Don Bailey's visit during the week of the COLD WARS convention renewed my interest in 'pop-up' games, essentially solo games in which your forces work their way across the board, encountering randomly placed enemy units. As solo gaming mechanisms go, these pop-up forces can't be too large, nor too invincible, or the gaming effort falls flat. The victory conditions must be achievable, otherwise there is no sense in setting up the scenario.
There are two basic types of pop-up games:
- First, are the 'disappearing force' games. These are games in which the enemy force, when encountered, whether defeated or not, simply fades back into oblivion. Its purpose is to harass your own troops, to cause a loss or two, but not to completely halt your advance.
Second, the games in which the randomly placed enemy force stays on the field. Here, whether losing or victorious, the enemy remains a continuous hazard... it must be encountered again before your own men can make progress.
The games described in this article are of the first type. An example of the second type is found in Bruce McFarlane's GREAT BATTLES OF WORLD WAR II, in which Bruce sets out a solo version of the D-Day Canadian landing on Juno Beach. Here, when German defensive forces appear, they stay in position if victorious, and keep on fighting, but "...if forced to retreat, they are eliminated from the game totally."
I set my scenario up in today's Serbia. I took five 25mm units, each of which we'll term a 'squad', and inserted them a couple of miles across the border into Serbia. These men were from the Theta Force, even more deadly and more secret than Delta Force. Theta Force's mission was to attack a prisoner of war encampment, free the prisoners of the Serbs, and then make their way across the border.
Each of my squads had 5 men in it, giving me a total of 25 figures to push across the table. There were also two sergeants, who didn't do too much... they were each 3 weeks short of retirement.
As the 5 squads worked their way toward the prison compound, each time they encountered a location capable of containing a Serbian defending force, percentage dice would be tossed to determine if there was an enemy force, and if so, the make-up of the defenders. The squads moved at 10 inches per turn, and there were a sufficient number of wooded areas, and gullies, and houses, and ridges, etc., to keep them on their toes.
Six Questions
On each such occasion, I'd go through six quick questions.
- 1. Is an enemy unit present? P = 60 percent, i.e., a dice throw under 60, and an enemy would pop up.
2. If present, which unit? Here, I had prepared a table listing 10 specific enemy squads. Each squad would be tracked for casualties each time it appeared, so there would be a constant attrition if the same squad reappeared as the game went on.
3. Was there a second enemy squad? P = 40 percent. I limited the number of enemy squads on a site to two.
4. If a second unit was present, which unit?
5. Does either enemy squad have a machine gun attached? P = 30 percent. The MG added quite a bit to the fire power of a squad, and I didn't want it to be too prevalent.
6. Does the enemy fire first? P = 30 percent. If the enemy didn't fire first, all fire would be simultaneous.
Since I limited the combat procedures to 2 squads working in conjunction, I sent out my Squads #1 and #2 as a joint command, #3 and #4 as a joint command, and had #5 work through the forest by itself.
Squad #5 immediately ran into trouble. They advanced into a nearby woods (70 percent chance to enter the rough terrain, which they did successfully), and as I went down the 6 questions outlined above, Squad #5 found that it had stirred up 2 Serbian squads.
For variation, some of the listed Serbian units had 6 men, some had 5, and others had only 4 men. Squad #5 faced 2 enemy squads, totaling 9 men. Fortunately, neither had any MG's, even more fortunately, the fire was simultaneous.
Each squad in combat started with a base Fire Point (FP) value of 30 percent. The firing modifiers were few in number:
- 1. Add +5 percent for every man in the squad
2. Add another 30 percent if the squad had a MG.
3. Deduct -10 percent if the target was in cover.
Under these guidelines, Squad #5 took its base FP of 30, added +25 (+5 for each of the 5 men in the squad), deducted -10 (since the Serbs were in cover), and emerged with a total hit percentage of 45. They fired and missed.
Each of the Serb squads fired separately. One missed, one hit... Squad #5 now had a casualty, and I replaced one of its men with a casualty figure.
Now, who won the encounter? Either way, if the Serbs won or not, they'd fade away to fight another day, and the only visible signs of the combat would be the casualty incurred by Squad #5.
The parameters of interest in deciding the victor were:
- S Number of men on your side still on their feet, i.e., the survivors.
H Casualties incurred by the other side.
These two numbers would be incorporated into the following calculation to obtain a product, P, and the side with the highest product was declared the winner.
- P = 10-sided die x (S + H)
For the Serbs, we had S = 9 survivors, H = 1 casualty on Squad #5
For Squad #5, we had S = 4 survivors, H = zero (no Serbian casualties)
And the opponents in the combat tossed their 10-sided dice:
For the Serbs P = 10-sided die x (9 + 1)
For Squad #5 P = 10-sided die x (4 + 0)
Essentially outnumbered 2-to-1, Squad #5 lost, retreated with its casualty, and fell back.
A couple of turns later, Squad #5 tried to enter the same woods, and didn't quite make it... it failed the 70 percent 'rough terrain test', and stopped just on the outskirts of the woods, in the open. Alas! for Squad #5, for again 2 Serbian squads popped up, each with an MG. Since #5 was caught in the open, the Serbs didn't deduct the -10 modifier, and this time added the +30 for the MG. Not good. Squad #5 took 2 casualties, lost this second encounter, and for all practical purposes, was out of the war effort. It may still be wandering around in the Serbian rain forests.
My other squads were far more successful. Squads #1 and 2 fought their way to the prisoner compound, each suffering one casualty. There, at the small hut guarding the gate to the compound, they diced to see what Serbian units were present. Eureka! The Serbs were evidently off to lunch, and they left no one guarding the gate!
Prisoners
Squads #1 and 2 now had a tough decision to make. In the compound were three types of prisoners. A squad could only escort as many prisoners as it had men, and with Squads #1 and 2 each having only 4 men, they could take only 8 prisoners, of the total of 14, with them.
- The first type of prisoner was a scientist. These scholars were all working on the dreaded Prattium Bomb, and were all necessary for the war effort. There were 6 scientists.
The second type of prisoner was an engineer. These people each secretly carried Prattium samples with them, also necessary for the war effort (you can't make a Prattium Bomb without Prattium). There were 6 engineers.
The third type of prisoner was a mommy with an infant daughter, and some sweet little old ladies who had been indiscriminately rounded up by the Serbs. There were 2 mommas, and 2 sweet little old ladies.
But she lucked out. A turn or so later, Squads #3 and 4 arrived, having fought their way through the forest. When they diced to see if there were any Serbian units present, they discovered that a single Serbian squad had returned from lunch and was guarding the camp. The squad did not have a MG, nor did it fire first. After a brief exchange of fire, the Serbs retreated, and our heroes entered the camp. The 2 squads easily picked up the remaining 6 prisoners to escort them to safety. Note that if these squads had had less than 6 men between them when they arrived at the camp, one or more poor prisoners would have been left behind. 'Hard cheese!' for the prisoners... 'Hard cheese!' for the sweet little old lady.
A word on the sequence. There were several phases within the turn:
- First, I'd toss a 10-sided die to determine the Elapsed Time (ET) for what I termed a 'cycle' within the turn. If the accumulated ET totaled over 10, then that would be the last cycle within the turn, the turn was considered to be over, and the extent of casualties needed to be assessed. Note that a turn could consist of several cycles.
Second, the squads of Theta Force would advance 10 inches and see if they encountered any Serbian troops.
Third, if Serbs were present, there'd be a fire fight, and one side or the other would draw back.
When the turn was over, I'd refer all squads that had been toting casualties with them to the following table, tossing percentage dice:
- 01 to 33 Man has light wound, immediately recovers.
34 to 66 Man must be carried by a buddy for all of the next turn, and will recover the turn after that.
67 to 100 Man is killed.
Note the result of the 34-to-66 dice throw. This meant that one able-bodied man in the squad would be forced to carry his wounded friend, and thus the single casualty would take 2 men out of action for the entire next turn.
The table was used only for Theta Force... when a Serbian unit was hit, I counted that immediately as a full casualty and reduced the size of the Serbian squad.
A listing of the cycles within the turns is interesting. Below, I've given the ET values of the cycles within each turn. The turn is over when the accumulated ET exceeds 10:
- Turn 1 1, 1, 6, 1, 10
Turn 2 2, 2, 4, 6
Turn 3 5, 6
The above listing says that the game took 11 bounds (11 cycles), but that casualties were assessed only 3 times. On the first turn, for example, the squads had to drag their wounded with them for 5 cycles, until they finally found out the actual extent of the injuries.
I should note that as the squads, with their rescued prisoners, approached the border and safety, the Serbs seemed less and less anxious to halt them. In each location, there remained a 60 percent chance of a Serbian force showing up, but there were few tosses below 60 in the latter phases of the game.
Back to PW Review March 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