Category: Wargaming

My thinking on these rules continues to evolve.  It gives me something to do while running in the mornings.  🙂

In the play test we had a couple of weeks ago, I was generally pleased with the way it worked, but still thought it could be faster without any loss of accuracy.  There were two areas I thought were an opportunity for improvement.  The first was determining whether a body part was protected by cover, and the second was morale testing.

Recall from my previous post that when you draw a card to determine hit location, that body part may be protected by cover.  I had originally envisioned that the cover would be on the back of the single chart card (4×6) that you would need for the game and that eventually player wouldn’t need to refer to it any more.  I found that even toward the end of the play test, there were still questions about whether a piece of cover protected a body part.  I decided that I could add that right on the chart card.

This accomplished two things.  First, it put the information right on the card that you were already looking at, and second, it allowed me to have greater variance.  I wanted a wall, for instance, to usually block a torso hit, but not always.  You can see in the figure above that now I’ve added small icons that indicate when a piece of cover protects the body part.  You still have to compare weapon penetration against cover protection as described earlier.

This figure shows all ten hit location and cover possibilities.  These are repeated five times on a total of 50 cards.  For cards 51 and 52, I think I am going to make body hits, but instead of the five circles used to determine which figure was hit, they will indicate the soldier with a crew-served weapon was hit.  I figure folks will try to knock out the machine-gun, so this will provide a slightly higher chance of hitting it than a rifleman.

The original morale resolution process was copied from LSNC, replacing special dice with special cards.  This requires you to draw a card for each morale pip accrues since you last activation.  Interestingly, this process seems slower with cards than with dice, even though the information was almost identical.  So, I thought about a system that requires only one card draw but takes into account the number of morale pips accrued.  As it looks like math, I’m sure anyone who plays the game will complain.

An example is:

Difference = (2x # morale pips) – Guts#

If Difference > 0, then…

Let’s say a half squad had accrued three morale pips.  In the formula above, Difference would be 6 – Guts#.  The Guts# is 3 for green, 5 for regular, and 7 for elite — the same as the minimum movement distances for those Guts ratings.  In this case, a green unit would fail, but a regular or elite unit would pass.  I haven’t thought through all the implications of this change yet, and in the back of my head I think it may make shot-up units more difficult to break than fresh ones, but I’m still working on it.  There are also some cases, under this new scheme in which units are guaranteed to break.  That’s not what I’m looking for.  Somehow, I need to compare number of pips with morale level and also take into account cover.  It’s a vexing issue.

In my first post, I described movement and briefly addressed activation.  The activation system is very similar to the Look, Sarge, No Charts family of rules; however, there are more cards in the activation deck.

Units activate and fire by half squad.  After all shots are declared, the firing player begins flipping cards.  The series of symbols at the top of the card are used to determine whether the shot hits.  Start in “column” zero and shift right as indicated in the green, rounded rectangle.  If the result is a green check, flip the next card to determine which figure was hit and where the figure was hit.  Once the hit is resolved, flip the next card for the next shot.  Keep going until all shots are resolved.

When a hit is scored and you flip the next card to determine where the figure was hit, the figure may be protected by cover.  The type of cover determines which body parts are protected as indicated below.

If the body part is protected, compare the penetration of the firing weapon with the protection level of the cover.  For instance, most rifles and light machine guns have a penetration of two.  Trees, for instance, have a protection of one.  If the protection is greater than penetration, the shot is blocked, and the target soldier gets a “duck back” or “stun” result instead.  If the penetration is greater than the protection, the wound type goes down a level:  incapacitate is reduced to wound, and wound is reduced to wound(-).  Wound(-) means that if the wound hits an area previously wounded, the wound has no effect.

A wound reduces a figures endurance by one.  Incapacitate reduces endurance by three.  When endurance is reduced to zero, the figure is out of the game.

Note that some weapons get to fire more than once per activation, as indicated in the “dice” column.

For several weeks, while running, I’ve been thinking hard about some new ideas for WWII skirmish gaming.  If these ideas work out, I can see applying them to multiple “modern” skirmishes, such as cowboys and sci fi.    I’m trying to get at a number of important issues:

1. I wanted to avoid having individual soldiers target individual soldiers across the table.  That slows a game, leads to gaminess, and provides unrealistically good control of distribution of fire.
2. I wanted cover to act as cover.  In most games cover reduces your chance of hitting a target.  While this is mathematically indistinguishable from what I’ve decided to do, it didn’t quite seem right at the skirmish level.
3. I wanted fire to be at areas, rather than individual soldiers, but I wanted team leaders and squad leaders to have an impact on distribution of fire by restricting the size of the target area.
4. I wanted activation to be randomized, but I didn’t want only one person playing at a time.
5. I wanted movement distances to be somewhat randomized.
6. I wanted the game to work for either a “realistic” skirmish game or something more cinematic.
7. I wanted it to be quick and fun without becoming simplistic.

So, lets start by defining the attributes of each figure.  These attributes are indicated by the acronym GAMER:

• Guts:  the “morale” of the figure.  This can either be a unit attribute or different for each figure.  Ratings are green (worst), regular, and elite (best).
• Accuracy:  the ability to hit a target with a firearm or thrown object.  Ratings are trained (worst), veteran, and expert (best).
• Melee or Might:  the ability to damage an enemy in hand-to-gland combat.  Ratings are trained (worst), veteran, and expert (best).
• Endurance: the ability to take damage before being incapacitate.  In a “realistic” game Endurance is three, but for more cinematic games Endurance can range from two to eight.
• Reaction:  the ability to react first or more quickly than an opponent.  Ratings are slothful (worst), average, and cat-like (best).

Activation and movement are based on Guts.  When a unit activates, a d10 is rolled for its movement speed, but there are minimum distances depending on Guts:

• Green: 3:
• Regular: 5″
• Elite: 7″

Movement over linear obstacles costs 2″.  Movement through rough terrain halves the movement speed.

Activation is done by rolling cards and looking for your Guts.  Cards have Green, Regular, and Elite on them as well as being numbered from 1 to 6.  There are several of each of the 1 – 6 cards.  Two in each color are black.  Up to three in each color are red.  All of the red cards and black cards are usable by elite units.  Only two (of three) red cards and both black cards are useable by regular units.  Only one red card and two black cards are usable by green units.  There are additional activations cards for close air support, indirect fire, heroes (in a cinematic game), and other events.

In my next post, I will discuss how fire combat is resolved.  We played it last Friday night, and the players seemed to think it worked pretty well.

This weekend five of the HAWKs got together for another play test of Bear Yourselves Valiantly.  In particular, we have been going back and forth about how many units can participate in a melee, when units get credit for overlapping another, when they get credit for a flank attack, etc.

In addition, we needed to test the rules for a different historical period — in this case the War of the Roses.  We assembled a small subset of the HAWKs — those who have been involved in the rules development beyond play testing — because this kind of play testing works better with a small group.

Chris hasn’t painted all his figures yet, and I haven’t begun painting my 100 Years Wars figures.  He made bases with the correct labels that we used in place of bases with figures.  While not aesthetically pleasing, it worked just fine.

We spent 45 minutes discussing outstanding rules issues, then began.  About 90 minutes into the first game, it was obvious that what we had discussed about overlapping units wasn’t working.  So we stopped and discussed it some more.  After another half hour, Duncan came up with the answer.

The challenge has been that we’ve restricted unit movement in the ancient version, so the rules for matching up units in melee from the other rules in the family didn’t work.  We need units to get credit for overlapping around the edge of enemy units when multiple units were attacking without breaking the overall systems.  In the end, we decided that only one unit may attack each face of an enemy base. If more than one unit is attacking the same face, only one attacking unit rolls, but it applies a +1 “overlap” modifier to the die roll.  While this may sound a little goofy, it works really well on the table.

After we completed the War of the Roses game we set up a Romans vs. Carthaginians game and played again.

Not only did we get a lot of work done on finicky aspects of the rules design, but we had a good time.

Thursday was supposed to be “Sea Scout” day, in which our Venture crew would man a boat and sail down the Chesapeake Bay.  We were actually supposed to do the boat on Monday and Tuesday, but the mast broke, and the captain just got it repaired on Monday.  Actually, I think doing the ship on Thursday and Friday was better, as it allowed the kids to do all the COPE and climbing early in the week, when the instructors were conducting all the initial training.

We had a 0500 wakeup planned so that we could pack our gear, pick up our food to take along on the boat, and get to the Inner Harbor during rush hour by 0800.  At 0430 it began to rain.  We got the kids to the boat on time and loaded their gear and provisions.  There is only room for the six kids and one adult.  As there are girls in the crew, the one adult HAD to be Candy.  So after dropping off the kids, I came home to post these pictures and pack for Northern Tier with Tommy, beginning on Saturday.  Early reports from Candy via SMS indicate that the weather has been pretty good and that the kids are having a good time.

Chris Palmer and I (ably assisted by Kurt Schlegel) ran a large (14-player) Bear Yourselves Valiantly: Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval game at Historicon Saturday morning.  We ran the large game partly to expose people to the still under development rules and also to demonstrate (to ourselves at least) that the rules could support a game that big without bogging down.  I think we accomplished both objectives while also providing a fun game for the players.

We were running this large fantasy game back-to-back with our battle of Laon Napoleonic game (see previous post), so for the fantasy game we used the same scenario; we ran Laon with Elves and Goblins.

In this scenario the Elves were trying to keep a road open while the Goblins and their undead allies were trying to cut the road.  There was lots of room on this 15-foot table for maneuver, so this was not your normal lines of troops packed in across the table game.

The rules worked really well for this large game.  Except for a couple of folks from our local club (the HAWKs), none of the players had any experience with the rules.  They quickly picked up the mechanics and could largely play the game without us after a couple of turns.

The goblins tried to work their way around the Elven left flank while also fighting tooth and nail for control of this town.  The town had no impact on the victory conditions, but like moths to flame the two armies converged on it.  I guess they liked the blue roofs.

I brought all my troops, but we mainly used just Chris’ troops.  Apparently we have enough between us for an even larger game in the future!

My wife had the good camera, and the room was pretty dim, so many of these pictures turned out very dark.

In the end, the Elves held about two more feet of road than the Goblins and were declared the winners.

I like this picture, because the guy closes to the camera is obviously enjoying himself.

Dave Wood and I ran several Napoleonic games using Fate of Battle at Historicon.  Dave ran his games using his 25mm figures, and I ran a large game using my 10mm figures.

To show that the barrier to entry to Fate of Battle isn’t nearly as great as people think, Dave continues to run games using his Empire-mounted 25mm figures.  Many of us have those in boxes somewhere.  He has mounted his 25mm figures on “sabot” bases with the labels.  It works quite well, and for smaller battles you can still have a nice game on a standard table.

Dave ran two scenarios from our under-development 1814 Campaign scenario book.  Both games went quite well — in fact better than the play test games.

On Saturday afternoon Dave and I ran a large 10mm game with 12 players.  This was partly to show that you could run a 12-player game with these rules without bogging down.  It was also to play a large game that you generally only have room to play at a convention.

The scenario was the Battle of Laon from our under-development 1814 campaign scenario book.  In the book Laon will be two separate scenarios.  We were playing the eastern half of the battle.  In this scenario the French are trying to keep their retreat rout open (far end of the table in the above picture).  The Prussians under Kleist are trying to cut the road.  In the above picture you can see there are two major roads that meet in a “Y’ about two feet from the far end of the table.  The French were trying to remain in possession of as much of these two roads as possible.

There is a town in the middle of the table astride one of the major roads.  The town itself is not worth any victory points and could be bypassed; however, if makes a nice defensive position for someone.  It was hotly contested during the game.

Two young men on the French team (on the right of the above picture) did a terrific job of maneuvering to thwart the enemies’ plans.  As the Prussian cavalry maneuvered to go around the French left, they kept readjusting and filling holes created by aggressive Prussian attacks.  In the end, they only gave up a couple feet of table while pushing across toward the stream, keeping the road open.  The Prussians pushing from the close end of the table in the above picture were quite aggressive, but the other Prussian corps much closer to the French end of the table were not aggressive enough to cut the road before the game ended.

Victory was determined in a unique way.  I measured the number of feet from the French end of the road (far end of the table) to the farthest point of the two roads they controlled.  (This meant that the one little section in the back corner was counted twice.)  Then I measured the number of feet along the two roads from the close edge of the table to the farthest point controlled by the Prussians.  The winner is the side with the most feet of road.  In this case the French won by about two feet.  (The table was 15 feet long.)

James “Tank” Nickle ran two ancient games, featuring Romans and Carthaginians, using the under-development Bear Yourselves Valiantly: Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval rules.  Both were hugely successful.

Elephants!  Tank made up some interesting rules about elephants going on a rampage that we’ll incorporate into the rules.

Most of the development is done.  We just have a few odds and ends to address.  I hope to begin writing the first draft around Christmas.  The process of writing, editing, photography, and layout usually takes me about four months.  Then off to the printer.  We hope to release them in time for Historicon 2014.

People have told us that these rules are the most fun they’ve ever had playing ancients games.  While the rules have a point system that is used to help figure out how many units a player should control, it is not meant to be a bullet-proof system for tournament play.  These rules are meant for scenario play.

I really like the look of the table with these rules.  Each Roman base represents a maniple.  The table looks like how I envision an ancient Roman battlefield might look.

I ran two GASLIGHT games at Historicon 2013 set in my representation of the town of Granville, IL.  The first was a Pulp game in the continuing saga of Duke Morrison and his companions thwarting the plans of the evil Venusian invaders and their gangster minions.

The town of Granville is composed of several Litko buildings, some “scratch built” buildings made of something called War Foam, and Plasticville buildings.  The overall effect is good.  I wanted something that actually looked like a town.  Litko just released six new Pulp buildings.  I picked up three of them at Historicon and intend to pick up the last three by Christmas.  There are a half dozen Plasticville buildings that I need to put together and paint, like the school, church, fruit stand, etc.  I also need to cut some MDF into sidewalks.  The ones pictured above are made of grey craft foam.

This is another view of the town, focusing on the gas station.  I’m looking for a small brontosaurus to either go on top of the station or set out front as something for kids to play on, but I haven’t found just the right thing yet.

I used the rules from The GASLIGHT Compendium that were originally published in To Be Continued… by GASLIGHT.  Each player had about four or five figures, usually two Main Characters and one or two extras.  The sides consisted of:

• Player 1:  Cpt. Duke Morrison and soldiers
• Player 2: Sgt. “Wrench” Web and soldiers
• Player 3:  Lieutenant “Boats” Morgan and sailors
• Player 4:  Crash Corrigan and his rocket infantry
• Player 5:  MacDuff, Hallihan, and the rest of the Granville police
• Players 6 – 9: Venusians with either ray pistols or ray rifles
• Player 10: Horseface Harry, Smilin’ Jack, and his minions
• Player 11: Big Hans and his bruisers
• Player 12:  Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit, and his minions
• Player 13:  Torpedo Brooks, Society Max, and his minions
• Player 14:  The Slasher, Angie the Ox, and his minions
• Player 15:  Bonnie, Baltimore Bennie, and her dolls
• Player 16: Professor Nannini, Gianna Nannini, and some lab workers

While it may look like the good guys are hopelessly outnumbered, in this scenario the gangsters were wild cards.  While they’ve been doing the Venusians’ dirty work through six previous convention scenarios, the Venusians have refused to pay them.  In this scenario, the gangsters begin scattered around town and are trying to find loot in compensation for services rendered.  Only one gangster faction, consisting of two players’ worth of gangsters, can win, so they are competing with each other for the most loot.  This puts the gangsters at odds with each other and creates opportunities for Venusians to trade any loot they find while searching for lab equipment for help.

The good guys have to stop both the gangsters and the Venusians.

The game was the typical GASLIGHT Pulp rollicking affair, which was enjoyed by all the players.  There was lots of shooting, a big melee in the lab, and some use of cars as weapons.  It’s never a good idea to stand in the street in Granville!

The second GASLIGHT game in Granville also involved many of the usual suspects.  In this case, the Venusians, tired of their plans being disrupted by Duke Morrison, Boats Morgan, Wrench Webb and the rest of the gang have created a ray that turns humans into zombies.  Duke and his buddies must get into Granville, rescue as many of the townspeople as possible, and gather up Professor Nannini’s equipment to be used to figure out how to defeat the zombie ray.

I used the rules from the free Zombies by GASLIGHT supplement that can be downloaded from gaslightrules.com and RPGNow.

In the first turn, there were only a few zombies on the table.  The humans/survivors thought they could easily knock them out with well placed gunfire.  The problem is that whenever humans make noise, a noise marker is placed on the table.  At the end of each turn, zombies are generated at each noise marker.  After the first turn of shooting, the town was swarming with zombies.  I didn’t tell the players what I was doing, and it took them a couple of turns to figure it out and act more quietly.

One of the players found a truck and quietly loaded supplies on it inside a well-protected garage (bottom right of picture above).  While he was doing this, the other players were busy in hand-to-hand combat with zombies and trying to rescue civilians.  Several of the rescuers were infected and became zombies.  When he broke out of the garage and headed to town, he had his men fire small arms out the back of the truck.    This generated lots of zombies in his wake that ensured that few other humans would make it off the table behind him, so he won the game by a large margin.  Victory was determined by 2 points for each human and 1 point for each unit of supplies take off the table.

In the end, I think both games were successful and that the players had a good time.

An article I wrote on running a Dr. Who-based GASLIGHT game was recently published on Cigar Box Battle:  http://www.cigarboxbattle.com/doctor-who-by-g-a-s-l-i-g-h-t/