Here, we played Don's science-fiction game. This turned out to be a three-sided affair... there was Don, and Tom, and me. Each of us had four units... a unit was composed of 3 or 4 stands. Each unit was given several parameters... the most important, to me, was what was termed as 'Energy', or 'Activation' Points (AP). In truth, the other parameters (strength, armor, etc.) couldn't be ignored, but I focused on the AP. One of my 4-stand units (call it the 4th Assault Group) started out with 6 AP. I could spend an AP to move the entire unit 5 inches. I could then spend another AP to move another 5 inches. Indeed, I could spend yet another AP to move another 5 inches. And again and again and again, until I ran out of AP. But I couldn't use all the AP to move, since one needed AP to fire. An additional problem was that any move over 10 inches was termed a "jump"... the unit went 'up in the air' while moving and other nasty Assault Groups could fire on it. Not knowing any better, up in the air went my 4th Assault Group, and it immediately collected about 7 hits. The basic POH used against a unit in the open (up in the air) was 60 percent, and to this was added pluses for the number of AP used by the firing units to fire. Both Don and Tom lost no time in inundating the Fighting 4th with hits. Somewhere in the sequence is a damage determination phase, and I forget why, but with some superlative dice tossing, the Fighting 4th shrugged off all its hits, and came out undamaged. Don grimaced at this, and I think he's changing the rules to prevent this from happening again. There's also a 'replenishing' phase, during which units which remain immobile may recharge their AP tanks. Most of the units on the field had an AP capability of 5 or 6. In the scenario, there were no special or heavy weapons capabilities... it was anti-personnel all the way. The only way to beef up the weapons fire was to expend more AP on the burst. There were three structures on the field... the objective was to take and hold them. Tom immediately occupied one of them by having a unit zip forward and up, and "jump" in, landing on the roof. As I indicated before, a unit in its "jumping" mode is a fine target, and before Tom's troops landed, Don and I smacked his unit, spending some of our AP to do so. But Tom had a diabolical plan in being... the "break eggs to make omelets" plan... and he ordered another of his units to "jump" in. Once again, Don and I whomped the unit before it landed. But then, the 'crusher'... Tom had a third unit "jump' in... this one was successful, for both Don and I had expended all our AP in roughing up the first two jumpers. With no AP, there's no fire, and we were forced to stand by and observe the building being occupied. The battle was fast and furious... a wee bit of data taking, but not enough to slow the pace. Back to PW Review February 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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