Brian Dewitt hosted two games for several of us one Saturday afternoon. One we had seen before... what I term a "chip" game, in which the sides pre-select order chips and play them during the sequence. The other game was new and unique... a naval presentation.
The naval scenario took place on three separate tables. Each side had its own table on which was set up its own strategic map, hidden from the other. And when an encounter occurred, the actual battle was set up on a third tactical table.
The objective of the sides was to successfully escort their convoys across the ocean. The strategic map for a side looked like this:
The strategic layouts for both sides were similar. Note that a side had 4 convoy routes, and each route had 2 convoy locations. There was no strategic movement as such... to successfully escort a convoy to port, each of the convoy locations in a given route had to have a freighter placed in it, and both freighters had to survive the turn.
Accompanying the freighter, one could attach all sorts of escorting ships... destroyers, carriers, cruisers, submarines, and battleships.
The problem, of course, was that there were really not enough assets, i.e., ships, to go around. For in addition to escorting your own convoys, you also had to preserve warships for raiding the opponent's sea lanes and intercepting his own convoys. In fact, there really weren't enough freighters... each side had only 4 of them, and so couldn't fill up every one of its convoy routes.
I forget how many ships each side had, but in the first turns of the first game, I assigned very few ships as escorts.
The bulk of my navy was assigned to intercepting the enemy. I placed a huge contingent of warships on the enemy convoy routes. Note that one of the routes was worth 4 Victory Points, and anticipating that the opposing players would attempt to gather the 4 VP, I placed my raiding ships in the locations of that particular route.
The opposing players were Fred Haub and Tony Figlia... we shall call them the FT naval force. For some time, the FT navy tried to run the gauntlet of my intercepting ships in the 4 VP sea lane, and didn't succeed.
After a while, they caught on to my tactics and the 4 VP route was no longer utilized. At this point, I had pulled ahead in VP due to the success of my own ships sneaking through. I'm not sure why, but I think that the FT High Command used very few of its ships as convoy escorts but used them mainly for raiding and patrolling.
The "patrolling" aspect was a wee bit different then that of "raiding". When raiding, you'd plop your ships directly on an enemy convoy location, and if a convoy was present, an intercept would take place.
In patrolling, you'd place your ships "at sea", and not in a specific enemy convoy location. Then, via a die roll, you'd see if your patrolling ships encountered any of the enemy's. I didn't like the patrolling routine... with a rotten die roll, your patrolling force was wasted for that turn. And so, I placed my own interceptors in the enemy convoy locations.
Alas! Not only did the FT navy catch on to my tactics, but they, too, decided they didn't go for the patrolling technique... they, too, started to directly attack my convoy routes.
We each had four convoy routes, and could use only two of them each turn (we each had only 4 freighters). Each route had two convoy locations, and each location had to have a freighter in it. Since we only had four freighters, we were fairly restricted in our across-the-seas voyages.
In the paper-scissors-rock method of combat, if subs kept under the surface. only destroyers could intercept submarines. The other types of ships... cruisers, battleships, carriers... were helpless against the undersea subs. This meant that if the enemy gathered a wolfpack, say a group of 3 submarines for the attack, the only counter would be if you had provided a convoy with a couple of destroyers.
And this, in turn, meant that on the logistics phases, when ships were repaired and you purchased new ships, you couldn't concentrate on the heavier warships, but had to spend your money procuring subs and destroyers.
When two forces encountered each other on the strategic map, we'd set them out on the 'tactical table'. This was composed of a gridded area, some 6-feet by 6-feet, wherein ships moved from grid junction to grid junction.
Each ship tossed 6-sided dice... a destroyer tossed a single die, in contrast to a battle ship which had a blast of 12 dice. Depending upon range, the 'to-hit' number varied.
If one side thought it was getting the worst of the battle, it could flee off the table. Indeed, this occurred all the time, as the opposing forces were rarely equally matched.
ACW Chips
Brian's second presentation was one of his 'chip' games... an ACW encounter. Lots of 15mm figures, grouped in 5-stand brigades.
The heart of the game lies in the sequence, which, for the bound, consisted of 8 phases:
- (1) Side X is active. Active player X draws his action chips, which, when played will enable his forces to move., fire, rally, etc.
(2) Active player X then moves or fires all his forces. He does not use the chips that he drew on Phase (1)... this phase gives him 'freebee' actions.
(3) Non-active player, Y, then plays the chips he drew on the last bound's Phase (1), when he was the Active player.
(4) Melee is resolved.
(5) Side Y is active. Active player Y draws his action chips, which, when played will enable his forces to move., fire, rally, etc.
(6) Active player Y then moves or fires all his forces. He does not use the chips that he drew on Phase (5)... this phase gives him 'freebee' actions.
(7) Non-active player, X, then plays the chips he drew on the last half-bound Phase (1), when he was the Active player.
(8) Melee is resolved.
Note that this is a "think ahead" game... when a side draws action chips, it must anticipate the types of chips and actions it will need for sometime in the future. The chips won't be played until some 6 phases later.
In our battle, I had a Yankee division of 4 brigades, each of 5 stands. In front of me was Confederate General Fred Haub's division, which refused to let me close. On my movement phases, I'd advance, hoping to get within musket range, and on Fred's movement phases, he'd fall back, keeping out of the zone of fire. What sort of sissified warfare was this?
Gradually, I drew closer to Fred's units... his retrograde moves were slightly smaller than my advancing moves. On my right was Bill Rankin's Yankee division, which was attacking Death Ridge.
Perched on the ridge were the brigades of Tony Figlia's Confederate division, which simply (for want of a better descriptive term) shot the crap out of Bill's boys.
Bill asked me to assign a couple of my brigades to help him in his assault on Death Ridge. Alas! I couldn't... for that wily Confederate General Haub had drawn my troops too far up the field to permit them to turn to the right to help Bill out. Bill's men died with their boots on.
I must admit that "think ahead" games are not my forte... I could never, in advance, draw the correct chips... when I needed 'fire' chips, I had 'move', and when I needed 'move' chips, I had 'fire'.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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