This Hallowed Ground: Civilians at Gettysburg

Civilians rarely show up in any explicit sense in wargames. This comes as no surprise. Naturally wargamers aren't particularly interested in modeling the tragic details of war's suffering in their games, even though it's inherent in real war. The suffering of the soldiers gets little enough attention, the suffering of civilians even less.

The all-encompassing nature of 20th Century combat occasionally prompts some wargame acknowledgement that civilians are around, but civilians are very easy to ignore in black powder era games. The limited range and destructiveness of the weapons meant it was relatively easy for civilians to remove themselves from immediate harm, and societal values tended to mitigate some of the worst abuses against civilians, at least outside of colonial warfare. Directly targeting civilians was common enough in ancient warfare and would become so again in the 20th Century, but the American Civil War was in the middle of an era that was relatively mild for noncombatants, especially considering it was a civil war, which tend to be especially brutal. While Sherman's March, for example, became infamous, it's worthwhile to remember that nearly all of the "outrages" inflicted were directed against property, rather than persons.

So civilians rarely figure in Civil War era wargames, making the appearance of two of them in This Hallowed Ground rather remarkable. John Burns and Jenny Wade often rate a mention in accounts of the battle, and were particularly singled out in the early historical accounts, but rarely appear in wargames on Gettysburg.

Partly this is due to scale. In games depicting large formations of men in brigades or divisions, it's hard to justify focusing on any individuals. Sometimes even generals don't make the cut. This Hallowed Ground, however, brings the battle into a close force, with units measured in increments of just 50 men and leaders depicted down to the brigade command level.

At such a level of detail it's much easier to justify depicting the presence of these two famous individuals on the field.

Of the two, John Burns is perhaps the most straightforward. He was the 70-year-old town constable and a War of 1812 veteran. During the first day's battle he picked up his personal weapon and joined the Union firing line, fighting all day and being lightly wounded several times. That having a random civilian, particularly such an elderly one, do such a thing was uncommon is attested to the notoriety Burns received. He was widely feted for his feat in his lifetime and a picture of him often appears in Gettysburg books even now.

In game terms he is likewise treated straightforwardly. He gets a counter and is treated as a leader for rules purposes, except that his only effect on Union units is to provide a morale benefit. He's automatically removed at 6 p.m. on July 1 unless removed as a casualty before then. This seems like a very spot-on depiction of his effect, providing a little bit of color in the game without any likelihood of a major game effect. Providing a slight morale boost for one hex worth of Union troops won't change a game.

The second civilian is a little more problematical. "Jenny" Wade (her real name was "Ginnie") was a 20-year-old woman who was the only civilian resident of Gettysburg killed during the battle. She died after being hit by a stray shot on July 3 while kneading bread in her kitchen at the south edge of town. Based on our 20th Century experiences we might expect a lot more impact on local civilians. A major battle that killed just one bystander would be miracle these days. Miss Wade's fiance died from wounds he received in battle just a few weeks later and the tragic story of two young lives lost amid the larger tragedy of the war struck a chord among contemporaries and made her famous.

In the game Jenny Wade is treated in two different ways. The first is as the "good" Jenny Wade, basically sticking to the common story. Miss Wade's counter sits on the map and if anyone shoots into her hex there's a chance she will become a "leader" casualty. If she should happen to die, the Union gets 1 victory point, a significant benefit equal to shattering an infantry brigade. Because of this, the game effect will tend to steer action around that particular hex, which isn't especially realistic. I'd think a better solution from a game standpoint would be to roll for the chance of a "Jenny Wade" casualty anytime any hex of Gettysburg is fire on. There wasn't anything remarkable about Miss Wade compared to the other residents of the town except for her being more unlucky.

Even played with the rule as written, the "good" Jenny will have minimal effect on the game and most of the time she can be expected to survive the battle. The same can't be said for the "Naughty" Jenny.

This version of the rule asserts that Miss Wade was actually the local town prostitute and includes a fairly long and detailed rule (4.1) detailing her game effects, which can include immobilizing whole brigades of Confederates who happen to "visit" her hex and even including a 33% chance of killing Gen. Lee with a heart attack if the Rebel player should be so incautious as to place the general (famous for his rectitude) in her hex.

Dean Essig (Dave Powell makes it clear it's Dean's rule) is obviously having a little fun here. It's unlikely folks playing such a demanding game would take the chance of having it affected by such a crazy rule, so I rather doubt it's ever been played. And the "slander" against poor Miss Wade is, so far as I can tell, completely baseless. There's no evidence outside of this game that any such accusation has ever been made against Jenny Wade, who was born and raised in the small town, which was hardly the kind of metropolis that would support such a career choice.

"Naughty" Jenny does provide a little comic relief in an otherwise pretty serious game, though, and excuse for a counter showing a little leg.

Monsoon Seas review

Although styled "Volume III" in the Close Action series, Monsoon Seas is not a full-fledged expansion of the game series in the same way as Commands & Colors, for example, with new pieces, maps and the like. Essentially, like its predecessor Rebel Seas, it's really a scenario book.
That said, it's really an essential buy for Close Action fans and anyone interested in the age of fighting sail. Like other Mark Campbell efforts, Monsoon Seas is exhaustively researched, often from primary sources such as ship's logs and captain's letters. Indeed, buying Monsoon Seas is more like buying a history book that happens to have some wargame scenarios in it than merely buying a scenario book.

The focus of the book of this volume is the famous Indian Ocean duel between the fleets of British admiral Sir Edward Hughes and French Admiral Pierre-Andre de Suffren de St.-Tropez, perhaps France's greatest admiral ever. With extensive historical background, scenarios are provided covering the years of French defeats before Suffren arrived and then his brilliant career. A total of 17 scenarios cover the entire Franco-British Indian Ocean struggle.

Compared to fleet actions in other theaters, the Indian Ocean campaign's engagements lend themselves well to moderately sized gaming groups. Close Action is best played with individual players controlling 1-3 ships. This means full-sized fleet actions often aren't practical outside of convention settings or online play. But most of the battles between Suffren and Hughes involved about a dozen ships, so a group as small as six or eight can be accommodated.

Unlike most age of sail battles, which can be frustrating for the non-British side to play because their ships are crap, the Indian Ocean battles feature squadrons of equal quality, due to Suffren's inspired leadership and abetted by Hughes' pedestrian style.

In addition to the Franco-British scenarios, Monsoon Seas also includes three scenarios and historical background for a war I know I never heard of, and I rather doubt many have -- the war between Spain and Portugal off the coast of South America in 1776-1777. Huh? Yeah, me too!
Yep, apparently Spain and Portugal fought a short naval war over the boundary between Brazil and the Spanish colonies to the south while the American Revolution was just heating up. The two events were related because it tied up Portugal's main ally, Britain, so Spain could feel free to war against its Iberian neighbor. Apparently it was a limited war, and no fighting occurred in Europe between the adjacent powers. The war provides an excuse for four (numbered 1, 2A, 2B and 3) small scenarios suitable for a 2-6 players.

The war doesn't relate to the Monsoon Seas theme in any way, but it wouldn't have fit any better with Rebel Seas or the upcoming Europeans Seas either.

In addition to the scenarios and historical background, the 84-page book includes some important errata for Close Action and two new rules sections. One replaces the optional "Uncertain Wearing" rule from Rebel Seas with a simpler rule that still reflects the real difficulties of turning a ship under sail with a poor crew or battle damage. (wearing is a turn with the wind, as opposed to tacking, which is turning the bow across the wind) The other rule adds a section on shore batteries, which is a very useful addition to the game system.

Monsoon Seas is an excellent work, well worth having for anybody who has an interest in the age of sail.

Operation Solace review

Operation Solace is a small hex-and-counter wargame depicting a hypothetical invasion of North Vietnam around 1969 to rescue POWs.

While not particularly likely, the operation does have some interesting aspects for gaming. It was one of two games in the Vietnam-themed issue No. 5 of Command Magazine of 1990 (The other being Hamburger Hill).

The one scenario lasts just six one-day turns. Each hex is about 6 miles across and the map covers the majority of North Vietnam, centered on Hanoi. The map is functional and about average in appearance. It shows the key terrain, including jungles, mountains, cities, towns and rivers. Man-made facilities depicted include a road net, several airfields and eight POW camps.

The invading American force includes eight commando teams in a white-on-black color scheme, three Marine battalions in white on dark green, and nine U.S. Army battalions of airborne, airmobile and mechanized troops(three of each) in black on olive. Finally there is a helicopter "brigade," also in olive and ten air support units in light blue. The battalions are two-step and the other units have just one. The defending North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units are generally two-step infantry divisions of yellow on red. Filling out the NVA order of battle are a tank regiment, two anti-aircraft brigades, three groups of VIPs and three dummies.

The 6-page rulebook describes a low-complexity wargame using standard game mechanics such as odds-based combat, IGO-HUGO movement-combat turn sequence, mechanized movement phase (US only) and stacking, but no zones of control. It's a game of low complexity by wargame standards. With just 65 counters in total this is clearly a small game.

The US Player has to enter North Vietnam by sea and air, grab the POWs and evacuate everyone within six turns.

The game revolves accumulating victory points. The Americans win VPs by evacuating POWs and VIPs and eliminating combat units. The NVA gets VPs for eliminating US units or if the US units fail to get off the map. In addition the NVA scores VPs for uncaptured VIPs and unrescued POWs. Both sides can lose VPs, the NVA for "liquidating" POWs and the US for collateral damage caused by using its heavy firepower in populated areas. The game is a tight contest between the two sides. The surprised NVA gathers it forces slowly and is facing daunting US firepower. But the US has just six turns to get in, grab and get out. Both sides have interesting and different challenges and both will get to attack and defend. While powerful, the American force is just a dozen battalions and some special forces units and will be stretched thin.

The NVA has to be careful about facing US strength, but can make it very hard to the US to pull everyone out in time.The game only takes about five minutes to set up and can easily be played twice in one sitting due to the low counter density and familiar game mechanics.

Because it's a hypothetical battle, it's hard to judge the historicity of the game design. It's highly unlikely that President Nixon would have authorized such a high-risk operation. But if he had, it may well have been the nail-biter this game suggests.

The only errata is an admission that the game is somewhat biased in favor of the US player and suggesting an additional measure for an American player victory.

Command Magazine No. 8 contained variant rules and counters for adding Chinese intervention and a Sheridan-equipped light tank unit to the potential OB.

Recommendations(Yes) For Wargamers: A unique and highly unusual topic covered in a playable way.

(No) For Collectors: No remarkable collectibility.

(Conditional Yes) For Euro gamers: Although a hex-and-counter wargame with intricate and detailed rules compared to most Euro games, this game is short and straightforward enough that it may be worth trying.

Naval what-ifs

Avalanche Press' Great War At Sea series (and the sister series Second World War At Sea) are notable for the large number of scenarios included. There are, literally, several hundred scenarios between them.

This marks a significant break from naval wargames published in the "golden age" of SPI/AH games in the 0s-80s. Typically they included just a historical battle. The classic Midway has just one scenario, as did the original edition of Jutland, although the second edition of Jutland added a couple of others. Games covering the South Pacific battles around the Solomons usually depicted all the historical carrier battles, but that's it.

This is rather remarkable, in hindsight, because naval miniatures wargamers there's been a very long tradition of creating various "what-if" battles and not just sticking to historical fights.

Naval battles are, compared to land battles, very rare. Nearly every war will involve a lot of fighting on land. Even before the 20th Century and the rise of continuous combat, land battles were much more common than naval actions. There are at least four dozen full-scale Napoleonic land battles, where fleets met just a few times in comparable fights. Many wars see hardly any naval warfare at all.

But even wars with a large naval component usually see a lot more land fighting. Huge armies of British and French grappled with their German foes on a daily basis in the Great War. But actual naval battles between the Germans and their enemies added up to maybe a dozen or so, depending upon how generous a definition of battle you use.

There are many reasons for why naval battles are rare, but probably the most significant is the enormous cost of warships and the difficulty of replacing losses, especially in capital units. As many countries have demonstrated, it's possible to raise a large army in a relatively short period of time. Indeed, it's normal for most of the people who serve in a war to have enlisted after the start of the war, unless it's an unusually brief conflict. In contrast, aside from light ships, it's rare for a Navy to end a war larger than it started. Even in those exceptional cases where a major navy grows in wartime, it's usually based on a pre-war building program. The enormous World War II U.S. Navy's large ships were all started before the war and most of the major units started after the beginning of the war were never finished.

So every admiral is well aware that any loss he suffers is likely a permanent one for his nation, making admirals notoriously cautious about committing their biggest ships to battle.

Wargamers, of course, have no such qualms, but the historical reticence of admirals means that there really aren't too many naval battles to model.

Avalanche Press ignore the limits of history to provide wargamers with so many scenarios that one is highly unlikely to ever play all of them. With the notable exception of U.S. Navy Plan Orange, which has an atypically sparse seven scenarios and the unique Cruiser Warfare. the rest of the line has a dozen or more each, most of which are hypothetical to some degree or another. And U.S. Navy Plan Orange, along with the plan Gold , Red and Black games, is wholly hypothetical.

But even Jutland and the Mediterranean games, which are firmly grounded in well-researched history, are mostly made up of battles that didn't happen. In many cases these are battles that almost happened. It wasn't uncommon for fleets to steam and yet fail to make contact. Many others postulate some significant departures from actual events, often to include ships that were planned but not built. Not a few of the scenarios are fanciful, imagining that a power such as Turkey might actually be able to afford and man a battleship squadron or that the United States and Austro-Hungary might fight a naval campaign off the U.S. coast.

Liberated from the constraints of history, AP has given naval gamers an entire line of games and supplements and helped usher is what may truly be the "golden age" for naval gamers, if not wargames as a whole. There's still plenty of history and near history for players for whom some of APs more extreme flights of fancy might be too much. A Canadian battleline bombarding Virginia Beach ( Operational Sc. 9 - in U.S. Navy Plan Red) does require leaping a pretty big chasm for the suspension of disbelief.

In defense of this kind of scenario, however, there's this to consider. For Jellicoe or Scheer, the historical Jutland was an unprecedented event. They didn't know how it might turn out or what the possibilities were. The power of hindsight means that any gamer replicating Jutland has a very unrealistic level of knowledge about the battle. Recapturing some of the uncertainty faced by Jellicoe is actually easier in a hypothetical battle, especially one based on an unprecedented situation. Drawing up plans for a campaign that never was such as an Austro-Hungarian war with America (Dreadnoughts scenario book, Imperial and Royal Warship Projects section, scenario one "Plan Black, Austrian Style, April 1924) may be a much better test of admiralship than refighting Jutland for the umpteenth time.

Harpoon4 -- review

There's usually a tension in wargames between the demands of a successful "game" (an entertaining and competitive contest) and a "simulation" (an authentic reflection of real life). The art of wargames design largely revolves around striking a balance between these demands.

Every so often, however, a designer boldly abandons any pretense of striking such a balance and pushes his design to the edges of the possible. Commonly the decision lands on the "game" side, and there's no shortage of war-themed games that pay little attention to real-life constraints. Harpoon4 is the rare design that goes the other way, unabashedly seeking to be the most realistic possible treatment of a very complex subject, modern naval warfare. What concessions it makes to playability are almost always framed in the practical limitations of manual procedures, not in any notions of fairness or competitiveness.

The games has been this way since its very first edition back in 1981 and has remained true to that mission consistently, even has the design has been refined over the years based on more research, years of playing experience and the growing experience of the design team.

Abstractions are kept to a minimum. With the exception of damage points, which are computed by a formula to come up with a game-specific value, nearly every other measurement and number is based on a real unit of measure such as kilometers or nautical miles, minutes and hours, knots and rates of fire, and percent-based chances of occurrence. Players can -- and are encouraged to -- do their own research to plug in the numbers needed to create a scenario, very much in the tradition of naval miniatures games since their origins with Fletcher Pratt's rules in the 1930s.

Because it's in the naval miniatures wargame tradition, Harpoon 4 is less of a board game than a system for modeling battles. While it's possible to play it solitaire or two-player in very limited ways, enjoying the full panoply of possibilities presented by the rules requires one of the players to act as the game organizer or referee. That player creates the scenario and the success of the game depends in large measure on how much work and care the referee puts into it. The more prep work the better the game experience. Indeed, the referee is really the only person who needs to know the rules.

The key thing in modern naval warfare is the detection of the opposing force and the importance of getting in the first effective blow. Unlike early 20th-century battleships, modern warships have little ability to accept damage and keep fighting and modern weapons are far more powerful than earlier weapons.

After the referee has set the initial situation it's up the opposing players to organize their forces, plan strategy, give them standing orders and their courses. Often these decisions, made before the battle begins, will determine how it turns out.

Once the game starts the referee will generally track the movements and activities of all the moving parts until one side or the other detects something. Unlike traditional wargames, which usually have turns of set length, the referee will usually "telescope" the time in order to speed play. Many hours of game time may be resolved in a few minutes of real time if little is happening or the opposing forces are out of range. By the same token, the high-speed action of actual combat, broken down into 30-second increments, may take considerably more time than that to actually play out.

There's hardly any real-life situation that the rules don't handle, although some types of operations such as amphibious landings, underway replenishment, land combat or mine warfare are usually handled "off-map" by the ref. In fact, there are often far more elements in the game being handled by the ref than the players such as neutral shipping, other services and perhaps other task forces. For example, in a scenario where the players are controlling surface ships it may be better to let the ref handle any subs present because the poor sub player will otherwise never have anyone to talk to (if you're being realistic).

While Harpoon4 has structure and plenty of rules, most of that structure can be and should be invisible to the players. Ideally the player feels like he's truly in command of his ship, getting the sort of information from sensors and intel that his real counterpart would get and issuing the kinds of orders the actual commander would without the distraction of dealing with artificiality's of "factors" "phases" or "CRTs".

Under the direction of a skilled gamemaster, Harpoon4 can create a truly immersive game narrative that is hard to match.

The game itself, really has the field all to itself. When it first came out, back in 1981, there was similarly detailed modern naval rules set called Warship Commander or something along those lines, that was weighed down with abstract, yet complicated, subsystems. Harpoon quickly established itself as the No.1 modern naval wargame rules has never been seriously challenged. It achieved a certain amount of fame because of its association with Tom Clancy and The Hunt for Red October. Clancy used the game to help his novel achieve its authenticity. Harpoon design Larry Bond and Clancy then collaborated in Red Storm Rising, a hugely ambitious and very successful novelization of a potential World War III. Most of the combat action in the novel had been wargamed out using Harpoon. Bond later went on to a successful career on his own as a techno-thriller novelist. Clancy's later novels featured more cloak-and-dagger action than combat, but Harpoon/Bond was still reportedly consulted on occasion.

Bond and Harpoon also had an influence in the naval community. I doubt many naval officers serving over the last three decades were unfamiliar with the game, even if they're not gamers. Former Reagan-era Secretary of the Navy John Lehmen even wrote the foreword to the High Tide expansion and British Adm. Sir John "Sandy" Woodward, the naval commander in the Falklands War, wrote the foreword to the Harpoon4 rules. That's pretty high-speed for a civilian wargame.

The various editions of Harpoon have always had serviceable, if not spectacular graphics. The most recent, Clash of Arms edition, comes in a bookcase-style box, looseleaf-style rules, some die-cut counters for some ships, aircraft, missiles and markers and a data annex. Players may want to use miniature warship models for the visual effect, but frankly, so much of the action happens in the ephemeral realm of electronic warfare and across such enormous distances that maps and die-cut counters serve just as well most of the time.

Gamers primarily interested in competitive tests of skill will find little to interest them in Harpoon4. Needless to say there's even less of interest here for euro-style gamers. Harpoon4 is intensely detailed, treats nearly every possible facet of naval warfare exhaustively and requires mastery of more than 100 pages of rules in small type.

But for anyone interested in modern naval warfare and gaming out what might really happen if naval and air forces find themselves in battle, there is no unclassified substitute. I rather doubt that any classified wargame would provide better overall insight, although classified information might sometimes fill-in some unknown detail. But even classified naval wargames are limited by the knowledge intel provides and there's a good chance that some significant information is simply unknowable. The Soviet spy ring led by Walker would have had an impact if there had been a war in the 1980s, for one example. The Soviets had a super-high speed (200 knots!) nuclear-armed defensive torpedo aboard their subs that we had no idea existed. Think about how that changes things.

Critical hits

Probably one of the starkest differences between wargames and any other kind of game I know of is the concept of the "critical hit."

For example, in the Down in Flames series of card games on aerial combat, an otherwise fairly "euro"-friendly light wargame, there's one Action Card that has an "Attack" result reading "Fuel Tank Hit, Aircraft Destroyed."

This, needless to say, an extreme result that can easily turn a game completely around, and it has little to do with a player's skill. Naturally, this sort of thing is an anathema to most game players interested in a contest of skill, even those otherwise comfortable with a certain mount of luck in their games.

Yet it's a pretty common feature of wargames, especially very tactical games, although it's not unheard of even in wargames dealing with higher-level operations.

Wargamers, as a rule, seem resigned to seeing an occasional game end with a spectacular bang, even though it might negate their winning strategy. While it might be rationalized as adding a little bit of excitement to a game, that really can't be the answer for why it's tolerated. After all, euro games like having excitement as well.

No, the answer simply is that real battles often turn on such fluke events. Every so often the HMS Hood has to blow up! Otherwise there's no chance for a historical result for the Battle of Denmark Straits.

Still, the existence of critical hits is a notable, if little-noted, difference between wargames and other games of skill.

Eagles: Waterloo Review

Eagles: Waterloo was the last in Columbia Games' short-lived foray into collectible card games.

Like Dixie, it plays rather more like a boardgame than a card game, with most of the cards being used as unit and leader counters or terrain markers. Only the few "special" cards are played, card-like, to influence the action.

This isn't surprising, as the game system is an elaboration of the tactical battle subsystem used in Columbia campaign games like Bobby Lee and Napoleon.

Compared to the Dixie series, Eagles: Waterloo is more intricate, as befits the style of Napoleonic warfare, which involved richer interactions than the Civil War battlefield. Combined arms effects and differentiation between units is more important in Eagles. The Civil War battlefield was an infantry fight, with artillery and cavalry playing subordinate roles. Most of the infantry was armed and trained the same as well, so Dixie could treat all of them as similar, with the only differences being size and (at Gettysburg) morale.

In Eagles there are significant differences between types of cavalry and infantry, with the effects of lancers, Guards and other elites, British firepower and horse artillery being among the factors considered.

Units have a "Combat Values" based on their size, which controls how many dice they roll in combat. A CV 4 unit rolls 4 dice, for example. The effect of those dice depends on its "F" (firepower) value or "S" (shock) value. Eagles rules have never been revised, so they missed out on the recent rationalization of Columbia rules which universally switched from high being good to low being good, so an F3 still means 4-6 succeeds instead of the more intuitive 1-3 of newer games. Firepower is used for most fighting, while shock is reserved for certain special cases such as cavalry charges or infantry column assaults.

Rules factor in the effects of formations such as columns and squares and the more open nature of Waterloo compared to the American battlefields. In Eagles terrain cards can only hold one or two units and don't count for stacking, which creates a very different environment from the section-wide effect of Dixie terrain.

The battles in Eagles tend to be short, brutal affairs because of a major change in victory conditions. In Eagles a side wins the instant it controls one enemy sector, instead of the two required in Dixie. This also allows Eagles to dispense with the flanking rules of Dixie because the game ends as soon as the flanking condition is achieved.

Units also tend to be a little more fragile than Dixie units because there are a lot more low morale units, especially among the Prussians and Dutch-Belgians. Some of these are large CV4 or CV5 units that have morale levels of C or D, meaning they fail morale on a 2 or a 1, respectively. The "rally" special card has also been weakened. Instead of an automatic success, playing the rally card just gives you another chance to pass morale, not much of a benefit for a D unit. (It's best saved to mitigate a bad roll by one of your elite units.)

Eagles: Waterloo includes all four battles of the Waterloo campaign as well as a campaign version, so it actually covers about as much gaming ground as the Dixie series.

It plays enough like Dixie to be easy to learn while being different enough that you don't feel like you're just playing Dixie with prettier uniforms.

The collectible aspect of the game is very secondary, merely consisting of different colored borders to reflect rarity: Gold is rare, silver uncommon and bronze is common. This has absolutely no effect on play and, frankly, little effect on collectibility. I was quite satisfied collecting a complete set of uniforms/units without worrying about the color of the borders.

If, however, you do want all the borders to match, complete sets are still available from Columbia.

Eagles: Waterloo is a good light wargame providing the flavor of Napoleonic battles with an attractive presentation of uniform and OB details usually seen only in miniatures games. It plays brutally fast.

I think the game plays best without using the point system, as the point values don't match the game-effect value very well on many cards. Segregating the cards by the historical battle and then drawing randomly from that group provides a good mix of cards that's usually balanced enough. And if not, you can play again shortly.

An amazing find, a 115-year-old baseball game found

It awalys amazes me when stuff like this is found. There are unopended closets all over the world with amazing treasures, it appears;

http://www.kmbc.com/news/16402389/detail.html

In this case a mint copy of a game from 115 years ago.

Geeklist on CCGs from 1995

I have a Geeklist about 1995 CCGs on Boardgame Geek.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/31809

Redemption

There were at least two dozen different collectible cards games mention in the 1995 Origins convention booklet, which was really the year that the floodgates opened for the genre of games. In 1993 Magic: The Gathering was unique, but it didn't take long for others to see the idea's potential.

But besides having many imitators, M:TG never really found a rival, as it's still by far the Top Dog among collectible games. Of the two dozen of the Class of 1995 almost all have disappeared, save for occasional sales on eBay. It's true that one can still get original Dixie cards from Columbia Games, but considering that all these appear to come from the original 1995 stock, one can hardly say it's a living game with active players and recent expansions. Magic: The Gathering's Richard Garfield also had Jyhad, now called Vampire: The Eternal Struggle out in 1995.

No, the sole survivor from the erstwhile Magic competitors is Redemption, a Bible-based collectible card game that borrows little from Magic: The Gathering but the collectible concept itself. Yet it still ha expansions and active players, albeit mostly invisible to the larger gaming community. This is because it's popularity is mostly confined to a sort of parallel culture in America that the wider secular culture doesn't see.

That more religious subculture largely attends its own schools (when not home schooled) has its own pop music groups, own literature and magazines, television programs and movies. Finding many questionable elements in popular media and entertainment, but wanting to experience the positive elements, this largely-Protestant evangelical (but with sympathizers among other religious traditions as well) has learned how to develop its own entertainments that avoid the gratuitous objectionable elements while keeping the better parts from their perspective.

Part of this is their own games. Some popular family games such as Monopoly and Scrabble or abstract games like Chess or Dominoes pose few problems from their perspective. Some other games have been adapted to present a more explicitly Biblical flavor, perhaps the most famous of these is the Settlers of Canaan.

Many people from this belief system are, however, very hostile to anything that smacks of the occult or magic and witchcraft. Protestations that it's "just a game" don't find a receptive ear. Like Dungeons & Dragons before it, the explicitly magical elements evoked in Magic: The Gathering, while directly responsible for its popularity in the mainstream culture, brought condemnation and concern from many more religiously inclined people.

Wanting to provide a similar game experience to Magic: The Gathering, without all the magic stuff, Redemption designer Rob Anderson turned to the Bible for his theme, and discovered that there was a remarkably rich source that also included heroes, demons and yes, even dragons.

Redemption is a somewhat simpler game than Magic_The Gathering, although not a simplistic one. The basic idea is that each player competes to save the most "Lost Souls," which are special cards. Every 50-card deck must have at least 7 Lost Souls in it. When one appears it's placed in front of the player in an area called the "Land of Bondage." From there an opposing player can mount a rescue attempt during his turn by sending a hero card from his hand or already revealed in play. The defending player can attempt to thwart the rescue attempt by opposing it with one of his Evil Characters. Each player can add enhancements, with both sides comparing their respective attack and defense strengths. The higher number defeats the lower and sends the loser to the discard pile along with all the enhancements played by both sides. If the Hero wins, then the Lost Soul is rescued. The first to rescue five Lost Souls Win.

Heroes and Evil Characters each belong to one of six color-coded "Brigades" and can only be enhanced by cards that match the same color. As always in CCGs, of course, there are various cards that override the basic rules.

Unlike many games this scales well from two up to about five without any changes in the rules.

An example of a rescue attempt might play out as follows.

Player 1 sends the Biblical figure Ruth (from the White Brigade) on a rescue mission to save a Lost Soul in Player 2's Land of Bondage. Ruth is one of the weaker heroes, rated a 4/4 which means she attacks with a strength of 4 and defends with the same strength.

Player 2 responds by blocking the move with the Evil Character Pharaoh from the Yellow Brigade. Like many EC's he's stronger than some heroes with a rating of 6/6, so he's winning.

Player 1 would like to use the 3/3 "Strength" enhancement card, but it only works on Blue Brigade Heroes, so instead Player 1 plays The Purity of Enoch (2/2) and the Devotion of Ruth (1/1). The Devotion of Ruth is not only a white card, but the name of the card matches the Hero, so it's doubled to a 2/2. It's special ability of allowing the Hero to Ignore Gray Brigade Evil Characters doesn't apply in this case because the Pharaoh is Yellow.

At this point Ruth is winning at 8/8 vs. Pharaoh's 6/6 so Player 2 plays Grief (2/2) and the Stone of Thebez (2/2) to take the lead with 10/10.

Being behind again, Player 1 now plays the multi-color Pillar of a Cloud (2/2) which can be played on a hero from any brigade, bringing Ruth up to a 10/10. Player 2 has no more suitable cards to play in response, so the battle is resolved. Normally a tie would Result in both Pharaoh and Ruth being killed and discarded, although Ruth would still succeed in rescuing the Lost Soul as the rules state that "Any Hero is willing to lay down his or her life to rescue a Lost Soul." Fortunately for Ruth, however, the Pillar of a Cloud card also provides the benefit of a "first strike" ability for Ruth, so Pharaoh is defeated and discarded along with all his enhancements. Player 1 discards his enhancements but returns Ruth to his side of the table for possible use later and puts the rescued Lost Soul in the "Land of Redemption."

Besides the regular heroes and evil characters and their enhancements, there are some super powerful cards (Grim Reapers and Lambs) that a player can have just one example of in his deck.

Later expansion add more kinds of cards and powers, but the basic scheme of play remains the same.

The quality of the cards is very high, with first-class and appropriate art. Every card also contains a Biblical reference. For example, the powerful 10/10 Brown Brigade Evil Character the Beast From The Earth contains the quote from Revelation 13:11 "And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon."

All in all, Redemption succeeds admirably in its goal. It provides a good game experience while remaining true to the sensitivities of its target audience. Yet it's not heavy handed at all in its approach, and players who don't share the same concerns about occult images in their games can find Redemption a worthwhile addition to their collection. Being Bible-literate is of value even in secular society, and Redemption provides some surprising material for interesting discussion during and after the game. When your Faithful Servant (Matthew 25:21) faces the Stone Throwers (John 8:7) there's a teachable moment at hand.

Echelons of Fire

By 1995 everyone seemed to jumping on the Collectible Card Game craze started by Magic: The Gathering two years earlier. The 1995 Origins convention book lists more than a dozen new designs, for example.

What wasn't yet clear was how Darwinian the competitive market environment would proove to be for collectible/trading style games. Because of the time and energy needed for the metagame of collecting and deck building, and perhaps more importantly, the wallet-emptying nature of that metagame, there really wasn't room for more than a handful of active collectible/tradeable games at one time. While there have been many CCG launches in the 15 years since Magic; The Gathering debuted, very few have survived. Many of the ones that fell by the wayside were good games, too. Unlike more traditional boardgames where moderate degrees of success were possible, for CCGs it was an either/or situation.

In the case of the modern-era military Echelons of Fire, and it's sister game World War II era Echelons of Fury, you have a game that's not bad, but certainly not great, and definitely unable to compete against M:TG.

Many of the Class of 1995 CCGs explored new ways to implement the CCG concept, but Echleons hewed fairly closely to the M:TG model. Indeed, in gameplay it's remarkably similar to M:TG. Instead of "mana" in five colors there are two types of supply (fuel and ammo) and combat is a deterministic comparing of numbers between attacking and "blocking" defenders, with unblksed attacks doing damage directly to the player. Just as in Magic, the player can take 20 points of damage.

There are some differences in detail between the two games, but these differences tend to the disadvantage of Echelons of Fire. In Magic: THe Gathering, the resource-providing land cards can be reused from turn to turn, but the supply cards in Echelons are tied down "maintaining" the combatant cards. This tends to hinder the dynamic nature of the game compared to M:TG. Likewise, the need to have maneuver cards in order to attack, and especially the fact that those maneuver cards can be lost in an unsuccessful attack, also tends to make the game more static than M:TG.

The biggest problem with the game, however, was the ill-considered card mix. While imitating the common-uncommon-rare pattern used in M:TG the game, the execution is flawed. For one thing, the common cards are way too common and repetitive, while having marginal usefulness in game terms. In M:TG even when cards are otherwise identical common cards, the artwork varied, adding to the collectibility. In Echelons they are all the same, and before long the player will far more fire teams and machineguns than he will ever need. This could have been mitigated by varying the illustrations perhaps, or adding unit IDs or something along those lines.

It's not all bad, though. The game does provide a quick-playing game system that captures some of the flavor of modern combat. Designing an effective deck is challenging and there's no one obvious strategy to follow.

The game avoids the overpowering "combo" problems common to Magic: The Gathering and many other CCGs. Constrained by the laws of physics and logistics, the most powerful weapons are also the most demanding on ammo and fuel, keeping their game impact within bounds. An M-1 Abrams can blast its way throug anything, but it takes three ammo and three fuel to field and by the time you get those cards in play you might be dead from repeated attacks from infantry squads.

The standard game has a 40-card deck with a 20 point headquarters target, but using such a small deck may not make the most of the different weapons systems available and I recommend generally usinga 60-card deck and a 30-point headquarters. This allows players to create more robust decks that give some scope for using the more powerful and interesting weapons such as the M-1, attack helicopters and aircraft. With larger decks it's best to limit the number of specialist elite infantry cards such as Airborne or Engineers to no more than 3 or 4.

The game is easy to get on the secondary market inexpensively.

Rebels and Redcoats Vol. III review

There's absolutely nothing new in Rebels & Redcoats, Vol. III, from Decision Games. It's a straightforward, old fashioned hex-and-counter wargame depicting battles from the American Revolution.

From a reviewer's standpoint, this might be considered a bad thing. Reviewers like innovation. Reviewers want to see something new, especially if they've seen a lot of games.

But from a players standpoint, there's a lot to be said for the familiarity of tried and true design techniques, especially if they work.

Rebels & Redcoats Vol. III contains 19 battles from the American Revolution. As a matter of fact, it includes just about every significant open field battle of the entire war. All that's left out are the sieges and a handful of fights that might be hard to treat as full-fledged battles anyway like Lexington and Concord, Oriskany and the Paoli "Massacre."

The first two volumes of R&R were published in 1995, depicting four and eight battles, respectively. Vol. III followed about 10 years later with its seven battles, but now all 19 battles are included in the one Vol. III box. There are no significant differences between the three volumes. Indeed, the errata is minimal for a hex-and-counter wargame. The most obvious change between the volumes is the map graphics, which vary in style between Vol. I-II and Vol. III.

Systemically, the game is very standard black powder era stuff. Units are rated for movement, combat and morale values. Leaders have a command rating which modifies morale and a command span which puts units "in command" for movement and combat. Artillery units can bombard over a distance of 2-5 hexes, depending upon the size of the cannons. Units have zones of control that force enemy units to stop and fight. Units that are not adjacent to the enemy at any point can "force march" and extra distance at a chance of being "disrupted," a status they can also achieve from combat result.

The turn sequence is IGO-HUGO. Up to eight strength points of units can stack in a hex, and terrain effects are standard. Light infantry rated units get some movement advantages, and there are some special rules for dragoons, but they appear in such limited numbers that they're really not much of a factor in most battles.

The nub of the entire game system is the morale rating. Both sides are armed similarly and units are usually all about the same size. Regiments in both armies usually operated understrength and were usually about 300 or so strong. In game terms this means a typical combat factor of "4" per regiment.

The big difference between the armies was in morale and training, represented by a morale rating. Many game activities require morale checks and here the Redcoats have a significant advantage. Americans are often rated "5" which means they have a 50% chance of failure on the 10-sided die roll before modifications. British/Hessian units are typically a "7" or "8." Over the course of the game that 20 or 30% advantage in morale checks and rally rolls adds up to a significant edge.

Most of the battles don't require a lot of special rules and for those fights that might be a bit scripted ot less interesting because of historical factors (Trenton, Bunker Hill, White Plains for example) there are what-ifs provided for a more entertaining battle.

R&R is a good, old-fashioned SPI-style wargame that any grognard can sit down and start playing.

Across Suez -- Strategy, well not really

Like many low-unit density wargames with a significant luck element it's hard to have a real strategy in Across Suez, Decision Games' reprint of a classic SPI wargame about the fighting around the so-called "Chinese Farm" during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Neither side has a lot of units, just 14 for the Egyptians at the start of the game and just a dozen Israelis. The Egyptians get just eight more pieces during the game while the Israelis get another 10 plus a bridge.

But for the element of luck the game would definitely favor the Israelis heavily. Besides having more pieces they also have, unsurprisingly, a significant edge in combat power and mobility. The 22 total Egyptian battalions have 60 combat factors while the Israeli force has 78 in its 22 combat battalions (plus 1 for the bridge). They do have some fairly demanding victory conditions, having to get the bridge emplaced, send six battalions across the canal and maintain a clear road back to the map edge.

But given good luck, these goals aren't hard to achieve and it's not uncommon to see the Israelis dominate the Egyptians so thoroughly that they get wiped out.

The problem for the Israelis is that the dice aren't always kind, and a spate of bad rolls, especially in the first three turns, can fatally compromise their chances. These bad rolls tend to come from two sources: Successful Egyptian bombardments and exchange results during Israeli attacks. There's a 1/6 chance of an Egyptian bombardment killing an Israeli unit. With typical luck the Israelis should lose one piece in a game and often won't lose any in the critical first three turns. Likewise every high-odds Israeli attack has a 1/6 chance of an exchange. When possible it's good to knock off Egyptian units with surrounded attacks that can't be retreated from, of course, but the Egyptian player won't cooperate and in order to guarantee a retreat result the attack has to be at least +4 which brings a chance for an exchange.

Cautious Israeli play probably won't do enough damage to the Egyptians to win. If there's still a substantial number of Egyptians on the map in the last couple of turns the Israelis probably won't be able to get six units across the canal and keep the LOC clear.

Because entire positions can depend on the survival of one unit and an unlucky series of die rolls can cause so much damage, it's very hard to come up with a consistent strategy for either side. Instead of a plan, the player may have policies, tactics and preferences, but everything must be conditional and subject to immediate change. The game rewards opportunistic play rather than long-term strategy.

Bunker Hill review

If XTR were into naming it's game systems they could have called the one initaited by Hougoumont the "desperate defense" series. Featuring stubborn defenses of fortified locales in the black powder era, Bunker Hill: A Dear Bought Victory was the second game to appear in Command Magazine using the innovative hex-and-counter wargame mechanics of Hougoumont.

The game was the issue game in Command Magazine No. 32 in 1995. A very tactical game, each turn represents just 10 minutes of real time and each hex is 35 yards across. Each stacking point represents 25 soldiers. Unit counters represent companies and half-companies from the Colonial militia and British armies. The 22 turns cover the fighting from 2 to 5:30 p.m.

While the British finally drove the militiamen from their position, it was at a horrfic cost. The militaimen, by standing up to the regulars, showed that the American Revolution was going to see some serious fighting, while making the British, especially their comander, Gen. William Howe, wary of attacking entrenched Americans for the rest of the war.

The 16-page rule book describes a game of moderate complexity by wargame standards. The Beth Queman map is functional, although not especially attractive, with strong colors that tend to overshadow the more subtle unit counters. The map shows most of the Charlestown peninsula where the battle took place. Besides the hill slopes, other key terrain depicted is the densely-settled Charlestown, the Colonial fortifications, the road network and the many stone walls criss-crossing the area.

The 178 5/8-inch counters are illustrated with color icons of the soldiers and militiamen, with an identifying formation ID number, fire modifier, morale rating and a stacking value. The Americans have stacking values ranging from 1 to 3 while the British have a stacking value of “2.“ The reverse side of each unit has half the stacking value. Morale values run from “1” (for step reduced militiamen) to “6” (British Grenadiers and Light Infantry). Both sides have a number of leaders who provide movement and morale benefits. Most units have a movement allowance of 12, although many British units have a speed of 8 until they drop their packs later in the day. The two sides are differentiated by the background colors, blue for Massachusetts troops, gray for New Hampshire troops and green for Connecticut troops on the Colonial side and light red for the British.

Each player turn starts with a reinforcement phase. The player then moves and fires his units (firing is a function of movement and costs 8 movement points). During the movement/fire phase the enemy player can interrupt to conduct a reaction move/fire with his own units within range. (In typical XTR fashion this tactic is given the colorful moniker “Boom and Zoom.) Mastering the “Boom and Zoom” move is a key part of playing the game well. After all movement the phasing player conducts melee. Unlike Hougoumont, not every unit can take advantage of the Boom and Zoom technique, as they have to be under command control to use it. Also limiting American use of the technique is an ammunition limitation rule. Every time the Americans fire there is a good chance they will run out of ammunition and be removed from the map. All they have to do is roll greater than the current morale. As the best American morale is a "3" one can see that most of them are one-shot wonders.

Firing is conducted unit by unit, with the die roll modified according to the number on the counter. The die roll is compared to the number of steps in the target hex. Often this will mean an automatic hit on the large stacks the British player will be using to maximize his melee power. Most hexes have a stacking limit of 12.

The casualty count will run heavily against the British until they can close into melee.

Both sides start with just part of their forces available. Throughout the battle more Americans will brave the British naval interdiction fire across the narrow neck and join the fight, although few, if any, will make it to the front line.

If the initial Britsh assaults fail they can call a special "Reorganization turn" which bring reinforcements and returns eliminated units, but at the cost of a victory point.

The game itself is a tense contest as the British try to fight their way into the Ameircan position at some kind of acceptable cost.

The game is won on victory points. The British get two each for capturing the redoubt on Breed's Hill, capturing the Neck and exiting more steps off the West edge than the Americans. Getting all six would represent a sweeping victory, while the historical result was just two (for the redoubt). The Americans get one victory point for each Reorganization turn the British use, one Victory Point if they still hold the redoubt and one for every 25 steps of British eliminated. The historical result was a "three" for the casualties and the two reorganization turns.

A variation on the game system also later appeared in “Dark Victory” (The Alamo) in a later issue of Command.

The game is playable in one long evening and only takes about 10 minutes to set up.

There are five scenarios.

The first is an unbalanced teaching scenario of the worst part of the British assault. The designer notes: "This scenario is intentionally unbalanced since younger players like to win and will return to play again only if they do win."

The second scenario is the historical scenario.

The third scenario looks at an earlier landing proposed by Gen. Clinton, one of Howe's subordinates. Because of the tides, this earlier landing would have had to be in Charlestown.

The fourth scenario looks at a proposed landing behind the American line suggested by Gen. Clinton. This places a smaller force of British between the Americans on the hill and their base off map. It's the only scenario where the Americans will attack.

The fifth scenario modifies Clinton's proposed attack with a supporting attack by Howe, so it is a combination of the historical scenario and Clinton's idea.

Recommendations

(Yes) For Wargamers: It manages to make a bloody frontal assault into an interesting game.

(No) For Collectors.

(No) For Euro gamers: Game play is intricate and detailed, even by wargame standards, with a lot of movement factor counting and other math.

A battle that almost was -- Dorchester 1776

First published in Command Magazine No. 32, Jan.-Feb. 1995. The wargame and main artile in the issue was Bunker Hill by William M. Marsh, but I had a small sidebar on the battle that wasn't -- the assault on Dorchester Heights.

Another Bunker Hill Affair — or Worse
By Seth Owen

But for a stormy night, Gen. George Washington might have earned a ranking among the greatest military geniuses of history. A gale on the night of 5 March 1776 may have robbed him of everlasting fame as the brilliant tactician and strategist who won his country’s independence in a single dramatic night. Instead, the Virginian is known for his stoic endurance earned through long years of frustrating campaigns and hard winters.

Washington took command of the army of minutemen besieging Boston in July 1775. He spent the balance of that year bringing some semblance of discipline to the rebel army, and on 1 January 1776 he reorganized and reenlisted the entire force.

Even as he cajoled soldiers, cashiered officers and begged Congress for money, Washington chafed for a chance to strike. In September 1775, he considered an assault on Boston before the army’s enlistments expired, and in January he unsuccessfully urged a council of war to support an attack because of “the indispensable necessity of making a bold attempt to conquer the Ministerial Troops before they can be reinforced in the spring.” The council demurred, because of the obvious weakness of the army, still lacking in troops, powder and artillery.

Washington addressed the latter two deficiencies by detaching his chief of artillery, former Boston bookseller Henry Knox, to bring to Boston the artillery and powder captured at Fort Ticonderoga the previous May. As Knox labored to haul the artillery across the snowy Berkshires, Washington formulated his plan for turning the guns to his decisive advantage.

The Battle of Bunker Hill had shown by example and implication the way to break the siege and drive the British from the town. The Patriot use of a surprise earthwork thrown up overnight on a commanding point provided the example. The Patriots had in fact occupied the heights above Charlestown to preempt a planned British move against the real key to the town and the harbor — the peninsula of Dorchester Neck and its heights.

The Patriots moved first, to seize and fortify Bunker and Breed’s Hill and thus forestall the British move. Their plan succeeded beyond expectations. The British abandoned their plan to fortify Dorchester Neck and instead moved against Bunker/Breed’s Hill. After their Pyrrhic victory, the British contented themselves with fortifying what they had captured and left Dorchester Neck ungarrisoned throughout the fall and winter.

Dorchester Neck in 1776 was a rectangular peninsula, about two miles long and three—quarters of a mile wide, with the long axis running east—west. Like Charlestown, the Neck was nearly an island, connected
to the mainland by a narrow isthmus at its southwest corner. Unlike the isthmus at Charlestown, however, wide mud flats surround Dorchester’s neck. Low tide exposed the flats and the water was far too shallow for the British warships to approach even at the deepest high tide.

In the center of the peninsula was a large, double peaked hill, called the Heights, which shared Bunker Hill’s unusual topography. When the Boston area was scooped from the earth during the last Ice Age a type of feature left by the retreating glaciers was the distinctive hill called a “drumlin.” Shaped like upside-down cereal bowls, the hills have steep sides, making them difficult for attacking infantry. But they are capped with gently rounded peaks suitable for artillery emplacements and redoubts. Boston’s Beacon Hill is a drumlin, as are Bunker and Breed’s Hills in Charlestown. Others surround the town in Cambridge, Roxbury and Dorchester Neck.

Washington’s plan for the move on Dorchester Neck was essentially an improved copy of the original patriot plan for Bunker Hill. Like the Bunker Hill plan, the occupation of Dorchester Neck relied on the surprise erection of a redoubt in a single night. The ground on the neck was stiffly frozen, however, making it unlikely digging alone could do the job. At the suggestion of Col. Rufus Putnam, fascines and gabions were made. Fascines are bundles of sticks wrapped together to form parapets; gabions are wickerwork baskets that are filled with earth to build ramparts quickly. More than 300 wagons were to transport the prefabricated materials to the Neck. To cover the sound of the work, Knox would bombard the town, hoping to provoke counterbattery fire that would mask the sounds of the workers.

At Bunker Hill, Col. William Prescott’s men had fought their battle fatigued, hungry and short of powder, after having built their fort and then manning it without relief. Washington’s plan avoided these flaws. At Dorchester Heights the troops building the redoubt would be relieved by fresh units in the morning. The Bunker Hill line had no support; Washington’s plan had additional troops standing by to reinforce the Heights if needed.

Instead of the half-dozen indifferently manned light field pieces of Bunker Hill, the Heights would bristle with cannon. Unlike the earlier battle, the troops on the heights would also have ample powder.

Washington was not content to merely drive the British from Boston, or provoke them into repeating their folly at Bunker Hill. He aimed at striking a knockout blow that would liberate the town while destroying the British army.

Unless the British drove the Americans from the heights they would have to quit the harbor. Washington expected Howe would not abandon the town without making an attempt to dislodge the Americans. To turn that expected reaction to advantage, Washington also prepared a stunning surprise assault across the Back Bay to seize the town while the British main body fought on the heights.

Some 3,600 troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam stood ready to cross the Back Bay in 45 secretly built 80—man bateaux. Two more boats were outfitted as floating batteries to provide fire support. The force, comprising brigades under John Sullivan and Nathaniel Greene, was to row across the Back Bay while the British were tied up in their assaults and hit the beach on Boston Common. Sullivan’s men would wheel left and capture Beacon Hill and the town, while Greene turned right and took the British fort
guarding Boston Neck from the rear, letting the Roxbury-based troops into the town.

Washington set his plan in motion on the evening of 4 March 1776. If there were a battle, it would take place on 5 March, the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. It seemed an auspicious date.

Washington’s plan unfolded flawlessly. In the darkness 2,000 colonials under the command of Maj. Gen. John Thomas silently moved on to the Neck with their wagonloads of gabions and fascines. About 800 men acted as a covering force, while 1,200 more set to work on the twin forts. Early the next morning a 3,000-man relief force took over as garrison.

Knox’s bombardment provoked the hoped-for British response and the nightlong cannonade masked the sounds of work on the heights. One British sentry in fact reported hearing construction noise from the Neck, but his report went no further than Brig. Gen. Francis Smith, who had received a similar report on the night Prescott fortified Breeds Hill. Incredibly, Smith again ignored the report, failing to either act on it himself or pass it up to Howe.

The morning revealed a new rebel fort overlooking the harbor, to the astonishment of the British army. If anything, the surprise this time was more complete because this fort was such an obviously strong position. The forts, according to one British officer, had been raised with “an expedition equal to that of the genii belonging to Aladdin’s wonderful lamp.”

Howe estimated the work must have taken “12,000 or 14,000 men that night.” Howe also realized the fort made the harbor untenable and resolved to strike quickly to take it before it became too strong. At first the British tried to reduce the redoubt with artillery fire, but found they couldn’t elevate their cannon enough to reach the heights, while the heights gave the rebel gunners extra range in turn. An infantry assault would he needed.

That afternoon boats ferried a strike force of five regiments to Castle William, located about a mile off Dorchester Point. Hoping to avoid another Bunker Hill debacle, Howe planned a night bayonet assault. Later in the evening, apparently concerned the assault force was not strong enough, Howe sent over two more regiments along with the battalions of light infantry and grenadiers as reinforcements Howe also planned a simultaneous assault with 1,200 troops against the American lines at Roxbury.

Howe was playing right into Washington’s hands with this move, and there is no indication the British general had the slightest inkling of Putnam’s planned assault. Aside from the British garrison in Charles-town and the forces based at Boston neck, there were only about 600 men under Brig. Gen. Robert Pigot to protect the city.

Washington and his troops were confident they could hold their positions on the Heights. The redoubt was much stronger than Prescott’s little fort had been. Abattis encircled the position and it was proof against musketry. Cannon covered all the approaches; there was plenty of powder and reinforcements were nearby. The garrison of the redoubt was nearly as numerous as the British assault force and included five large companies of riflemen. Washington himself was on the heights, ready to direct its defenses.

Meanwhile, foreboding about the coming assault filled the British troops. Most expected a much bloodier repeat of Bunker Hill. A Boston resident who saw them embark for Castle Island wrote that “they looked in general pale and dejected, and said to one another that it would be another Bunkers (sic) Hill affair or worse.”

Howe apparently also had second thoughts about the assault, but he couldn’t find a face-saving way to call it off. Several British officers, certain the attack was doomed, lobbied to have it cancelled. In fact, it’s hard to see how the attack could have succeeded. Storming works requires fortitude and elan, scarce qualities that afternoon in the British ranks.

But Howe’s luck changed that evening as a violent “hurrycane” blew in. Locals called it the worst storm within memory, and it made any landing impossible that night.

Work to strengthen the redoubt continued all night despite the storm, and morning revealed any opportunity to take the works by assault had truly passed, if it ever existed at all. Also, sometime during the night, an informant finally got word to Howe of Washington’s planned surprise landing on Boston Common. That news proved too much for Howe, who finally decided to abandon Boston.

British troops and their Tory allies spent the next few days evacuating to the ships of the fleet and on 17 March, St. Patrick’s Day, 1776, Washington’s troops marched in to take possession.

ISSUE 32 JAN-FEB 1995

INWO can be spooky

Illuminati: New World Order can be a spooky game, even if you're not a conspiracy theorist.

The game, for those who don't know it, is a collectible card game riff of an earlier Steve Jackson noncollectible card game design that postulates that there really are shadowing conspirators pulling the strings behind the scenes in a bid to control the world. Players represent one of those secret societies, such as the Bavarian Illuminati, the Gnomes of Zurich or UFOs, using plots such as Currency Speculation or Media Connections to control groups such as Feminists, Offshore Banks or the Recording Industry in pursuit of goals such as Power for Its Own Sake or Kill For Peace. Players attempt to build networks while disrupting the networks and plans of their opponents.

It's all very dark and fun, and a spot on satire of the world scene circa 1995, when the game was designed.

Looking at it some 10 years on, though, given some of the events that have occurred, the game can be kind of spooky to look at.

The single spookiest card has to be the "Terrorist Nuke" card, with its image of the Twin Towers being attacked in a way that eerily resembles the actual terror attacks of 9/11. It wasn't a nuke, of course, but the card illustration bears an uncanny resemblance to the location and scale of the first airplane impact.

The controversies over the government's warrant-less wiretaps programs might make one consider the implications of the N.S.A. and Phone Company groups.

Saddam Hussein really did have the power to distract a government from its goals, as it turns out.

Quite a few of the personalities from the 1995 game are no longer with us (Princess Di, Ronald Reagan and Imelda Marcos) while many of the others have faded from view (Ross Perot, Dan Quayle and George H.W. Bush). A few others refuse to fade away completely, although their time seems past (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Fidel Castro).

At least one seems relevant still, such as Al Gore (he got the Nobel Peace Prize plot card played on him, no?)

While individuals come and go, some of the organizations that dominated the news 10 years ago seem just as potent now, such as OPEC, International Cocaine Smugglers and the Supreme Court while others have faded from view such as the Moonies, Moral Minority (sic) and the KKK. A few have even started bouncing back into view such as the Libertarians, Gay Activists and Anti-War Activists.

I've heard it said that the basic Illuminati game is a better game, perhaps because it's easier to balance a particular set of cards than the more open-ended environment of a Collectible Card Game with constructed decks. One way around this is to play out of one common deck. There are rules for playing that way available from Steve Jackson Games.

I think effective satire is hard, especially in a game format, yet INWO manages to achieve that goal. It's a little dated now and a new set of cars might freshen it up a bit. After all, we have a whole new set of personalities in the news and crazy events since the new century started.

Bankrupt Gen Con

I haven't ever made a Gen Con, alone among the major cons over the years. Primarily it has been an RPG-oriented event and that's just a minor interest of mine.

Still, it's a major con, so word it has filed for bankruptcy is of interest. Some info is here: http://purplepawn.com/2008/05/12/why-gen-con-went-bankrupt/ but the bottom line is that the con has a couple million dollars in debts, which seems like a pretty big amount to me. I had no idea that convention budgets could add up to such huge numbers these days. Fascinating.

Dixie: Shiloh review

Shiloh is the second set in the three-part series of Dixie collectible card games from Columbia Games.

One of the horde of titles that followed in the immediate wake of the phenomenal Magic: The Gathering in the mid-90s, Columbia actually seems to have been somewhat unclear on the concept of CCGs, because Dixie doesn't share some key aspects usually seen in such games.

For one thing, there's no use of rarity. While the decks were packaged randomly, every card had an equal likelihood of showing up. There were no "uncommon," "rare" or "ultra-rares" to frustrate players. On the other hand, the Shiloh set was quite large with 400 different cards for collectible purposes, as every general and regiment at the battle was represented with a card, as well as various battlefield features and events. From a playing standpoint, however, it wasn't necessary to have a really big set because there actually aren't that many functionallyy different cards, unlike Magic and similar games, where every card has a somewhat different game function.

Except for the "Special" cards, which do have unique effects, the majority of cards fall into distinct categories that are more or less the same. There are generals, who come in five different values (2/2; 1/2; 2/1;1/1;0/1), Infantry with combat values of 1 to 4, cavalry with combat values of 1 to 4 and artillery with values of 0 to 3, or terrain cards of three different types: creeks, fields and woods).

Because of this a playable deck wasn't too hard to acquire. A few decks were sufficient. Indeed, buying a lot of decks didn't make a lot of sense unless one was trying to complete the set because a game of Shiloh only uses 70 cards out of the 400 possible, or just 17.5 percent. This is the lowest ratio of any of the Dixie series. Bull Run uses 60 out of 200 and Gettysburg uses 54 out of 250, by comparison. Completist players can buy a complete set of cards from Columbia Games and forgo all the trouble and annoyance of the CCG route.

The game itself departs from the usual set up as well. While the battlefield is still apportioned between the two player's reserves and six "positions" in the left, center and right, in Shiloh the CSA player starts with all of his cards in the reserve and the Union player starts in possession of all six positions, which are called Left Front, Center Front and Right Front for the three positions accessible from the Confederate Reserve and Left Back, Center Back and Right Back for the three positions closest to the U.S. reserve.

Shiloh has just one scenario, the two-day battle. The Confederates draw 30 cards for their battle deck and draw 18 of those to form the initial army in the reserve. The remaining dozen cards are set aside to be drawn as reinforcements.

The Union player draws a 40-card battle deck and likewise draws 18 of those to form his initial deployment. At least one card must be placed in every position, but aside from that the U.S. deployment is free. The remaining 22 cards form the U.S. reinforcement deck.

The Confederates win by being in sole possession of the Center Back position by the end of the First Day. Time is kept via the CSA draw pile. Every turn the CSA draws two cards, when the draw pile is exhausted the day ends. (Therefore the U.S. loses his last turn and will have drawn just 10 cards) Both armies must then disengage any attacking engaged forces. The U.S. player then gets half of his remaining reinforcements (6 of 12 cards) as "overnight" arrivals and the second day begins with the U.S. player going first. The U.S. player wins by then capturing the Center Front position.

Left unsaid is whether there is a time limit , but I think it works best if the Union has to capture that position before his draw pile runs out. If using this house rule than the federals should draw 1 card per reinforcement phase. This gives the U.S. player the same 6 turns the C.S. player had to capture the winning ground.

It's an entertaining and quick game and can be played in less than an hour.

This review is based on the combined Dixie rules from the Columbia Games Web site, which contain some important changes from the rules included with the cards.

One change is how hits are defined, with Dixie switching over to the recent Columbia convention of low numbers being hits instead of the previous high numbers being better. So now, for example, an F3-firing unit hist on a 1, 2 or 3 instead of the previous 4, 5 or 6. This is more intuitive.

Hits on generals are handles differently as well. In the first edition generals could not get a hit until every other unit had a hit, but then they were instantly eliminated by the next hit in the position. This resulted in very high casualties for generals. Now generals are potentially hit by any roll of a "6" by a firing unit. It takes a second roll of a "6" to confirm the hit and actually kill the general. This makes generals much more survivable while also allowing for the possibility the general will be hit first. This can remove the general's morale benefit at a most inopportune time. Special cards that can take hist such as the Color Guard or Johnny Shiloh are handled the same as generals.

Related to these changes, the die roll for a friendly fire hit during artillery supporting fire has changed from the previous "1" to a "5" (The 6 being already spoken for with hits on generals).

There has also been a change in the definition of "enfilade fire" that will affect play of Shiloh. Under the prior rules enfilading fire in the "Front" three positions would have been F1 for Rebels and F2 for federals. Now it's is F1 for Rebels in all positions and F2 for federals in all positions.

One other change is the elimination of the "General Rank" rule which previously allowed a player to "stack" two leaders in a position so long as one of the generals outranked the other (i.e. two brigade commanders couldn't stack but a corps commander could stack with a brigade leader). Under the combined rules there's no provision for stacking leaders and only one is allowed per position.

The entire Dixie series is an entertaining and quick-playing battle game that provides some of the flavor of the historical event (colorful uniforms, famous locations, notable events) without being a simulation in nay sense of the term.

Landships! and the coming popularity of World War I

I hauled out my copy of Landships! today to peruse the designer's notes and see if I thought the game would be worth trying to play PBeM. I didn't come to a hard conclusion on that latter point, but I did come away with renewed appreciation of the historical research in the game. There was a lot of exotic armor in those early days.

With the approach of the Great War's centennial I wonder if there will be a new burst of interest in the topic. Wargaming got a jump start in the 1960s due to the centennial of the Civil War (Gettysburg was specifically crafted to tap into that). So there's certainly precedent for a spike in interest. We're currently in the middle of the bicentennial of the Napoleonic Wars and there does seem to be plenty of interest in the topic among wargamers, although it's hard to say there's more than the usual because the Napoleonic era has always been popular.

The 800-pound gorilla in the wargame room has always been World War II. Tactics II was designed just a few years after the war ended and the Second World War has always been the single most popular period among wargamers.

The First World War, for those of us who were young wargamers in the 60s and 70s, had a reputation for being rather boring, stagnant and grim, compared to the drama of Blitzkrieg-fueled World War II. That's not to say that it was completely ignored, but even those wargames that did depict World War I combat either reinforced that feeling or danced around it by sea and/or air.

Dunnigan's 1914 was an impressive game, but it did nothing to make World War I seem "sexy." His other World War I design from that period, Jutland, was about naval warfare. Battleships are sexy, and Jutland has plenty of those. The other notable early Avalon Hill on World War I, Richthofen's War, was about aerial combat, another "sexy" topic. Later games about naval and air combat such as Avalanche Press' Great War at Sea series and Ace of Aces also did well, but that seems to be more about their medium than their era.

It wasn't until Ted Raicer came along with his various titles that World War I started to get more respect, and with Paths of Glory now has a bona fide hit.

Wings of War, of course, is also another current hit game set in World War I, but again that's an air wargame.

Will there be a Memoir'44 or Tide of Iron style game about the Great War? Will Columbia or GMT publish a block game on the topic? How about Hasbro? Is there enough interest in the Great War for an Axis & Allies style game (Central Powers & Entente?).

Time will tell, but I think there may well be. As time passes opinion only becomes more firm that World War I was probably the most important political event of the 20th Century. World War II and the Cold War would not have happened but for the way WW I played out. If the war had ended in 1914 or 1916 or even with a German victory in 1918 we would be living in a very different world. It's only with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that we started to really move into a post-Great War world. The very last of the World War I veterans are leaving us now and shortly it will move out of human memory and into history. The increased media attention the centennial will prompt will bring World War I to the fore in the immediate future.