I was invited to the Liebl house for a 54mm wargame. That, in itself, provoked my interest, since there just aren't any people around who are interested in that size figure or, for that matter, have any such figures in their inventory.
Bob set out, on his very good looking terrain-boards (a 4-foot by 8-foot table) two armies, each of around 100 single-mounted figures. Lots of tricornes, and so the battle was dubbed a semi-Seven Years War affair. He indicated that he hadn't taken the men out of their boxes for many moons... he had Britains, and SAE's, and an assortment of unidentifiable people.
And I hate to start out with an 'Alas!'... but Alas! most of the figures weren't mounted... they tried to stand up on their original bases, but many couldn't hack it. Looking at the field, I'd say that at any given time, about one-fifth of the men on the field were lying on their side... their bases were too small to balance on the contoured terrain. Especially the horsemen... Britain cavalry always have three legs on the ground, and three legs ain't enough.
Bob had outlined a very simple rules set and the sequence for the half-bound was composed of four basic phases:
- (a) Active side moves
(b) Non-active side fires
(c) Active side fires
(d) Resolve melee
Units were composed of 10 to 20 men, and infantry-in-line moved 4 inches. With muskets reaching out to 24 inches, the 4-inch movement distance proved the equivalent of a death march for the poor little fellas. At long range, out to 24 inches, every man in a firing unit tossed a 6-sided die, looking for a '6', and the toss of a '6' knocked one man off the target unit.
And the destruction increased when you got close to the enemy, for, at a 12-inch range or under, a toss of '5' or '6' betokened a kill. And there was even more destruction, for, if you examine the sequence, every unit gets to fire twice each bound. This was musket-ball-heaven for the dice throwers. A 16-man unit tossed 16 dice twice each bound. Ouch!
In contrast to the deadliness of musketry, I thought the artillery was given the short end of the stick. Here, for each cannon (there were 2 per side), the gunners, at long range, tossed a measly 2 dice. And I never found out what the guns tossed at short range... our units were so smashed by musketry that we never got close to the cannon.
The described sequence is the one used in FIRE AND FURY, and I've never liked it because there's too much firing going on. I've mentioned many times in the past, that it's inappropo for the horse-and-musket era, for it gives a moving, attacking force the same fire power as a static, defending force. To my mind, the static defenders should be able to devote more of his efforts to loading and reloading their muskets, in contrast to the attackers, who must spend time advancing.
That's why I like 'action systems', wherein each side gets a specific number of actions per bound, permitting the defender to spend his allotted actions in loading and firing, while the moving attacker must spend his in advancing.
I had 2 large infantry battalions (regiments?), one of 20 men, the other of 25 men. The 20-man unit, the 66th Blues, entered on my baseline, on a road, in single column, and zipped up for 9 inches, in contrast to the 4-inch movement allotted for units in line.
Across the table from me, Bob had a similar terrain layout, and his troops, too, entered in column formation via a road. Somehow, around Bound 3, my 66th Blues were still not in firing formation, while Bob's opposing unit, the Greys, had run up, formed up, and were starting to pound away at my boys.
My thought was that when the men were on the road, they received a movement 'bonus' because for that particular movement phase, their formation, a single-man column, permitted them to take advantage of the road. In other words, the unit got the bonus only if it retained column formation for the entire movement phase, and did nothing else.
Not so, said Bob... and his Greys zipped up the road, and at the end of their 9-inch movement, formed line by executing a right face into firing formation, ready to blast away on the firing phase,which came, unfortunately for me, right after movement.
The 66th were unprepared for the hail of death and destruction that greeted them... 20 Greys, tossing 20 dice, each looking for a '6'. Within 2 bounds, there were only 3 of the 66th left.
Undaunted, I brought on the 77th, an even larger unit than the 66th. To no avail... BANG! CRASH! BOOM!... Bob's fire power was too much. Away went the 77th.
But I had one ace in the hole. a 15-man unit of cavalry... they, too, entered on the road in column formation. Then they formed up, and charged! Their target was a rather wimpy looking, black-hatted, 20-man unit of enemy infantry. These men were so wimpy looking that they couldn't stand on their own 2 feet... they were actually mounted on stands! I felt sorry for them.
Alas! Once again, musketry proved my undoing. Firing at close range, with each man looking for a '5' or a '6', the black hats, despite their wimpiness, in 2 volleys, wiped out all but 2 of my valiant cavalry. My horsemen never made contact.
After some 6 bounds, our side gave up the ghost.
In retrospect, the rules seemed quite similar to those proposed in the sixties, when Don Featherstone, Stuart Asquith, Terry Wise, and other wargaming groundbreakers published their sets. Fred Haub and I have tried many of these early rules sets and found them all wanting. On the surface, reviewing the rules and procedures, they appear complete and satisfactory, but when you get down to the gaming procedures, they are so full of holes and have so many things left unsaid, that interpreting them becomes a major task.
Here, we had Bob Liebl to answer our questions. And he performed in exemplary fashion. But, to my mind, this was not really a Seven Years War game. This was a death-and-destruction-by-fire game.
Prior to the game, one of the participants, having just come in the door, glimpsed the array of 54mm figures, and commented "Aha! Nice 'n big!" And I must admit it was a pleasure gaming with the 54's, even though so many of them refused to stand up.
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© Copyright 1999 Wally Simon
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