Both Don Bailey and Tom Elsworth arrived prior to the COLD WARS convention, which gave us a chance to indulge in some gaming at my house in addition to attending the convention.
COLD WARS was held in mid-April in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At the HMGS meeting (held on Saturday morning), the Program Manager indicated that from Friday's receipts alone, there were well over a 1,000 people registered. He expected that to double with Saturday's receipts.
The Lancaster Host Resort provided HMGS with three basic sections... first, a large room, some 100 by 100 feet, used for gaming and the flea market, second, a number of rooms both large and small for additional gaming, and third, a huge area called the 'Expo Center', devoted solely to the hobby dealers. Just about every purveyor of wargaming goods was present, and in my wanderings over the three day affair, I queried several dealers about their sales. The replies indicated good sales, but not quite up to 'HISTORICON standards'... HISTORICON is the July HMGS summer convention, also held in Lancaster.
The program booklet listed well over 200 games... all eras, all scales... enough to keep any wargamer happy.
As at the last convention, WW II games seemed to flourish, about half of them in micro-armor, half in 15mm. There were also quite a number of WW II 20mm skirmish games presented.
Mein Panzer
One gaming room had four tables set up, and all four were devoted, throughout the weekend, to a set of WW II micro-armor rules called MEIN PANZER. I stopped by one encounter, fought along the long dimension of a 3-foot by 6-foot table. Each side had some 80 little micro-armor tankie tokens on the field, advancing toward each other.
I asked the host to describe the firing procedures, and he stated that each and every one of the 80 tankie tokens, when firing, tossed a die, and if the target was hit, the die was tossed again to determine the extent of the damage (destroyed, suppressed, etc.). On the spot, I decided that MEIN PANZER was not for me... I'm a 'volley-firing' person... a single die toss for an entire multi-token unit is my bag... 80 tosses, one per token, would just overload my system.
As I went from room to room, from game to game, there were two types of games I simply avoided entirely.
Abominations
First, what I term Class A abominations... 'casualty cap' games... those in which a cap is placed over one figure on a stand to indicate injury. This category also includes those games in which little colored pieces of wire (pipe stems seemed to be popular) were used to denote unit status. Abominations, abominations!
Second, the Class B abominations... skirmish games in which a figure, when hit, is tossed on its side, base sticking up in the air. Abominations, abominations!
A third type of game, a Class C abomination, is of only semi-abominational status, those in which little chitties are placed beside units to indicate their orders (advance, attack, fire, etc.).
Bob Giglio, the HMGS President, had set up his usual enormous 25mm skirmish game... an encounter between the Chinese and 'the foreign devils'.
There was .an oncoming force of Americans, British, Japanese, French and Germans, turn of the century. The playing field was about 8-feet by 20-feet and beautifully done. The Allies sailed on, up a river about 3-feet wide, all on board foot-long ships. Sort of a Limeys-versus-Slimeys game, but much prettier.
Unfortunately, this was a huge affair of the Class B type of abominational game... the 25mm figures, when hit, were laid on their side... I saw no casualty figures... and so I didn't stay long.
Brian Dewitt, a PW member, set up his racing game. This accommodates about 12 players, and always attracts a large crowd. The race track is oval, about 4-feet long, and Brian uses poker chips to denote vehicle status... a host of items such as endurance, rubber remaining on your tires, engine wear, etc. The rules are four or five years old, and Brian had traded the rights to them to another fellow for the well-constructed race track with which he was playing. This 'other fellow' wanted to eventually publish them.
Right across the hall from Brian's game, I noted that the 'other fellow', in another room, had set up his own race game on a similar-looking track, using the Dewitt rules. Brian went over to look at the set-up, and I expected to hear cries of: "You can't do that!" and so on. But, no, evidently race game hosts get along quite well with one another, and there were no non-competition clauses in the contract when Brian traded his rules.
Rich Hasenauer was running a new American Civil War game of his. As author of FIRE AND FURY (FAF), Rich has made a huge impact on the hobby, and his new game was similar to FAF, but 'different'. Rich sold the rights to FAF to Johnson Hood of WARGAMES... and this freed up Rich to work on other rules sets.
In point of fact, Rich has two games under development... one is a WW II armor game which I've seen presented at several conventions as it's being honed to perfection prior to publication. The second effort is the one I saw, another ACW game, this one at the regimental scale. While FAF uses the brigade as the maneuver element, the new game uses the regiment.
In looking over the charts and tables, I pointed out to Rich what I thought was an inconsistency in his charts... when I say an 'inconsistency', I must note that I seem to be the only person alive bothered by this 'inconsistency'... no one else knows?... no else cares?... but for what it be worth, here be the problem...
In Rich's firing tables, you count the figures firing, add or subtract a modifier or two, and come up with a number of Fire Points (FP). Then you toss a 10-sided die and determine the fire effect on the target. A section of the fire chart is as follows. Determine the FP, toss a die, and read down in the appropriate FP column.
| 10,11 FP | 12-14 FP | 15-19 FP | 20-24 FP | 25 FP | Results |
| Die Roll | Die Roll | Die Roll | Die Roll | Die Roll | |
| 4 or less | 3 or less | 2 or less | 1 or less | 0 or less | No effect |
| 5,6,7 | 4,5,6 | 3,4,5 | 2,3,4 | 1,2,3 | Morale check |
| 8,9 | 7,8, | 6,7,8 | 5,6,7 | 4,5,6 | Lose 1 stand |
| 10 or more | 10 or more | 9,10 | 8,9,10 | 7,8,9 | Lose 2 stands |
| x | x | 11 or more | 11 or more | 10 or more | Lose 3 stands |
In all Simon rules systems, consistency is the issue. If you toss a die and modify it to a 7, the 7 could mean that you lose a stand. And in that game, in fact, the 7 will mean that you'll always lose a stand... as soon as you see a result of 7, you automatically remove a stand.
But now examine the above FAF tables. Look at the result of a 7. With 11 FP, the 7 means a morale check... but with 13 FP, the 7 means you lose a stand... with 23 FP, again you'll lose a stand... and with 25 FP, you'll lose 2 stands.
Which means that because of the 'shifting 7 syndrome', you really can't memorize the chart results... the same modified die roll produces different results at different times. And that's why, in a FAF game, you'll always see the players continually groping for the fire charts.
"Well, golly gee whiz!" said Rich, after I explained my problem to him... he'd never noticed it before, nor had anyone ever brought it to his attention (if only he had read the PW REVIEW, he could have seen my article on the problem written some 6 years ago). I'm curious to see if in his new rules, he produces a new set of charts.
But I digress... back to COLD WARS. I observed a Three Musketeers game... very nicely laid out, using 54mm figures. The setting was composed of the two stories of a house... the men could climb stairs, jump out windows, etc. The rules looked fairly simple, men moved from one square to another, and the squares were about 1-inch by 1-inch.
One player complicated things... he said his man was drawing his pistol, pointing it, covering the doorway, leaping up on a table, etc. The gaming host looked confused... he discovered he was conducting a D&D game, instead of a simple skirmish.
Alas! I discovered the game fell into the Class B abomination category! When men were injured, they were tossed on their side... no casualty figures... I moved on as fast as I could.
PLATOON LEADER was next. A 20mm WW II game. A column of Sherman tanks (5 of 'em) was making its way to an intersection, and converging on the same road junction was a column of German tanks (3 tanks plus 3 half-tracks). Each tank had its own order chit (putting the entire presentation into the Class C semi-abominational category), and the tank could move, fall back, overwatch, issue suppressive fire, etc.
A 20-sided die was used to fire... a result of a 10 or more was a hit on the target. The normal move was 10 inches, and a vehicle could also make a 'combat move'... 5 inches... and fire. If a 'combat move' was made, this added 2 to the fire die, making the target slightly easier to hit.
Ranges were divided into 4 categories... under 5 inches (short range) to 25 inches (long range). If a vehicle was hit, one had then to determine the specific point of impact... again a 20-sided die was tossed, and a table of 20 possible results was referenced (hull, tread, turret, etc.). This reminded me of Lee Tucker's old, old, old, BREW UP, which I played in the mid-seventies.
Then it was AGE OF BATTLES (AOB), Brian Dewitt's Seven Years War rules. Brian had purchased this 25mm Minifig army some years ago, and as I've noted before, Minifig-men all look like penguins, and all the horses have huge rear ends.
I commanded the Prussian right flank... three cavalry units (squadrons? regiments? brigades?). AOB gives each side two decks of cards... a strategic deck and a tactical deck.
The strategic deck is used first, it moves the forces forward and provides a few pre-deployment artillery barrages. Some of the cards provide for a 16 inch move, while the cards giving the artillery a chance to fire move the forces forward only 8 inches. Our beloved Prussian commander, General Bailey, played all his artillery cards, slowing us down in the strategic phases, and hoping to bombard the opposing Austrians. Unfortunately, we were out of artillery range, and got nothing for our trouble.
As soon as the tactical phases began, I had my cavalry troops charge forward... 'test the melee rules' is my motto. This despite General Bailey's request to keep the cavalry back to protect the right flank of his army. But what better way to protect his flank, I thought, than to annihilate the opposing Austrian cavalry?
In the tactical phases, each side lays out two cards, and displays the first. As soon as he turns his first card over, he must lay out a second card, thus always keeping two cards ready to go. Each card provides for move, charge, fire, etc., and designates the functions to be performed by both sides.
When a side loses 4 units, it must lay out 3 cards instead of 2, which means that it loses a certain amount of inertia in being required to abide by the commands on the cards previously selected. More units lost and more cards selected and laid out.
In melee, the engaged units each toss a 10-sided die, and higher total wins. If you double the opponent, he routs instead of merely being driven back. Needless to say, my boys routed.
One of the Austrian commanders, in the heat of battle, had picked up a +2 bonus for his melee die... when he tossed and lost, his comment was that he had "nulligated his bonus", which is very good for an Austrian, I thought.
WWII Skirmishes
Now I looked at 3 WW II skirmish games. The first was in 20mm, 2 squads versus 2 squads. Each individual figure had to be tracked for the number of rounds he carried, his wounds, etc. An extremely slow game.
The second skirmish was also in 20mm. This was a Bridge Too Far game. On the table, I saw a glider, and evidently the Brits had taken the bridge, but I saw only 2 British infantrymen during the 20 minutes or so that I spent at table side. The field measured 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, and it appeared that a German force (a couple of tanks) was moving up, but so help me, I just couldn't make out what was going on.
Nearby was the third game, Mark Mclaughlen's 54mm game for kiddies. Big 54mm tanks and big 54mm figures, and lots of screaming kiddies. Too much for me.
Arty Conliffe's SHAKO, in 25mm, was next. I've never played SHAKO. It appeared that the unit size was 9 figures, 3 men per stand. This was a small encounter with not too many troops on the field. Perhaps I had appeared late in the game, after all the firing and melee had taken their toll.
One Old Guard unit of 18 figures (brigade?) had evidently attacked a town, been beaten off and were retreating. The defending Prussian artillery fired at the rear ends of the Old Guard, and 9 out of the 18 men in the unit were taken off the field. Talk about high casualty rates! Hard cheese, indeed!
Then I found what I thought was a 'big stand' game. An ACW game with 15mm figures, mounted 15 figures per stand. I'm a 'big stand' fan, and this immediately attracted me. Each stand measured 3-inches by 3-inches.
And so the troops were moved up while I watched, and then I was immensely disappointed when all the men hopped off the big stand, forming line with their normal every-day, teeny-tiny regular stands... O' gee whiz! The big stands were used solely as movement trays.
Looking for someplace to sit down, I ventured into the lecture hall, just in time for a series of lectures presented on a number of interesting topics. First, there was a talk on mercenaries as used by the Carthaginians (I fell asleep, and was awakened by the audience clapping at the end of the lecture). Second was a talk on Roman amphibious warfare (I fell asleep and was awakened by the audience clapping at the end of the lecture). Third was a talk on the City of Edessa, its capture and recapture by the Crusaders and Turks, etc. (I fell asleep and was awakened by the audience clapping at the end of the lecture).
Thoroughly refreshed, I wandered on. Bob Wiltrout was participating in a game of PIQUET, set in the renaissance era, Russian Tartars? Mongols? versus Christian types.
PIQUET uses action card decks, and here, the defending Christian types had one deck for the entire side, while the attacking Russian Unchristians were given 3 decks, one for each of their commands.
As the cards are drawn, they denote the possible actions to be performed by the side. The decks were composed of 26 cards each. On the first series of draws, Bob's Russian side had 14 'impulses' permitting them to draw 14 cards. They divided this, for their 3 commands, into draws of 4 cards, 4 cards, and 5 cards. Of the 14 card draws, 1 'infantry move' card appeared... the rest were 'deploy', or mill around', or other useless cards. One of the Russian commands, therefore, advanced 6 inches.
I had seen other PIQUET games, in which the sides were initially placed on their baselines, some 5 feet apart. It had taken quite a long time before the right cards appeared, permitting the units to advance. Here, the Russians and their opponents were placed 3 feet apart, making for a shorter game.
I didn't stay for the entire game... later, Bob reported on a successful game... he said it took only 2 hours to come to the final outcome.
I did play in Otto Schmidt's O' GOD, ANYTHING BUT A SIX! (OG), a pike and shot affair in which each 25mm stand is a separate unit. The stands are impressive... for example, a pike stand consists of 16 pikemen on a 4-inch by 4-inch base.
If anything, OG is fast moving and furious. There are no brigades, there is no command structure, and the only thing tying a force together are the officers, who can be called upon to assist anywhere, anytime. I've a copy of Otto's rules... more on it later.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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