Jim Butters faced Cliff Sayre... Jim for the South, Cliff for the North. Cliff's Yankees were slightly outnumbered by the Rebels, and to compensate for this, I permitted Cliff's men to occupy a small entrenchment in midfield... it was the Southern task to drive the Yanks out. Units of 5 men each marched around the field... these 5-men groups were termed "regiments", and three regiments were grouped into a brigade, complete with Brigadier. When firing and when in melee, hits were put on the opposition in different ways. The markers used to indicate casualties were of three types, as described below: (a) Percentage dice were thrown, and a favorable low throw (01 to 33) caused the target unit to incur "heavy casualties". This meant that a prone man was placed next to the unit. The presence of the prone figure affected the unit's melee capability and its morale level. (b) When the dice toss was somewhat 'in the middle' (34 to 66), the target unit incurred "medium casualties". Here, a kneeling man, holding his aching head, was placed with the unit. (c) Last, when a high toss occurred (67 to 100), this was not-so-favorable for the firing unit... the target unit took "light casualties", and a standing man with arms akimbo, with a pained look on his face, joined the affected unit. From the above, note that low tosses were good, high were bad. The rules were consistent in this approach. After several rounds of firing, or engaging in combat once or twice, many of the units had a number of wounded casualty markers attached. I should note that a plethora of wounded men following a unit provided a good visual indication of the status of a unit... if you saw an enemy unit dragging lots of its casualties behind, this meant that the unfortunate unit provided a fine target for even more casualties... war is hell! This was a "clock" game, and the "clock" determined when an administrative phase occurred, and what the actual effect of the casualty figures meant. At the start of each half-bound, the active side tossed a 10-sided die for what was termed the "Elapsed Time" (ET)... from half-bound to half-bound, the ET numbers accumulated, and when the total reached 12, that meant that it was time to find out what truly had happened to the unit. Each type of casualty figure had a value: Heavy casualties Prone figure 30 points Medium casualties Kneeling figure 20 points Light casualties Standing figure 10 points Came casualty assessment time, and a unit would add its Total Casualty Points (TCP) and dice on the chart shown on the next page. Note that the most a unit could lose during an administrative phase was two men... with 5-man units, losses of more than 2-men-at-a-blow would have shortened the game too much. When the men were removed, so were the casualty figures, and the unit started "clean".... but somewhat weaker... in the next half-bound. - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . No losses TCP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . Lose one man 1/2 TCP --------------------------------------------------------------------- . Lose two men - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In the battle between Jim and Cliff, Jim's Southerners eventually took the position in midfield, but at heavy loss. A second battle pitted the husband/wife team of the Liebls against each other... Bob was for the North, Cleo for the South. Here, too, the Yanks were a wee bit outnumbered, even to the point that Cleo's force trundled up a cannon to the battleline. With 54mm figures on the table, I've noted in the past that it's fairly hard not to block your cannon with your units, and so was it here. About the only good thing the cannon did occurred when it was charged by some Yankee cavalry... here, the cannoneers, although seemingly charged on the flank, managed to pivot the gun and blast the oncoming cavalry with canister. In the sequence, the Active Side always received three actions... each action permitted it to move 5 inches, or to fire or to change formation, etc. Following the Active Side's movement, the Non-Active Side received 2 actions to return fire. These two actions allowed the Non-Active Side to pivot its firing units before firing (first action to pivot, second to fire). In an alternate move sequence, most of my rules systems give the Non-Active Side a chance to react to the Active Side's movement, instead of penalizing the Non-Active Side, and forcing it to simply stand immobile as the Active Side's units run around. But the reaction wasn't totally "free'... the Non-Active Side had to determine if the unit in question "received its orders to react"... if it didn't "receive its orders", it couldn't react. To keep things simple, a percentage dice throw of 80 or under was sufficient to determine that the unit "received its orders". With a probability of reacting of 80 percent, there were few units that failed to act properly... but, on occasion, the orders failed to arrive, and the unit stood there, flat footed. This was the manner in which the artillery unit, faced with a veritable horde (4 figures) of Yankee cavalry bearing down upon them, managed to turn their cannon and bash the cavalry. On the field, with his Yankee force of three brigades (9 regiments), Bob was given three strongpoints at midfield. One Union regiment occupied each of the strongpoints, and Cleo's objective, as Southern commander, was to take two of the three. Cleo concentrated most of her troops on her left flank, and after heavy, heavy losses (casualties removed resulting from the administrative phase), she took the strongpoint there. At this point in time, we all agreed that both of the other two strongpoints would remain in Yankee hands, for (a) Cleo had to shift her forces over, a time consuming effort, and (b) her remaining strength wouldn't permit her to mount a proper attack. Back to PW Review October 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