The map below shows the island domain of Vestlandt, of Ostlandt, and the peaceful Island of Ar, situated between the two. Vestlandt (Vest) and Ostlandt (Ost) share Ar. Note that the border runs north and south, right down the middle.
Each country has a number of towns on its mainland, plus three towns, each, on Ar itself. Each country has a couple of ships, and several land forces. Land forces are composed solely of infantry and artillery... cavalry haven't been invented yet. One of the reasons for avoiding cavalry was that the transportation of troops across the ocean was obviously going to be of great importance in the battle, and rather than make up special rules for carrying the horses overseas, I simply side-stepped the whole issue. Besides, this was a solo game, and my objective was to make life simple for myself.
Each island was divided into areas, each area about 5 inches by 5 inches. The areas were of different shapes and widths... some were long, some were wide, some were L-shaped, etc. Land movement was from area to area. In contrast, ship movement, when transporting troops across the sea, was 10 inches per phase.
I don't know how many years Vest and Ost had lived together in peace, but a dice toss decided that Vest was going to start a war. One of Vest's first moves was to send a ship on a long journey across the ocean to Ost proper. The ship (perhaps we should call it a 'fleet') carried Captain Twist's force, composed of 3 infantry stands and one artillery stand.
All forces were initially composed of units similar to that of Cap'n Twist's. I used my 15mm figures, and a number of compatibly-sized ships. One of the reasons for limiting a force to 4 stands, was that the 4 stands, plus one officer, could fit comfortably within the 5-inch by 5-inch areas which I had drawn on the map.
Do not ask what size unit was represented by a stand. A force is a force is a force.
During one of the cycles of Turn #1, an Ost force (let's call it an army) tried to attack a Vest-held city on Ar. There is a 70 percent chance for a land army to move from one area into an adjacent one. If the force is not successful, the army is placed on the border between the two areas... it's assumed it's gotten held up on the border, couldn't ford the river, couldn't find the mountain pass, got lost in the woods... whatever the reason, it's not in either of the two areas, and is hung up in no man's land.
The Ost force failed its 70 percent toss, failed to enter the city, and was held up on the border. The next cycle, the Vest army came forward, trying to take advantage of the vulnerable position in which the Ost army found itself. The combat was resolved in 5 phases:
- 1. First, both opposing armies received 1 hit marker (a smoke puff).
2. Second, the opposing artillery stands fired at each other. The Probability of Hit (POH) was 50 percent. The Vest artillery was successful (1 hit placed on the Ost force), the Ost unit's guns were not.
3. Third, the rest of the armies struck at each other, summing their combat percentages. Each army started with a basic POH of 50 percent.
| For Vest | For Ost | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic POH | +50 | Basic POH | +50 |
| Opponent stuck on border | +10 | Caught on border | -10 |
| Officer present | +10 | No officer | - |
| Total | +70 | Total | +40 |
The Vest army, with a 70 POH, was successful in its strike. A low dice roll, below half the POH, gave the Ost force 2 casualty markers. The Ost army failed to hit the Vest force.
4. Fourth, the winner of the combat was determined.
- For Vest P= 10-sided die x (4, number of Vest stands + 4, number of hits on Ost)
For Ost P= 10-sided die x (4, number of Ost stands + 1, number of hits on Vest)
Vest, with an almost 2-to-1 advantage, tossed high and won.
5. Fifth, the losing army took yet another hit, and moved back 2 areas. This gave the losing Ost army a total of 5 hits for this one combat. The only hit registered on the Vest force was the single hit placed on it when it entered combat.
These hits were carried by the units until the end of the first turn was reached. All armies bearing hit markers then referred to a 'damage chart', Table 1. Each hit marker counted for 25 points, and all were totaled to obtain a sum, S.
Table 1
| . | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| . | No stands lost |
| S | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| . | Army loses 1 stand |
| 1/2 S | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| . | Army loses 2 stands |
| . | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
Note that a low percentage dice toss, and the army was fairly well out of business, losing 2 of its 3 infantry stands. Artillery couldn't fight alone, hence an army with no infantry stands was removed from the field.
Here, with 1 marker, the Vest unit's S factor was 25 percent, and it escaped unscathed (tossed higher than 25). The Ost army, with 5 markers, an S factor of 125 percent, was unlucky (tossed low) and lost 2 stands.
Around Turn #4, the effect of Cap'n Twist's Vest invading force on the shores of Ost was beginning to make itself felt. He had successfully defeated 2 Ost forces sent out to intercept him, had destroyed an Ost farm, and captured a town.
Farms were extremely important in this campaign. There were two ways to raise Logistic Points (LP) which, in turn could be used to build ships and raise troops...
- Farms Each farm furnished 10 LP at the end of each turn
Town Each town furnished 2 LP at the end of each turn
Initially, the sides started with 20 LP each. A farm cost 20 LP, and there was always a decision to be made concerning the purchase of a farm (20 LP), or of a stand of infantry (10 LP).
By destroying an Ost farm, and threatening to destroy others, Cap'n Twist made it necessary for Ost to raise troops at home simply to get rid of the Captain, instead of using the troops to fill out overseas understrength armies.
But now I must relate an interesting incident, which I can only attribute to the 'fog of war'. A Vest fleet had set sail with an army aboard to be transported to Ar to reinforce the Vest units on the island. The Vest ships approached Porto Verde, landed their troops, when suddenly the existing in-place defending army at Porto Verde launched itself at the landing troops, shouting "Death to the enemy!"
I adjudicated the battle as I described above, and determined that the landing Vest army had been defeated and had been driven back into their ships, weighed down with casualty markers, forced to sail way.
It was then that I realized that Porto Verde had been held by Vest troops... that the defending Vest forces had driven off their own Vest army! Talk about historical realism! It was obvious that these rules gave the true 'flavor of the period' (what period?).
Believe it or not... history repeated itself! A couple of turns later, I did the exact same thing. A Vest army landed, and the so-called 'defending force' beat the heck out of it on the beaches and sent it out to sea. And again, I discovered, too late, that the armies of the opposing forces were on the same side. Hard Cheese for the Vests. Is this a true 'fog of war', or is it just rotten umpiring? Or the signs of senility in the umpire? I leave it to you to decide.
It now appeared that the armies of Vest, seeing that the umpire was biased against them, seemed to fight more fiercely than ever. Take Cap'n Twist, for example. This hero of Vest defeated 3 Ost armies in a row, sent to force him into the sea. The man had been victorious in some 6 battles, all fought on enemy territory.
At the beginning of Turn #5, it looked like Ost was in trouble. It had spent good money to raise troops in Ost itself to counter Cap'n Twist, all to no avail. These troops could have been used on Ar, where Vest was winning battle after battle.
Cap'n Twist was a vindictive fellow. He defeated a force, which then moved back 2 areas. The rules permitted a force, if it passed its 70 percent cross-the-border test, to move through another area, taking the test again. The Captain's men didn't seem at all held up by the border crossing tests... his army whizzed across border after border and followed up the defeated force to engage it again. Helping the Captain was the fact that many Ost armies were not as adept at border crossing... they seemed to get hung up on the border between areas, while Vest armies appeared to travel more efficiently. And so, the Captain, once he had whupped an enemy army, quickly caught up to it again, and just beat it into the grave.
Back on the first page, I referred to the 'cycles' of the turn. By this, I meant that that active side tossed an 'Elapsed Time (ET) die... 10-sided... to determine the ET of his part of the turn. When the accumulated ET total reached 15, this was the last cycle within the turn, and all units with casualty markers went to Table 1 to see how many, if any, stands they lost.
At the end of the turn, LP were collected, and troops could be raised. Forces could be raised only on the homelands themselves, and not on the Island of Ar. This meant that ships played an important part in the campaign. Neither side was given a warship at the start of the campaign... the only ships initially available were transports. My thought was that if a side wanted a warship, it could spend some of its valuable LP later in the game.t
But as the campaign progressed, both Ost and Vest were both fairly preoccupied with raising troops, and neither could spare any LP for the combat ships. This made it easier for me... for it permitted me to ignore the aspect of naval battles as the transports brought troops to Ar, and I could focus solely on land warfare.
Around Turn #7, Captain Twist was still making trouble for Ost. His men were holed up in a town, and surrounded by several Ost forces, but time after time, he beat the attackers back. In his dispatches back to Vest, he began to refer to himself as the 'New Napoleon', and I could see he had big plans for the future.
Turn #9 began, and in desperation, Ost sent 3 fleets, each with an army, to land on the shores of Vest. Two of the armies didn't even have artillery with them... Ost couldn't afford to equip its troops properly. Another one of the armies, commanded by General Prebble, had been battered in a previous melee, had only 2 stands of infantry, and carried with it 2 casualty markers.
While the ships were at sea, Turn #9 ended, and General Prebble looked at Table 1 to see what the casualty markers meant for his force. His S factor for two markers was 50 percent. It was Hard Cheese for General Prebble... for the dice toss was very low, and Table 1 mandated that the force lost 2 stands. Since 2 infantry stands were all that the General had, his entire force disappeared. General Prebble and his men sank beneath the waves, singing an ode to Ostlandt.
And so the campaign came to an end. I had titled this article 'An Afternoon's Campaign', but, in truth, I completed the game in two afternoons, about a total of 6 hours.
At the end of Turn #9, a summary of all the forces present on the table showed that Ost had no choice but to sue for peace.
| . | Armies are located | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | In Ost Proper | On Ar | In Vest Proper | At Sea |
| Vest | 1 (Cap'n Twist) | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Ost | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
Even though Ost had 2 fleets sailing for Vest, and the above summary shows that Vest had only a single army to defend its homeland, Vest, with a large supply of LP, was about to raise at least 2 armies at home to protect its shores. Hence, when the invading Ost troops landed, they'd rapidly get bumped back into the sea.
At the end, Vest held 5 of the 6 towns on Ar, and was besieging the 6th. With 6 towns on Ar and 6 towns in Vest, the LP raised for the towns alone was 12 x 2, or 24. Added to this was the income from 5 farms at 10 LP each. Vest had no lack of LP.
I was pleased to see that in this first cut, the LP requirements didn't get out of hand. Many times, in ginning up a campaign game, there's either too few LP (which means that all forces slowly die of attrition), or too many LP (which results in the map rapidly filling up with too many troops). I seem to hit this one right on the head.
LP requirements were kept low... an infantry stand cost 10 LP, an artillery stand cost 20, and a farm cost 20.
When, eventually, I present this game to 'real' people, i.e., have one or more living, breathing persons across the table from me, I'll probably have to expand the role of the LP procedures. I can see the possible areas of expansion...
- "If you have infantry and artillery, you gotta have cavalry."
"If you have an across-the-sea campaign, you gotta start out, not only with transports, but with warships."
"If you have a country-versus-country campaign, you gotta have the capability of expanding and building towns."
But who knows what the future will bring...
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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