A medieval game of my own design was next. Each side had three lead knights, and each knight had a retinue of mounted knights, foot knights, men@arms and peasants. Don, with the aid of Lord Korth, defended Castle Korth against Tom and me. The Simon/Elsworth plan, noted as Plan Z by the military historians who recorded the results of the battle, was to run up and whomp on Don's people until they gave up. Absolutely brilliant! Each unit had 2 stands in it. When it was hit, a marker was placed next to it (a small bead placed on a standard bearer's staff), and if a unit ever accumulated 5 markers, i.e., 5 beads, off it would go, never to return. At the end of each bound, there was a rally phase, during which several beads on the force could be removed. It pains me to admit it, but Tom and I never had a chance. It was apparent that Plan Z was deficient both in the planning phase and in its execution. The closest we came to success was when one of Tom's units, Pritt's men@arms, approached the walls of Castle Korth, erected a ladder (70 percent chance to do so), ran up the ladder (70 percent chance to do so), and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a defending peasant archer unit of Lord Korth's. Korth's archer's, Britt's Arrow Eaters by name, called on a nearby peasant unit to help defend the walls (70 percent chance to do so), and the peasants eagerly ran over to help their friends. Pritt's men@arms did the same thing, calling on a peasant unit to climb the ladder and assist. Thus each side had two units in the combat. Combat was resolved in 5 phases: (a) First, the lead units brought in, or attempted to bring in, support units as described above. (b) Each unit tossed percentage dice to determine at which of the opposing units it struck. There was a 60 percent chance it struck at the opposing lead unit, otherwise, the support unit. (c) Each unit started out with a 50 percent chance to produce an impact on the opposition. This was modified... for example, Korth's peasant missile unit, Britt's Arrow Eaters, defending the walls, got a 10 percent augmentation for its advantageous position, but it got a -5 percent decrease for facing a unit (Pritt's men@arms) one class higher. Then, because Pritt's men@arms had 4 casualty markers on them, Britt's Arrow Eaters received another +20 percent (+5 percent for every marker on the opposing unit), giving the Arrow Eaters a total percentage of 75 percent. A toss under 75, and one hit was placed on the target. (d) After each unit struck, the following parameters were examined: (i) S, The number of stands in combat, either 2 or 4, depending on whether or not a support unit helped out. (ii) H, the total number of hits on the enemy force (e) Each side used the ol' Simon formula to compute the product, P P = 10-sided die x (S + H) The side with the highest P factor won the melee. A big "Alas!" for Pritt's men@arms... having scaled the walls with 4 casualty markers already on them, they added yet another during the melee, and simply vanished from the field, too weak to carry on in the battle. The result, of course, was that the Arrow Eaters maintained their position on the walls. Lord Korth, himself, visited the unit and shouted: "You'll all have an extra portion of tapioca at dinner tonight, my lads!" A simple fellow, Lord Korth, but he certainly knew how to exhort his men. The sequence was governed by a deck of 20 cards, numbered 1 through 20. Each side was randomly dealt 3 cards, and selected one to play to win the initiative. Card numbers were compared and the higher number won the initiative. The winner moved and fired first, after which the opposing side moved and fired. This left the sides with 2 initiative cards, and they selected and compared cards for a second time. The winner here got a 'bonus' move, for he received a 'freebee' move and fire one complete retinue, while the other side was allowed nothing. 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