 'kill' stands in the game is through the use of AP. And this can be done only when the appropriate card is drawn. Both recruitment and destruction of stands use the same AP values:
Table #2
- Armored cavalry 8 AP
Armored infantry 6
Medium infantry 4
Archers 2
Null, at first, won several initial melees, driving Sorg's AP down, and his own AP up. In fact, it first looked hopeless for Sorg, for his AP quickly went down to 10, while Null's own total soared to 26. I thought the battle would be over quite rapidly.
And it was over rapidly... but only because of a sudden, unexpected and huge turnaround for Sorg. One or two card draws later, Sorg received a '3 actions' card... all of his units advanced, most of them into contact.
At the same time his units came forward, Sorg's archers fired. When a unit was targeted by missiles, the target took a morale test... its Morale Level (ML) started at 80 percent, and 5 percent was deducted for every firing stand.
Here, with 2 stands in each of Sorg's firing units, each of Null's impacted units tested at a value of (80 - 2x5), or 70 percent. Two out of three target units failed their test, each time decreasing Null's AP by 5.
In combat, it seemed that Null's supporting troops refused to dash over and back up their lead units in combat. With Sorg's supports more than willing to join in, this gave Sorg a 'freebee' +10 for his dice toss on the casualty assessment table, Table #1.
Sorg also, via his control throw of 70 percent, veered several of his heavier units to close with lighter troops, and this, too, gave Sorg a +10 on the chart. In all, Sorg picked up at least +20 to add to his combat dice throws.
I should note that I had modified Table #1 for this second encounter... the maximum AP losses were increased to 5 from their former value of 4. The new table, Table #3, looked like:
Table #3
| Dice Toss | Attacker | Defender |
|---|---|---|
| 01 to 30 | Lose 5 AP | Lose 1 AP |
| 31 to 50 | Lose 3 AP | Lose 1 AP |
| 51 to 70 | Lose 1 AP | Lose 3 AP |
| Over 70 | Lose 1 AP | Lose 5 AP |
Remember that on the above table, only the attacker tosses the dice, and the table immediately tells how many AP points are lost by each side. With a +20 modifier to his dice roll, Sorg consistently tossed high, and high numbers on the chart (above 70) produce a loss of 5 AP.
A series of losses of 5 AP, at single gulp, were just too much for Null's troops. Null's total AP went negative, and at the end of the bound, he finished up with -7 AP.
In truth, Sorg the Sly wasn't far behind, since he finished with +3 AP... but in light of the fact that, at one time, he was 16 AP behind Null (i.e., had 16 AP less than Null), I thought this a significant victory for the Sly one.
As the title of this article indicates, both of these battles were over quickly... less than an hour each. Perfect for my short attention span, especially as regards solo gaming. In contrast to most of my former solo games, I used a full table width for the battles, instead of restricting the battle field to the typical DBM-size field of 2-feet by 2-feet.
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© Copyright 1998 Wally Simon
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