One of the most maligned of all the classes of wargamers is the rulesman. The man who believes that the rules should be followed even if they do produce a result which another might consider pure nonsense. The man who wins wargames almost entirely because of his superior knowledge of the rules of the game. Believe it or not, he is a human being - not some sort of hydraheaded monstrosity. Now I have no wish to try to defend the kind of person who stretches the meaning of the language and purposefully subverts all intent just to be able to read something into a set of rules that is, in fact, not really there. However, if my Cossacks rout your Grenadiers of the Old Guard by charging them on the flank and rolling a six, I deserve my victory just as much as if the far more expected reverse had happened. If the rules call for a rout in such a circumstances, then so be it. Out stupidest rule allows sappers to dig one inch per turn per sapper. Even allowing that sappers have a move of only 9" per turn - and thus limiting this nonsense - this rate of tunneling exceeds anything that even the most modern of excavators could accomplish. But it is the rule! And until it is changed, unless the game conditions proscribe such activity, you will find your houses sinking beneath the earth if you fight a wargame with those rules. And the player who uses that rule will just be doing what is right and proper - playing the game as best he can. Just because a rule is stupid does not make it a non-rule - change its but do not deny your opponent the right to it as long as it remains unchanged. Historically generals had to fight by the rules: the rules of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, psychology, etc. Napoleon might have willed that his sappers dig at phenomenal rates, but the rules governing the mass and resistance of earth prevented it completely. But had they not can you in your wildest dreams imagine that he would not have done so??!! And Ney certainly willed the massed cavalry at Waterloo to break the British squares to tiny pieces - but the rules governing the terrain and British troop psychology willed otherwise. Ney rolled snake eyes while the Duke was rolling boxcars. But on the wargame board, the laws of nature are not nearly so obvious. What may seem inherently right and proper to one person may seem extremely ludicrous to another - so we have rules. And they tell you what approximations to the laws of nature you are using; what interpretations you are going to give to the many possible outcomes that historical encounters might have had; what scales, time sequences, etc., you are dealing with. Recently the Editor of the Newsletter said; "This is wrong - a wargame should be a test of tactical skill not of knowledge of rules and a set of rules should be so phrased as to allow anyone after a few minutes study to go onto the table and, by sheer tactical merit, defeat an opponent even though that opponent may have a far better knowledge of the rules being used." A beautiful dream! - but highly impractical. Considering the number of people that I have beaten on my first encounter with them, using their rules, just because I studied their implications more fully, I regard it as purely a dream. You do not have to cheat or misinterpret to use rules against your opponent. Merely knowing the exact odds (I use a computer to help me) of the common fire and melee situations is enough to give one a big edge. Using simple trigonometry to direct your fire instead of guessing is another help in some games. And maximising your chances of causing the largest number of units to fall back or rout in each situation while minimising your own chances for a bad result will usually pay off in victory. These are simple skills and they can be acquired just the same as knowledge of historical tactics - and probably to much greater advantage. No, I don't believe that anyone has written a set of rules which cannot be analysed (usually mathematically) and utilised quite legally and MORALLY to give one a distinct edge towards the ultimate goal of victory. Editor's Comments: Everything said here by Robert Cory may be correct and its application well within the "spirit of the game". But GA14E is the operative word, played for relaxation rather than triumph. Somehow, I don't think that Bob and I would find each other very agreeable playing companions. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 117 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com