Bob's Solo Wargaming Scrapbook by Bob Stewart

Bob's Solo Wargaming Scrapbook by Bob Stewart

Table of Contents

1 . The Solo Wargames Introduction 2. Common Questions and Answers for Solo Wargaming 3. Solo Wargaming as an Evolutionary Change 4. What is Modern Solo Wargaming? 5. Why Play Solo Wargames 6. Motivational Factors in Solo Play 7. Modern Solo Wargames In Comparison to Face-to-Face Tournament Practice 8. Why Play a Solo Game Rather than a Computer Game? 9. Different Types of Solo Games, and Various Viewpoints 10. Some Common Intuitive Approaches to Solo Wargaming 11. Stepping Out into Greater Uncertainty 12. Deck of Cards versus Dice for Solo Games 13. Maps and All Things Terrain 14. Pick Your Type of Battle: What’s Your Oreo Cookie? 15. Cinema Production style wargames 16. The Birds-eye-view of Solo Wargaming 17. Mass Battle Mechanics 18. Generic Solo Opposition Using Unit-Personality Cards 19. Scouting for Solo Wargames and Variable Terrain 20. Baggage Trains on Campaign, Transportation and Supply 21. Stretching Our Solo Wargaming Imagination 22. Keeping and Maintaining Roster 23. Adding Pics a Better Solo Wargames After Action Report 24. Thoughts on Setting Up a New Historical Wargames Campaign 25. Maintaining a High Level of Activity 26. Some Thoughts on Better Design for Solo Play 27. Twelve Best Kept Secrets Toward Keeping Solo “Fresh” 28. The Solo Gamers Mythic GME Revolution 29. Using Mythic for Solo Miniature Historical Wargames 30.

We started off with looking at a path that might help in the "evolution" from a traditional face-to-face wargamer, into a Solo wargamer. We talk about this evolution coming in progressive layers, like building a snowman. I lay out a series of topics that could lead us up to where we are NOW as a collective.

1. The Solo Wargames Introduction Issue 0.4 3 Aug 07

Preamble This whole series of articles was started in July 2007 because of a web-comment by David Southall about there being no detailed (and current) "How to play wargames 101" being available, and his insight seemed dead on the mark. Surprisingly, the “need” has been echoed before, but it seems like the best books on the subject are mostly 40 years old, by now (thinking of Don Featherstone’s Solo-Wargaming). Maybe there's a place for walking new Solo converts through the “evolution” that many of us have already undergone, from playing mostly over-the-table wargames (or using and modifying over-the-table rules) then moving on toward more and more Solo Wargames. The bare bones of the typical metamorphose seems to be:

The Hermit Evolution The idea is that most Soloists "evolve" by progressively adding thin layers of Solo structure to their games, almost every time out. Few Solo players simply “shake-a-box” (read a book; listen to a pod-cast) and as a result become seasoned ready-to-Solo wargamers. If we could outline the basic steps in the Solo Wargames evolution, then maybe other new-to-SoloWarGames people could go read those articles first, to get that first boot-strap upgrading to Solo play. Nothing too dramatic or too scary (no borrowing from D&D role-playing or similar spooky-to-wargamers stuff, at least to start), just outlining some simple mechanisms that we all use in Solo games (in one variation or another).

Common Shares It has always seemed strange that more Solo waramers never felt the urge to share their undoubted wealth of knowledge and put together some collective guide on How to Play Solo Wargames. The people behind this effort all strongly believe that the dissemination of information, the discussion of ideas, balancing more realism and more playability, and finding some sort of common ground, is a good thing and is to be encouraged not shied away from. As Solo wargamers we can all adopt the Frank Sinatra "I did it my way", but that tends be a rather hard and lonely road. Far better to put forward a set of common ideas and goals, and set some sort of a platform from which future Soloists can grow.

The intent here is to offer some generic advice that would apply to many periods of interest, and that could be run with many different “base” rule sets. So it doesn’t matter if a reader favors ancient battles, or the Napoleonic Era, Colonial wars, an ACW set up, or even WWII --- the advice is being presented in a generic enough way to be able to adopt most of it, without a big struggle.

Why This Update? Chapt 1.3 Issue 0.2 3 Sept 07

Seems to me there are only a couple of good reasons to “revise” an old standard, whether we are talking about rule sets, or Solo game procedures. However, when the majority of the hardcover books are all 40-years-plus old, then several things pop to mind: 1. We may have more historically accurate information to do our simulation --- many of the old wargamers didn’t have the Internet nor all those historical research books that we take for granted, these days. And we have inexpensive copies of “primary text” available to us, in English for most periods, often as CD copies of Official Reports (OR’s) 2. We may want to integrate multi-level play (map, scouting, skirmish, battalion), where most of the old timers did one of the above, and rarely thought about trying to integrate all of them into a multi-scale-sized inter-related game. 3. We may want the ability to use more of an RPG (Role Playing Game) flavor, and then we can write up more interesting After Action Reports. We can improve the “Scrapbook” aspect (using digital pics, for example). This also includes using a more modern presentation for Psychological profiling, perhaps differentiating by the Ranks (Officers, NCO’s, and the Grunts). 4. We may want to explore what level of “uncertainty factors” we want, and also what levels of “variability” we want to allow --- things like sighting distances, firing ranges, and even charge ranges can vary, if we like. We choose the “Fuzziness” factor. 5. We may make better use of laptop’s (for write ups and orders), for e-groups (like SoloWarGames), and other web-resources (maps-on-line, Berthier software, other magazines on line, research through sites like MagWeb.com) 6. We may have a better understanding of our own motivational drives --- what keeps us playing an extended Solo campaign; so we can spice up our efforts with self- motivational input that keeps us interested over longer periods of time. 7. We may want to investigate some better time allocation --- working on parts of the hobby (like painting) or improving the Solo game itself (like more captivating AAR’s) that are of the most interest to us 8. It’s a condition of modern life that we all work (and play) within smaller slivers of time, and also within more compact spaces (thinking of using “scenes” now, instead of whole wargame tables, cause we may not have the luxury of the larger space). We all seem to struggle with the “portability” of our efforts --- finding ways of taking some part of the Solo game with us during the day, to use those slivers of time 9. We like to use different viewpoints, to keep the interest levels up. Not just the old staid bird’s-eye-view or “compassionate overwatch” where we play even-handed judge between to evenly matched sides that simply try to go at it, head-to-head. Equally, nothing says we can’t play the “bad guy”, trying to beat the system (or an Afghan trying to outfox the British Colonial’s stranglehold) 10. Most of us like to share some of our better Solo inventions in a somewhat more organized manner, as well as share motivational inputs (be they historical novels or movies as an example) with like-minded friends. Email and web-groups open a whole new venue for this sort of thing. We can even set up our own website and hook into like-minded web-rings, if we choose. Solo wargaming doesn’t have to be a lonely pursuit, any more! In fact, it is best when shared with different communities of like-minded friends.

Nibblies One last point of advice! Sip, don’t gobble! Start slowly and enjoy the journey (it‘s like wine, it gets better with age) but give yourself time to savor and enjoy each step. There is enough information here to choke a horse --- Too much too soon causes frustration, disillusion and causes people to quit. The road to becoming a happy Solo player is littered with people who galloped ahead and adopted more and more complex systems before they became comfortable with playing less complex Solo games. This is, or should be, a journey of discovery and it’s objective is FUN first and foremost.

Its not a question of inability to rationally “understand” the more-advanced Solo concepts, but more a question of getting “comfortable” with playing a game that evolves further and further away from what we might have experienced with face-to-face play. The strange thing is, that as you progress you will realize the shortcomings of certain aspects and then begin to address them, one at a time, checking at each stage that the adjustment does not throw other things out of kilter. Solo play isn’t better or worse, just different from tournament play. But the ability to tailor a game to OUR way of thinking becomes addictive, to the point that few long-time Solo players would ever want to go back to “just” playing face-to-face opponents.

And if we haven’t noticed, Solo gamers are ALL tinkerers. Question things, research them, think them through and then implement them and remember it is your personal view, no- one else’s, there are no right or wrong ways, just different ways. Ask another Solo player a direct question and they all seem to give you abstract “ideas to implement” (like, “Scouting in Woods is slower than Scouting in the Open”) instead of those “rules” we were looking for (like “Scouting distances in the woods are all half speed”) and Soloists let us figure out our own specific structure. (Because Soloists worry about what KIND of woods? Is the underlying ground rocky or smooth? Have the deers/cows nibbled the lower branches? Is the enemy moving while we are stationary?) We have to develop a taste for asking MORE questions as a Soloist.

Credit Due This effort is the result of a collection of a bunch of conversations with several fellow Solo wargamers who took the time to share their collective experience of many years, with the hope that what we present MAY just encourage a few younger members to join the Solo fraternity. And hopefully these younger advocates will be willing to pick up the sword (or lance, or laser-gun) and take the hobby of Solo Wargaming forward to ever greater heights. Many contributors spent long hours going through their personal archives, or plowing through earlier rough drafts, and making suggested corrections. Many thanks to all who participated in the collective efforts.

Other Resources: Lone Warrior is a quarterly publication devoted strictly to Solo Wargaming, and available in the US from: Solo Wargamers Association 1707 Ridge Road Leavenworth, KS 66048 $25 per year in the US or $30 foreign

Magweb is an online magazine resource with Lone Warrior back issues. See www,magweb.com

SoloWarGame is a Yahoo site devoted to (surprise!) Solo Wargaming. See http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SoloWarGame/

2. Common Questions and Answers for Solo Wargaming Issue 0.0 21 Sept 07

Why Aren’t There “Standard” Rules For Solo? Well, one of the main ideas in Solo is that we chose and combine a couple of different favorite rule sets into something new that is really (intensely) personal --- something that really fits “our vision” of a period, and by extension, probably would be unpalatable to many other folks.

Put another way, if you like WWII, then there IS a Solo Ruleset that costs around $225.00 for the three modules involved, and we think you would probably change that rule set a bit, anyway. Still interested in buying that $225 dollar rule set?

Another way of thinking about it: We can use our favorite (patented) rule set, graft on bits from 2 or 3 other (patented) rule sets, make them mesh seamlessly, and use something like Mythic GME to “grease the joints” to make the transition smoother. The end result is a set of rules according to what WE think is more realistic, with the best bits from 3 or more sources. And if something didn’t work out “right” we can go back and tinker with the rules, “on the fly”.

Why Don’t We See Any “Solo” Conventions? Gee, that’s another really good question. I guess that most people go to conventions to play face-to-face, and while many play some version of their favorite rules “solo”, when they are trying to learn the rule set, most tournament players are very competitive, and not that interested in variations on “their” rules.

And many Solo players are multi-faceted --- they play face-to-face when they can, but if no one else is available, they haul out the little guys and set up a Solo scenario. So for them, Convention time is a chance to get more face-to-face gaming, and meet with friends. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

Why Would I Play “Solo”, As Opposed to Doing Some Computer-Gaming Computer Gaming is fine as a relaxing shoot-em-up pastime. However, there are fewer and fewer periods that Computer Gaming caters to. Once we get outside of a dozen or so main-stream conflicts, then there are very few Computer programs available. No Lace Wars, no Franco-Prussian, no Aztec vs Mayan wars. And its not like we can “adapt” the program ourselves, to sub in our favorites. Second, PC Games tend to go obsolete when the Operating System changes, and support for that older version tends to dry up. Most PC games are not set up such that we can stop the program, sit back and consider our options, look at the battle from a different viewpoint (or worse, take back a really bad move, on mature consideration!), or add some different elements to the mix “on the fly” (like the 7th Cav that comes over the hill to head off the Bad Guys at the last minute).

And most of all, Computer Gaming doesn’t get as “personal” as Modern Solo does --- our scenario, from our favorite books, using our favorite characters, defeating our choice of bad guys. That’s what makes Solo gaming so addictive.

But I Don’t Have Any Room for a Wargames Table Doesn’t matter --- We have gamed on as little as 2 x 3 feet, using the “right” mix of skirmish gaming rules, and one of the more compact figure sizes (1/72 or perhaps 15mm). Some of the Narrative Gaming can be done on paper with our PC, and technically don’t require figures at all (shame though, cause a lot of the enjoyment is picking up our figs and moving them around).

I Can’t Paint Little Guys to Save My LifeDoesn’t matter. There are lots of Solo gamers who use the figures right-out-of-the-box. Or with spray-can paint jobs to start (Blue vs Grey), and as they get the hang of painting figures, they improve on what they started with. In Solo gaming, there’s no one to criticize our paint jobs or basing!

But It Doesn’t Play Like A Real Live Opponent! True. But we use the same familiar rules for combat resolution, and we substitute Variability and Unpredictability for the smarts that a “real live opponent” brings to the table. It’s a different feel, but has a nice flavor, all its own. No better, no worse, just different.

3. Solo Wargaming as an Evolutionary Change

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 10:08 am Post subject: Solo Wargaming as an Evolutionary Change My buddy reviewed an early copy of an article I was writing for Lone Warrior (the Journal of the Solo Wargamers Association), and he expressed puzzlement cause he read my stuff about the history of games and chess and wargames and understood the interconnection, but he just couldn’t see where the Solo Wargames part started. But to me, all wargames are a sort of part of a continuum --- there is more in common with ALL kinds of wargamers than differences between the factions of wargamers, especially if wargaming was reviewed by an outside critic.

There have been lots of dire predictions about Wargaming in the last 10 years, mostly to do with the “graying” of the hobby (the average age of wargames conventioneers has gone up, and there are fewer young guys at the various big conventions). There’s been a shift in the country’s demographics, too, where not many immigrants (proportionately) seem to play wargames (China makes a big percentage of the wargames and figures for the English speaking world, but as an example we hear nothing about Chinese games they might play --- as if wargaming isn’t part of their lexicon). And that's strange, cause many of them know or play Chinese Chess. A similar dearth of wargames seems to exist in India.

Then there is the general moan about the lack of time, and how lots of us just can’t paint to the level we would LIKE to see. Or in the volume ... The local hobby store was amazed to see 100 sets of a Star Wars game that had been sold, yet they couldn't find ONE buyer who knew the rules well enough to put on a demo game at their local con! As if we have spawned a generation of collectors, not players!

Lots of gamers spend more time on computer games or console games. And what gaming there IS in any one period seems to have become more fractured, with multiple rule sets (let alone multiple scales) and little interaction between these “new” communities. Add to that the effects of “cocooning”, where people don’t get out to the local hobby shop as much (ditto the local wargames club). They buy on line, or on eBay at auction, as long as its easy, and spend a lot of their “free” time chatting online with one of the Yahoo groups, or forums like War Flute.

And yet, all this gloom and doom is probably just a wind-sock signal that the hobby is going through another period of change. The truth is, most wargamer hobbyists I talk to are active in a number of different areas, anyway. They may go to a club once a month, but they play a lot of “some” computer games. They may like a specific rule set (like Armati, hopefully), but they may play different rules in each of 6 other areas of interest (Colonial, Modern, ACW, etc). They may favor Ancients, but they have a handful of weirdo expensive "collector figures" that they just can’t part with yet (if ever). And that brings us back to Solo gaming, because the tougher it is to find a local community to game with, the more likely that a “loner” is going to play out his favorite rules, if only to polish up and review how they work; then he’ll try and make the “competition” play harder; then he gets addicted to "improving" the rules for someone he sees as an underdog (warbands, Saracens, the poor disenfranchised Japanese); and as a result he falls into the Solo Wargaming hobby through the back door.

Oh, it starts off innocent enough --- rebasing a command figure, adding some subordinates to the stand, naming him (like "Proconsul Dubvious Purpose") . . .

Many 'true" Solo players go through years of denial, even though they started to play Solo years before. Then they go through a period of grudging acceptance, but only because they don’t have a regular partner who likes “their” rule set (or worse, "their" house-rules). And after a dozen years or so, the light bulb goes on and they get this breakthrough, that they rather prefer to play “their” rule set Solo, as opposed to playing what they see as a “lesser” (or more "watered-down") rule set, or even rather than play against a “lesser” opponent, who doesn’t know their rule set well enough to put up a serious fight. In a manner they see as historical for "their" army. (Sound a bit familiar? Oh oh. Better go get an innoculation or something NOW. Meeaaadiiiic!!!).

Along the way, those rules may have been adapted for better, or more satisfying, Solo play. Or perhaps the player became addicted to other Solo-specific aspects, like writing up a journal of his campaigns, or adding photos. In any case, there comes a watershed point, where the Solo gamer realizes he can’t go back. He may share some common language and interests with over-the-table wargamers, but his life-long wedded love has become Solo Wargaming.

And while he may day-dream about the passion he had in his youth to get out there in tournament and defeat all-comers resoundingly, he now realizes that within Solo gaming, he is content.

(Hey! Who Schtole My Teef!)

Seur D'Armadilleaux Hero of the Peak Freans, defiler of the Crulers, Order of McChunders

4. What is Modern Solo Wargaming? (An Overview) Issue 0.0 4 Sept 05 Modern Solo Wargaming is usually a collection of related hobbies, carried out by one individual, without benefit of a “live” opponent to run the opposition.

Surprisingly, the actual time spent Wargaming --- pushing little guys around on the table top, or similar --- is often only the tip of the iceberg. Many modern Solo wargamers feel that this may be less than 10 percent of ALL the time that they spend on the hobby, although it is often the snazzy- looking focal point that everyone thinks of. We ARE going to go into this in a lot more detail, starting with Chapter 2 (See “An Intro to Solo Wargaming, 101”) which outlines the Evolution from playing face-to-face wargames, towards becoming more of a Solo wargamer). R & D Researching the period and the armies, and building up a decent research library is the product of many years. We usually start off small, then break down and spend “serious” dollars on a book or two on uniforms or battles. Then there is that wonderful map (that was supposed to have come from a book dated 1870 or so). Next thing we know, here we are justifying bigger bucks for copies of material that is closer and closer to the source records for the “real” thing. By that I mean, we may go out and buy a CD of the actual Civil War “Official Records” of the time. However, this is a world of diminishing returns, and at some point we all tend to “back off” and realize we are trying to play a game, and it’s a hobby (not a super-accurate simulation). That means we DON’T have to get out on the actual battlefield with a metal detector, a pick and shovel. However, it’s not unusual for a modern Solo Wargamer to have about the same amount of money invested in figures, as he does in the books in his personal research library.

Rule-Bashing Solo Wargamers are a querulous lot, never really content with any one set of rules, as they come out of the wrapper. Its as if rules are meant to be re-written (to take into account our OWN ideas) and writing House Rules (or searching through other rule sets and doing a cut-and-paste job) is a great part of the satisfaction we get from Solo wargaming. There will never be a “perfect” nor a “universally accepted” set of Solo rules. No sooner would it get published, than there would be a dozen recommended significant changes. It’s just the nature of the (Solo) beast. I like written orders, the next Soloist hates em. I like variable-turn initiation, the next guy prefers card-actuation. I like percentile dice, the next guy only uses 20-sided dice. Oh my aching head. So we all go our separate ways (although we often end up in the same place).

That’s why Solo Wargamers are always Rule-Bashing (like Kit-Bashing, taking bits of one rule set and grafting those onto the rules we are currently using). Its rare as all get out, to find any Solo wargamer who ever admits to chucking in the whole lot, and starting all over based on another completely different set of rules, with a completely different underlying combat-resolving mechanism. Most Soloists will go for decades using that version 2 of the rules (that was obsolete 4 versions ago!) and they plumb don’t care. That’s what they are comfortable with, and all the house- rule ganglia that goes along with it, “fits” them!

But in “general” terms, we all seem to agree on the underlying concepts --- more variability, and more uncertainty. Let Chaos reign! (OK, as long as its controlled --- geese you guys are a tough audience!).

The Tactical Edge There has always been a divergence between guys who like to play “historically” (line ‘em up, the two generals get together in the middle of the table, share a toast, differ to the other guy in a gentlemanly manner --- “No no, Lord Pierre, I insist, YOU fire first volley”) and those who fight dirty --- who fight to win with whatever tactics it takes. Never the twain should meet! I guarantee friction! Ah, but the avid Solo player can indulge in whatever degree of skullduggery meets his needs! Give the opposition a bit more troops, (and a bit more rope), and lets play Fredrick the Great and go find his flanks! As a Soloist, we get to decide what was “right” for the period. And that’s an immensely personal (and satisfying) thing.

Experiments in the Home Lab Seems like most Solo players that I know like to run experiments in the home lab. Most of them would be absolutely astonished to think of it in those terms, but they DO run controlled and recorded games using new House Rules, and tinker with them endlessly, until they feel “right” for them.

After Action Reports and Pics Most Solo Wargamers (with at least a decade or so behind them) tend to have shelf-after-shelf (or trunk-after-trunk) of notes, and specifically After Action Reports. Some of these are lovingly kept. Some are just thrown in a heap, and only good as fire-starters by now. But the best of them, Ah! These are in binders, with pictures, diagrams, sketches, and they envelope you in their arms.

Digital cameras and related ways of using them have become central to many Solo wargamers lives. Course, they all approach it from one of 300 different ways (what else were we expecting?). Some use Scrap-booking software, some are mostly computer files, some are still lovingly stitched together with pics pasted onto pages produced in Word or Adobe. But the point is that the Digital Picture revolution has opened the door to sharing the experience, long distance, and even around the world.

A Company of Adventurers The good ol’ days of Solo Wargaming are Here and Now. Any of us grey-beards who did Solo wargaming back in the 60’s know it was a lonely vigil, and until we had Lone Warrior as a community magazine, it was mostly a case of standing in the basement, with the little guys all lined up, and nowhere to go. Today we have tons of Web-groups with like interests, and we have to actually “prune” ourselves down to a half-dozen or so, or else we wouldn’t get any Solo Wargaming (itself) done! It provides a community of like-minded friends, a Company of Adventurers, feedback as a source of motivation, and a “hive” that we can address questions to, all in one.

Solo Related Hobbies There are lots of Solo-related hobbies (like collecting and reading historical novels). Others collect stamps or coins or maps of the period. We can even buy reasonably priced medals from campaigns like the North West Frontier. Hold a piece of history in your hands! Go out and take pics of a re- enactment group --- there’s lots of them around, and they cover a wide range of periods, from ECW to Medieval times. (Just don’t expect that they will understand YOUR miniature wargame passions!) Some of these re-enactors are VERY well versed on period costumes and equipment.

Painting Miniatures Nothing says we have to paint our own miniatures --- there are lots of brilliant paint jobs available on places like eBay. Some of the painting services out of South Africa and Asia are producing painted figures at ludicrously low prices, and they are steadily improving with the quality of the paint jobs. I still paint my own little guys (while I can see ‘em), because I like to paint them MY way (oh no, here he goes again). Which is to say, I like them a little more grungy and battle-weary than most folks. I also like to have scads of little guys on a stand, rather than the stipulated 4 per stand for the rule-set I use.

So I paint up a front rank with lots of details, and a command stand that has a lot of detail (Eyeballs on 15mm troops? Now we KNOW he’s nuts), and then progressively back-off the detail for the second and third rank troops. Also, I paint-as-I-play, which is to say, I cycle some of the semi- painted stands through the paint desk, when its time for them to move. That acts as an encouragement to get MORE painting done. This sort of thing is fine for a Solo wargamer, but would bring lots of sarcastic remarks from my buddies if I ever took them out to the face-to-face tournaments at Historicon.

Everyone’s Different So, while every Solo Wargamer may have a different emphasis, this is a pretty good overview of the kinds of related “hobbies” that make up Modern Solo Wargaming. There’s something for every taste, so jump in and enjoy it.

That Company of Adventurers This is the product of a couple of people, and I’d like to extend my thanks to those who were so supportive in putting the whole lot together. Thanks in specific to JJ for recommending the project; to Graham for generous use of his comments, his time, and his trunk-full of ideas; to Ray for proofreading and expanding on some of the thoughts; and to Perry for his grounding and constructive military criticism, without which this would be more of a fantasy project, less of a wargame product. Again, my thanks to all of you.

5. Why Play Solo Wargames

Issue 0.0 16 Sept 07

People often have a funny idea about why somebody would spend all their time (by choice) playing Solo wargames, let alone brag about it. What's the attraction? Who are these nuts, anyway??

Lots of us play Solo games by choice. Sometimes its because we want to take our time, optimising the game, and that might mean taking longer than Egg-Timer-equipped-opponent would like (no problem for Solo games). Maybe we want to play fewer moves (if the game is obviously lop-sided) or more moves (if the game is still interesting). Maybe we want to play something other than a "pure" by-the-rules and head-to-head game (perhaps like a meeting engagement, or a defensive fight with 3:1 odds). All of these are quite viable using Solo rules. And the best forum for trying out experimental rules is usually in a Solo game --- we have more control, we can back up the action and try a different plan, and we can add extra units to one side or the other, if the battle looks too lop-sided at any point.

Some Soloists play both sides with "equal" support and interest, a bit like a god looking down from above. Some like games where "extra" enemy get fed onto their side of the table, until we are forced to retreat (usually we have some goal to achieve before that happens). Some people like to add on extra rules to give specific initial orders to different divisions, and any changes have to be delivered by courier from the general, before they take effect. Some like to extend the Fog of War, and place cardboard counters on the enemy side of the field, with more scouting rules (like visibility in the clear is only 30 inches for HC or LC, or 20 inches for HI). So there might be THREE places where the enemy main battle line is set up, but initially all we see is cardboard counters until we get close enough to tell if they are "real" or dummy counters. These are all viable approaches, and we are going to look at them in more detail in Chapter 2.

It helps to start of knowing at least one "mature" rule set, that is also stable enough for someone to add on a few extra rules, that makes Solo gaming a real challenge, without upsetting the basic fabric of how the rules work (can't say that about ALL rule sets, by the way). Whether that rule set is DBA, DBM, Armati, Johnny Reb III, or Sword and Flame is immaterial. Bring the set of rules that YOU are comfortable with, and lets get to work!

Turns out that Solo games are a lot more popular than we might think, and James Dunnigan states that of the people he polled who bought SPI games, they reported that 60% of their games were played solo. Now, part of that might be just working through the rules, and part might be seeing if the rules reflect what you THINK should happen, but that still all adds up, to make up the 60% number.

Some of the oldest recorded Solo games go back to the early 50's, and the first modern wargames magazine (Scruby's War Game Digest) had a note from Tony Bath saying he “had to play solo, cause there was no one living near by”. Then there was a column in the same magazine starting in '58 written by John Schuster covering Solo Wargames. A lot of the mechanisms we take for granted in modern Solo wargames were originally hypothesized by none other than John Shuster.

Don Featherstone wrote the first cornerstone book called Solo-Wargaming in 1973, (and it now goes for up to $180 on eBay!). Another standard work is Programmed Wargames Scenarios by Charles Stewart Grant, that does a great job of offering ideas for introducing variable enemy placement and response, for a dozen or so scenarios. Setting up a Wargames Campaign by Tony Bath isn't strictly speaking a Solo book, but it gives a lot of detail that experienced Solo Wargamers use, to link a series of related battles into a common storyline. And Stuart Asquith did a great little approachable book for Military Modelling called a Guide to Solo Wargaming, which comes up quite frequently on eBay, and has recently been reprinted with some new pictures included in it. None of these are “required” to start playing Solo wargames, but they are all worthwhile, and they set the building blocks that Modern Solo wargaming was built upon.

And an introductary article to Solo gaming wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Lone Warrior, the Journal of the Solo Wargamers Association. This mag has been running for 25 years, and is currently under the capable editorship of Richard Barbuto. It comes out quarterly with about 50 to 60 pages, and (at the time of writing this) at a bargain cost of $25 per year for US subscriptions, $30 for Canada and most other places. Checks go to Solo Wargamers Association, 1707 Ridge Road, Leavenworth, KS 66048

Alternatively, you can read it on line by joining Magweb.com

(Psst, have a look at issue 156 about Using Solo Armati to Choose Tournament Armies, and issue 157, which has the Armati Cavalry Manual, Part 1).

So to recap, Solo wargaming pays homage to a lot of Boardgames (cause we often use maps to bring a campaign to culminate in various battles), miniature wargames (like Sword and Flame, or Johnny Reb III, or Armati or Saga to play out specific battles), and a smidgen of RPG's (Role Playing Games) both in possibly assigning personalities to the various generals or sub generals (like Cautious, Bold, or Down-right-Stupid). And then there is the Campaign journal, the written up record of the significant battles that made the campaigns (something I really enjoy, and these have been written up as part of the serialized Tagh Dum Bash campaign). Its really neat to go back and read some of these journals, that YOU wrote 10 and 20 years back, that reflect YOUR interests and humor.

Its fun, its no-pressure, and it makes you a better more-competitive player. Give it a try. This is the start of a fabulous journey, and we hope you’ll join us for the next leg of the trip.

5. Motivational Factors in Solo Play Issue 0.3 15 July 07 What Makes us Tick (Alone)? Ever wonder what are the mechanics of self-motivation with Solo wargaming? What is it that actually keeps us playing Solo (and hopefully writing and posting as well), in the face of very little feedback? Its not like we have some club we go to, or some friend that comes around to play on a regular basis. And Web postings are notorious for receiving very little acclaim. Some friends I know have created some extremely interesting web offerings for literally years, and measure the constructive feedback received on one hand.

Perhaps Leonardo da Vinci might have been a Soloist at heart. Surrounded by critics, by clergy hell- bent to drag him down, by little people with fancy titles who thought they had bought and owned him, Leonardo labored on with his designs, his drawings, enough practical stuff to keep a roof over his head, and with an insatiable curiosity, throughout his life. He was a self-taught genius, with little or no formal training that would explain the heights that he aspired to, or the greatness that he achieved. May we all be so lucky.

Pride of Authorship Some Soloists may be motivated by pride of seeing their article in print, (and I know that certainly appealed to me for the first couple of articles). But in the face of family and friends who say things like “Well why don’t you write another article for “X” (and insert their idea of a “better” magazine), its obvious that MY motivational input (from a pride of Authorship) isn’t something my family values. We’re reminded of that scene in Lawrence of Arabia, where the Arab Sheik is scrabbling through the wreckage to find SOME THING of value, to take home after they looted the train. “There must be something MORE”. As if the Roman sense of “Dignitas” or dignity wasn’t enough.

We are either the Captive, or the Captain of our thoughts. If we read the great classic books and magazines on Solo gaming, and aspire to apply modern thinking to older methods, then in the effort to improve the mechanics, we become a part of that Winner’s Circle. If I seem to see far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants (note 1).

In a sense, to simply lay out any Solo campaign and run it to a conclusion triggers some sort of pride of achievement, and rightly so. There are no shake-a-box kits out there, for playing a solo campaign in “our” professed field of interest. And when we decide we want to incorporate some reasonable changes to rules in light of new information (with sound arguments to back them up, and not just someone else’s entrenched ideas), that takes conviction to run a whole campaign. And even more slef-discipline to occasionally stop to reconsider or revamp our “new” rules when necessary. And more energy gets expended in writing up that effort, and polishing the AAR (After Action Report) to the point that others want to read through it (whether on a web site, or in a magazine like Lone Warrior) is no small thing. And the Pride of Authorship is really the derived pride of (hopefully) adding a little bit to the Soloist’s body of knowledge that came before us. And THAT is worth striving for.

Looking for the Magic Bullet We all sense that there is really a multitude of factors which could, and probably did, influence the outcome of any given battle. And these obscure forces didn’t live in glorious isolation but interacted with each other, often in strange and unpredictable ways, and occasionally tipped the outcome against all odds. We all know of examples of this --- the lack of screwdrivers at Isandlawana delaying the distribution of rifle rounds, that MAY have been the reason the Brits were over run. That sort of thing. There are a lot of twists and turns and more than one tangent in the road of self-discovery and Solo bliss.

Trying out new Solo games mechanisms, trying to make the experience “more real” (without bogging down with systems that become too-complicated), trying to incorporate the latest research, sharing the successes (and the failures or dead-ends, because we learn a lot from any effort and especially when that effort bogs down or goes wonky) --- these are the building blocks that keep the Solo experience interesting (note 3). The real trick in Solo games is not to give up at the first hurdle. Try it again; good today, better tomorrow. Next time maybe we’ll finally get it “right” (note 3). And that brings up another point --- there really isn’t a single perfect rules system, no “one true way-ism” to Solo happiness. Its very subjective, and every decision that we indulge in tailors the flavor of the end-result to match our deepest expectations. By that we mean that ONE Soloist wants to concentrate on large battles, and doesn’t particularly care whether the Captain of Cavalry has an inferiority complex, or was wounded last time out (and consequently might flinch a bit) --- no “characterization” for him! The next Soloist along might revel in the story line, get all caught up in the Lieutenant’s mutt, and spend most of his time in polishing AAR’s (after action reports), at the expense of his figure-painting efforts. There is no “right” formula for how we spend our time --- the enjoyment we get from Solo gaming is a very personal experience (note 4).

Breaking Away There are lots of reasons that initially sound “negative” but really have a very positive aspect to them. Lots of Soloists “evolve” into playing solo, from a competitive over-the-table background. They initially talk in terms of “getting away from rules lawyers”, but by that they usually admit they were in search of a more- conversational, less-confrontational wargames format. And along the way they grew to appreciate that Solo gaming meant they were “released” from depending on having a “free” opponent, whenever their schedule allowed (even if that meant shift work, and 3:00 AM was Wargaming Time!). Lots of Soloists talk avidly about the “freedom” of playing rules THEY like, or rules that they MODIFIED, because the rule designer has a different vision than they do. Many Soloists look on the majority of rule sets as great starting points, but too oriented to solving “confrontational” games inch-man-ship, where a knowledgeiable opponent tweaks the last ounce out of a move, to align himself on our flank (and the Soloist snort in derision, for they know that the “real” unit commander wouldn’t dare try drastic convolutions, cause the Colonel would strip him for not waiting and following orders, as written).

In Solo play, there’s no such thing as “Them’s the rules, right or wrong”; we get to tinker in the effort of modifying what we see a “blatant stupidity” out of the Solo rules with our own house rules. And if they don’t “work right” the first time, we get to do it all over again. Whenever. Even right now. More than once. We get the freedom to fine tune the “texture” and the “feel” of the rules until it fits US.We can “break-away” and avoid all those folks who believe there is but One True Way, and they are either convinced the rules they favor are “perfect” and above question. (Or just as bad, the ones who don't like the rules, but having paid as much as they have for them, insist on using them just the same. Kinda like some folks who buy a boat, and feel they have to use it every chance they get to justify the expense, even if they are no-longer enjoying it! And the same is true with the Viewpoint of the game. We can start with Grand Tactical (sort of a National Army level), and then set up a side-bar game with a skirmish encounter, if the mood hits us. We can even skip parts of the conflict (sieges perhaps) that aren’t attractive to us, and go on to the next scenario or key event. We can even flip back in time, to “fill in” some little scene that appeals (like, “Where DID the Color Sergeant get that nick-name? note 4) Scrimshaw Factor There’s no question that a lot of us like painted up little guys. And that attraction to the paint job (or to the period we are modeling for that matter) gives us a lot of pleasure. There is a whole continuum of Soloists out there, from those who play with unpainted castings (or pennies and dimes) where the play is the thing, all the way through to those who set up dioramas, but don’t spend a lot of their free time in Solo play. Sort of like the Scrimshaw Factor, where old tars on sailing boats used to take a piece of ivory or similar and carve the most intricate scenes. These were often some sort of parade, with 20 to 40 figures in ¾ relief (meaning they had been carved “out” of the ivory or narwhale bone, so that ¾ of the figure was in free space, with only the feet and ankles attached to the bone). They were amazing examples of what a skilled craftsman could do, with very few tools, but with lots of time and patience.

Sense of Duty vs Volunteerism Is it a sense of duty that motivates us? (Like writing for the support and aid of some unknown and undefined "future" soloist?) Or perhaps is it a sense of support for the few and far between --- for other soloists like us? (Like doing our bit in writing and submitting articles to support the Lone Warrior magazine?) My experience with self-imposed Duty (in other venues) is that while we take on some Duty with honest hearts, it often becomes more of a chore after some period in time --- be that a week or a couple of years (note 2). As an aside, I certainly feel a sense of Duty to support certain web-sites. And sometimes that takes a different set of articles tailored to THAT particular web-site (so this article might get posted on SoloWarGames, whereas a list of Colonial Fiction might go to the Swordflame web site). Funny how we “decide” to support certain web-sites, but that’s a topic for another time.

At first blush, a sense of Duty gives us quiet pride after the fact, to think we lasted so long! So while a Sense of Duty helps, it’s hardly the thing to get us to be prolific or pro-active Soloists, or is it? See, there is another side to this thing called Duty, when that Duty is given freely, and transcends mere commitment to become something more akin to Volunteerism, because winning is giving of ourselves to others, freely. It becomes habit forming --- its all in the attitude.

Here Lies a Soloist, Down Below Is it a sense of "making our mark on posterity"? (With people seeing our name in print or on websites, long after we are reduced to playing shaky shuffle-board in an old age home?) Or in that great Solo room in the Sky? (They tell me that lead figures melt in the other optional place) While its nice to see our name in print, I’ve never hand someone come up to me at Historicon and pat me on the back, and complement me on that article dated 12 December 05 (or whatever). So while there IS a sense of quiet satisfaction from lots of articles written and placed (and I do recommend it), it doesn’t really get me going, all excited about doing another article.

Conversely, while I don’t go spending time finding addresses for people like Jack Scruby or Don Featherstone, I freely admit their influence was enormous, when I started out wargaming (ungh, that’s around 40 years ago!) “Thanks Jack; Thanks Don; Glad I had a chance to shake hands.”

If we want to make our mark, then we need to have a look at what’s NEW that we can bring to the Solo table. We all have unique experiences that we can translate into Solo terms. Whether that’s practical psychology (to give our characters more realism) or organizational skills (so that we have better ways to organize our interactions) or a military background (so we can see anomalies that need to be addressed). We don’t have to be Ph D’s --- just have an inquiring mind, and try and find something new to bring to the existing Solo lexicon.

And be prepared to offer credit to those who inspired the thought, as far as we can. Some of my best inspiration came from people who took the time to email, or took the time to post on various web- sites. Many of these postings may have been obscure or overlooked, but I try and credit the authors where known. It’s a small enough (Solo) world, and if a spark of acknowledgement ignites another spark of a good idea, then we are all winners. Life is a do-it-to-ourselves performance, and we need to share the credit when its due.

Compensating for those Feeble-Feedback Circuits A Soloist certainly seems to get along with a lot less feed-back than most other beasts out there. Maybe that's one of the prime ingredients in making up a Solo player. There should be a warning in the flyleaf of every solo book --- “Abandon Feedback, all ye who Enter Here”. But at the same time, I think a Solo player has to generate his own feedback, somehow. Find some sense of self- motivation that keeps him recharged and going. For me, a part of this is exploring new ideas in Solo gaming, and giving that all away. (After all, there’s no money to be made in this stuff!). Long term Solo players all seem to exude that deep-down feeling of their own worth --- not that they think they are “better” necessarily, just that they think they have something worthwhile they can contribute.

Another way of putting it, is that Soloists benefit from having huge doses of positive self-esteem. That’s different from huge egos --- Positive self-esteem means feeling “safe” by promoting an idea that someone else came up with. Maybe we try and add to it, or enhance it, but we don’t need to claim unique authorship for every bit that passes through our keyboards. A mix of new ideas, different rule sets, and other peoples themes can produce a really delicious Solo stew.

And make it a habit to go and say THANKS to someone who writes an article or posting that hits home for us. Its so rare, that even a couple of lines can be like liquid gold. If we want some author to keep posting, to keep writing, to invest time away from a Solo game in polishing the AAR (after action report) and posting the pics for that game, then get into the “habit” of saying THANKS. Many excellent authors out there got fed up and stopped writing, because the Feeble-Feedback finally got to them.

And the corollary is also true --- when someone emails with a thank you, I try and respond to each and every one of them. We never know where the source of our next muse comes from, and sometimes it’s the smallest idea that can make universal differences to the way we work. One of my incoming emails suggested these various posts go into a formal index, so they can be kept in order -- - “great idea; working on it”!

A Sense of Adventure --- What Happens Next? A good deal of the impetus for me, is "seeing what happens next" --- I have two little campaigns going with Tagh Dum Bash and Barumpta on the Sre Mela, where I leave the little guys at a cliff- hanger point almost every episode, and I can't wait to see what Mythic will do to the poor little guys in the next episode --- and that "leaving em in the lurch" is an important part (for me) in the motivation to get back to THAT game.

And that brings up a couple of related themes. First, Solo adventures are intrinsically, something that is “hand made” by US. And there is a real sense of “stepping out” when we put on a game like this; a sense that it has never been duplicated before. And the other related theme is of experimentation, because even if we “chose” to play out some scenario that we found in Charles Grant’s Programmed Wargames Scenarios, I don’t know of any Soloist who wouldn’t immediately look for some “experimental” improvement, some tinkering with the rules or the make-up of the proposed Scenario, to better fit with their expectations.

And third, in a sense, Solo wargaming is very “ornament”-dependant, whether we refer to the figures, the terrain, the lists of added “color” that we invoke, the basic set of rules we want to apply, or the sourcing of the information that makes up the themes we like to play. So to sum up, Solo wargaming is an Experimental Adventure with lots of Handmade Ornamentation involved. Are we steering the ship, or are we just subject to any old wind that happens to blow, fair wind or foul? A long-term Soloist is going to just look at adverse conditions as part of the adventure, just another little hurdle to be overcome.

Going Around the Brick Wall, Never Running Into It It helps, when taking up the cause and becoming a Solo player, to have a temperament like a mule -- - eye firmly on the carrot, stubborn as Teddy Roosevelt, gonna take that hill! At the same time, I go through phases --- and most of the time, I just change the period that I'm working in. So I "came" from an Italian Condotierre phase (4 months back); I’m currently working in an interesting Colonial phase; and I am now dabbling at setting up the frame work for either a Punk RPG Blade-Runner phase, or possibly a King Arthur (sub-Roman Britton) phase. I probably have 5 or 6 other options that I've played with before, so there are lots of areas that I could go and revisit (with some twist --- be it new rules, or new viewpoint). So it helps to be a bit flexible in what we do next, and a change is as good as a rest. I don't fight the boredom, so much as just "leave" any one phase at a suitable cliff-hanger point (with everything well documented so we can pick it up again) and change phases.

Pre-visualization, the Refuge of the Lonely Sales manuals are full of self-motivational tips. (OK, so some would say that salesmen are also full of it). However you phrase it, Solo Wargamers can always do with some additional advice on how to boost their self-motivational skills. So next time we visit our favorite used-historical-novel shop, go find the self-motivational shelf, and see if there are any ideas we can pirate. For example, winners “make it happen”. Seems so simple. But it took me a while to apply it to my Solo games, where I’d go hunting the bad guys, and enjoy the scenery along the way, and shy away from those “obvious ambush places”. Now I keep on digging in a scene until I’m sure there is nothing left to plumb.

Pre-visualization means thinking out the positive benefits of making something happen, and engineering it to come out “right”. Finding those bad guys, putting up an heroic defense against all odds, giving that extra 110% to turn the tide, and basking in the Glory afterward, awarded medals, mentioned in dispatches, acclaimed by friends and acquaintances. That’s the stuff of Glory! And just the way that the scent of Glory keeps a salesman knocking on more doors, so too can we the Solo players benefit by that same mechanism, pre-visualizing the good things that come from battling through to Glory, and living to tell the tale on the next web-page submission.

Dwelling in the Slivers of Time Winners spend time on the things they think are important. And long-term Soloists do much the same sort of thing, taking various notes and sheets along with them through their day. Waiting for a meeting? Pull out that list of attributes we were working on. Motivation is a much maligned term, sniggered at by people who can’t find the time to do anything very constructive. But motivation is really a habit, something that comes from within, something we “learn” and train ourselves to aquire. And that’s the secret behind long term Solo players --- motivation has to be internalized. It has to be hooked into the bloodstream. And for long-term effect it has to be almost a part of our emotional state.

And THAT’s the start of a phenomenal emotionally-charged motivational state for Solo Wargames. Take the time to investigate the things that matter in wargames. What is it that makes a man get out of his nice safe trench, and charge that line of Rebel canons? What is it that compels someone to volunteer for a Forlorn hope? Why will a bunch of men, on their own, charge a hill against impossible odds, and take it in defiance of twice the number of defenders at the top? Why would a Page stand over his Knight, broken sword in hand, and fend off all comers, until help arrives? Those are the kinds of questions that keep me coming back for more. Those are the kinds of scenes that keep veteran Solo players awake at 3:00 AM, hovering over the late-night wargames table, unable to go to bed until they’ve resolved the issue at hand.

Regardless of the early morning meeting tomorrow, where we KNOW we are going to feel awful for lack of sleep, we struggle on late into the night, knowing we are sometimes only really “alive” when we dwell in those magically-charged slivers of Solo time. Solo games become a stage, upon which we get to examine some of the greater questions in life.

Notes: Note 1: One of the greatest generic motivational teachers is Denis Waitley. Go find some of his books. They are a great investment Note 2: Don’t worry Lone Warrior, there lots of articles still in the hopper for you! Note 3: Thanks to Graham Empson for lots of the basic ideas Note 4: Thanks to JJ (aconite13) for this whole train of thought 4 Sept 07 Issue 0.1 ch1.2 6. Modern Solo Wargames In Comparison to Face- to-Face Tournament Practice

C’est Magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la “Jeux Solo” (note 1) There are a lot of people who sort of “fall” into Solo Wargaming, through one of the back doors, so to speak --- no opponent at hand, they need to review the rules, they want to explore how a “new” army list works, or similar reasoning. Without any previous Solo background, we would usually take the Bird’s Eye viewpoint of trying to optimize both sides, in a rational manner, using “standard” wargame logic. This results in a tough-fought slug-match, that usually ends in a Pyrrhic victory (at best) and after a few such technical TKO’s, the newcomer-to-Solo shakes their head at how dry Solo play appears, and goes to find anything that is less dull, less mathematically mundane, and less painful.

Do I hear dry laughter? We’ve all been there, at some point, right? But Modern Solo Wargaming shouldn’t be like that. So here’s 10 ideas that set the process of conducting Modern Solo Wargaming apart from Face-to-Face gaming. (Neither kind of gaming is really “better”, they are just “different”.) And in preview format, the main ideas are:

Its Personal Multi-level Tells One of My Favorite Stories Uses Fuzzy Logic It’s Occasionally Elastic Comes on Both Light and Heavy Versions Does it in Bits and Bytes We Can Do it in Our Underwear Lists a Bit (Sometimes a Lot) and, You Can Take it With You

It’s Personal While I play Tournament Wargames with a dispassionate fervor, prepared to sacrifice ANY unit in order to get the win, my Solo efforts are very much more personal. That’s how we come to really “care” for our fictional characters, which is a central issue in sustaining our interest over a longer period of time. If Tournament-Lieutenant #1 is replaced (for whatever reason) with Lieutenant #2, that’s no big deal --- they’re just interchangeable blobs of painted lead. But if Lt Reilly replaces Lt Haggarty (with whom I’ve spent a dozen battles over several years of campaigning), then I want to know why --- was Haggarty hurt? Is he Time Expired? Or was he transferred or promoted? Solo’s a lot more personal.

And as the flip side of the same coin, every bully and lout that I personally encountered from childhood resides (thinly veiled) in my fatality lists! What a great catharsis, to know that the bully from Grade 3 met a grizzly end in some chasm in Waziristan! (Sometimes I even go back and edit- in an ill-favored name, when the casualty lists come in. note 2)

Multi-Level Where most tournament rule sets are played out with a very narrow set of equipment and rules (like Brigade-level, 15mm, move-counter-move), Modern Solitaire wargaming is often pursued through multiple levels. First off might be a map game, using 2 mm size (or counters), then maybe we have a skirmish encounter between a dozen light cavalry scouts per side, that might be set in 1/72 scale. Next up is a desperate defense of a forward picket, using only a handful of 28mm figures (ah, but aren’t they simply gorgeous to look at!?). Fourth, we get some “meeting encounters” using 15mm figures, several on each base, but using “Light” rules (like a DBA rule set, cause it’s a secondary affair, and the small-unit-action outcome won’t seriously affect the outcome of the rest of the campaign). Finally, we get the Grand Battle, which might be fought in 10mm, with scads of little guys arrayed on the table, and using our favorite rule set (rich and complex, with lots of house-rules added on to suit our taste). Then we go back to the pursuit, or escape and recovery by the enemy, which might be back to 15 mm or even at 6 mm scale. Each scale used brings some unique advantage, some way to “optimize” the “personal” experience, considering the table size and troops we have to work with.

Now, that’s not to say that we HAVE to have all those armies, all painted up. Lots of them may just be markers on a map. But the point remains that SOME parts of a battle are best represented in a UNIQUE scale (and maybe with a different set of rules), and we can indulge ourselves with changing the scale (and the rules, or the complexity of the rules) as we like, when we like. (And if the outcome doesn’t feel authentic, we can go back and “play it again, Sam.”) That’s Modern Solo Wargaming at it’s best.

Tells One of My Favorite Stories In a sense, whenever I play solo wargames, it is kind of like I'm "telling myself a story", as if it’s written by my favorite author, and featuring my favorite military guys as the center of attention. (And guess what --- the illustrations are all pictures of MY little guys, too!) I get into a bunch of different genres of wargames, from skirmish to multiple-intro-level armies (similar to multiple DBA per side) for very large battles. And writing up a really-detailed journal is a big part of the fun. Reviewing some old journal that I wrote some 20 years ago is like drinking a fine old Burgundy --- it just keeps gets better and better with age.

That’s one of the ways to tell if we are doing it “right”, when we’d rather go and play with the Solo game for an hour, rather than watch some TV re-run. (OK, so it may not compete with the latest of my popular TV programs, but the Solo game is darned close!)

Uses Fuzzy Logic Unlike face-to-face gaming, Solo Wargaming embraces limited knowledge and limited sighting distances. Combating the Unknown, lurking in the shadows, contributes a great part of the adrenaline rush. We can use variable sighting distances, variable shooting distances, and separate out the “sighting” of enemy forces, from the actual “identification” of either type or quantity. This kind of Dynamic uncertainty or variability approach keeps us on our toes! We can get that “fuzzy” feeling by using secondary randomizer rules (Mythic Game Master Emulator does a great job at this). Or another way is “seeding” the table with some kind of PC software like “Berthier” (that keeps track of variables for a specific coordinate). There are also some neat ways to use multiple packs of playing cards to perform a similar “layered” visibility function. The point is, we couldn’t have (and wouldn’t want) this “fuzzy” distance-and-knowledge built into a tournament game --- it would make the outcome feel too random and too much the product of chance. Ah, but in a Solo Wargame, we can give ourselves over to Chance, and indulge in taking on a tougher opponent, who doesn’t give everything away.

It’s Occasionally Elastic Whereas most tournament rules have a “fixed” sequence of moves, where one side moves, then the other moves, Solitaire Wargaming is much more elastic. We can adopt a Simple-is-better approach, and just move both sides to contact, without getting too tied up in the minor details. We look down from on high, and say “this is what makes sense”. Alternatively, we can decide there is a lot MORE complexity than is shown, and if there were undulations in the ground, THAT would affect movement. Again, if we use a logic randomizer program like “Mythic” (or if we roll a bunch of die for the move distances, like The Sword and the Flame rules), then we inject a more elastic turn sequence and elastic maximum move distances that require rethinking our traditional face-to-face gallop-ahead-full-steam strategy.

Don’t like the outcome? So go back and try it again with some different rules! (Try THAT with our buddies and face-to-face gaming! No way! They “won”! You get to grovel).

It Comes on Both Light and Heavy Nothing says we have to play out every encounter to the “nth” detail. Face it, some stuff might be kinda boring (a Mexican Standoff, that could last for hours, and has absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the larger encounter). Maybe we don’t like sieges, so we can use some “light” rules, to quickly come to an “acceptable” (if not detailed) result. And maybe we really like Skirmish encounters, and if so, we can take a couple of hours if we like, to winkle out the fine nuances of using ground cover to an optimum, and slowly gathering every little advantage to out-fox that sniper up on the ridge. We get to choose, whether we go in Rules-Light (with a beer-n-pretzels game) or Rules-heavy (with those detailed morale charts).

We Can Do it in Bits and Bytes When my Sparring Partner of 15 years comes over, we try and set-up, play, and come to a discernable conclusion in a 3 to 4 hour session. It’s all play, and little time to gossip, or go look up some obscure real-life example of how some specific tactic was carried out, if we want to finish in the period that we are playing. (Bugles? What Bugles! No time and not in the rules! Play through!) Ah, but in the Solo version of the game, the journey is 90% of the fun, and “getting there” is only 10%. Which is to say, a diversion of an hour or more, to check the facts in some history book about the various Bugle calls, is quite welcome.

And pulling up some lists off the computer, or using “enhancements” that we stuck together in a table on a computer, leaves more time to admire the little guys, marching off to glory. This is quite at odds with Tournament games, where the opponents wanna Roll them Bones, and feel like they are in control of their own destiny! And with Solo we can take the time to record the result of each and every move into our Journal on the Laptop, “as it happens”, which is great, cause we capture all the excitement of the moment.

We Can Do it in Our Underwear Well, not so much with us (as a wargamer in our underwear), as with little guys (that may not have to be painted to optimum Tournament-approved levels) to get started on the game. I’ve often started off a campaign with figures that are primed and based (“in their Underwear”), or perhaps only given the most cursory of paint jobs (flesh, hats and coat). As they get moved, then I cycle them out and paint a bit more on each stand that I move, as a self-encouragement move to get MORE painting done. Somehow its much easier to find the time to paint “on the fly” like that, and not as hard to get the motivation up, when its just a stand or two.

Solo Wargaming is much more casual than those face-to-face Tournaments, when it comes to fancy unit paint jobs (and command stands) for our armies.

Lists a Bit Seems we are forever making up tables and lists in Solo Wargaming. Lists of positive things that happen for our side, of negative things, of potential battle scenes that we might want to play out, or scenes we may come across. Lists of support personnel and logistics that we need, lists of character attributes that we want to assign to “key” figures. Many of these various lists are for local color, and may not affect the outcome of the battle significantly. Some of the lists are just for color in our journal. “His nibs is feeling a bit overcast today, so I wouldn’t recommend asking him too many questions, Lieutenant!” Stuff like that.

While there are all kinds of ways of bringing this into our commentary, one of the best ways is to generate lists of 52 related items or entries, and then randomly pull the specific item out with a deck of cards. We can even “sort” by the suit in the cards, so if we are working on Things Worth Stealing, then Hearts might be personal mementos or similar (like a Girlfriend’s locket), Diamonds might be hard cash or things that can be converted to cash (like umn, Diamonds). Spades might be things that have military significance (like Maps, codes, or Campaign documents) and Clubs are just things we use every day (like a razor) that are awkward and nagging to have to replace while on patrol.

We use tables to flesh out various “scenes”. Suppose we have a battle that takes place at some remote building in the badlands. What do the walls look like (here’s 13 options, chosen with a card deck); how about the windows? The Courtyard? The surrounding countryside? Its easy to develop a dozen little lists of 13 items, so that we can “draw” a card for each feature. Then we come up with a unique “building” for each and every occasion we go to this table.

You Can Take it With You And finally, with all the lists, tables of buildings, Tables of Organization, Names of key players, Standing Orders for this sort of situation or that, there is ALWAYS something to fill out or add too, and its easy for us to carry a couple of folded papers in a back pocket or jacket or briefcase, and to pull them out and add to them while we are waiting for “Real Life” to catch up. With Solitaire Wargaming, we really Can take it with us.

We even have a specific group of penny-ante games, that we can play on the road (in hotel rooms) or with the nephews and nieces at the family barbeque, using simple coins, dice and cards. THEY might think they are playing “Rabbits and Hares” (escaping the Fox), and we get lots of squeals of delight at near misses, but WE know its really a thinly disguised scouting wargame, where the Scout has “let” the enemy escape, to confuse and confound about the direction of the impending attack.

Summary Tournament play is kind of like a condensed short sharp confrontation, that is in tight focus for a couple of hours (or a tournament weekend) and then as often as not, its gone. Perhaps we remember that we may have won 3 three games and lost 2, but we rarely have any significant details after a couple of years, and its common to barely remember who the opponents were, let alone what the specifics of the strategy or tactics were. However, with Modern Solo Wargaming its more like a continued state of enhanced or heightened daydreaming, that is being recorded in great detail, where we can take little slivers of otherwise useless time, and turn them into the stainless steel parts that build a very personal monument, and a record that we will periodically revisit and treasure forever.

Notes Note 1: Rough translation, “Its magnificent, but it’s not Solo Wargaming” Note 2: Please don’t point this out to my shrink! Or worse, someone who grew up with me in Grade 3 that has a phonetically similar sounding name!

7. Why Play a Solo Game Rather than a Computer Game? Issue 0.2 6 July 07 We still get the question come up, every once in a while: why you would want to play a super complicated Solo miniature wargame --- wouldn't a computer be able to do the same thing only without all the book-keeping headaches? We really feel that playing a Solo miniature wargame on a table, as opposed to playing a similar game on a computer, give us a completely different experience. The main differences are:

Speed Speed of play. Solo wargames allow one to ponder a move, consider the options, strategize and plan. Computer games tend to be faster paced needing near instantaneous reactions. Most computer games we play have continuous threats from the other side, so to sit and think wasn't possible. Granted this might be a truer reflection of "actual" combat...but it does become one difference between the two genres (Solo games versus Computer games)

Scale Computer games typically are Imperial (grand strategy, the movement of armies, diplomacy) strategic (large scale battles), tactical (small scale battles), or skirmish (squad level; first person shooters). There is little opportunity within any game to switch from one level to another. In solo gaming we have the ability to do all of this, even simultaneously, and jump from scale to scale. In a campaign game,we might be resolving the “Diplomacy” portion of a year’s turn, and roll an event indicating our diplomat is accused of spying. We could easily just game-on assuming he/she was captured and jailed and continue on at the Imperial level in our campaign. We could also play out the capture as a skirmish/RPG type game, or, use the capture as a reason to stage a raid or siege to free the diplomat (tactical level).(note 1)

Defined Boundaries Unless playing a random scenario or playing a game that features an editor so we can either build or import battles, with PC games we are usually limited to the scenarios provided, the troops provided, the timeline covered, etc. From a solo gaming standpoint, it might be of interest to determine side events based on battles, diplomacy, etc. that are not included in the game, introduction of additional factors or “wrinkles” that are not part of the computer game (additional leaders, partisan troops, different skill levels, weather, effects of forced marches, half-rations, “pre-game” morale) that can change both the texture and outcome of the game (note 1).

Limitation of Scope In most computer games,we are required to play out each phase / battle to progress to the next “event”. In some cases, the computer will not permit us to proceed until we score a specific victory level. In Solo, you can game-out events as you like, in any order. If a particular battle, or type of battle is not of interest to us, or if in the interest of time we are more concerned about the upcoming siege game than the skirmishes enroute, we can simply skip over the skirmishes completely, or by some method of our choosing, resolve the skirmishes collectively to determine what effect if any they had in delaying the attacking force, or delaying them before resolving the siege (note 1).

Variety Diversity of options. Computer games tend to focus on “just” the big brand name battles. Solo wargames allow a more diverse spectrum of simulations. (The Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, and the Italian Medieval Condotierri periods come to mind here). There may not be a computer version available, and the effort to create one may be too great, so we play with the miniature wargames versions instead. We can find games that hold our historical interest in miniature wargames format much more easily than we can for play on the PC. What was the last English Civil War game we played on the computer? If it's not ACW or WW2, we are out of luck. PC games also tend to not allow us to “color outside the box” Go to many clubs or miniatures tournament, and we can fight out battles with either historical or fictional armies (Samurai vs. Rome, Mordor vs. Alexander the Great)

Sense of Drama Another big difference is in the “pacing” --- the sense of Drama. There is something inherently dramatic about holding the die above the miniature wargames table and knowing we need a 5 or 6 for a key figure to survive. Computerized wargames -- and computer-based versions of boardgames – become much more impersonal, and so they tend to suck a lot of the inherent drama right out of the situation. We still love the feel of rolling dice, and having cards in our hands --- it is just a better “here and now” atmosphere than clicking a mouse and “remotely” seeing something happen on the screen --- that’s not as “attached” somehow; not as dramatic.

So games have a variety of mechanisms to add to that sense of drama that doesn’t get as high a designer requirement in most computer games. In a computer games, we see the terrain types, we know the movement cost to transit them, we know how fast our guys can move, and it will be exactly the same next time. In a solo game, we may include variable terrain (we see that it’s wet, but don’t know till we get there if it is slightly soggy undrained land from the last heavy rainfall, a shallow but crossable marsh, or an impassable bog. We might use variable movement rates where each class of troop moves the same on average, but may vary from turn to turn (XX unit has a rating of 10-12 inches across open terrain). There are times where “only” getting the roll for 10 will leave us exposed to one more round of fire before striking home in melee, or 12 inches will be the difference between catching the evading enemy unit or their escape. We can use rules for uncertain morale where the level of new units are unknown until they “see the elephant”. Most will be average. Some will be better, some worse, and a few will be welcome surprises or bitter disappointments (note 1).

Mythic GME is great at building dramatic tension during solitaire play by making us roll on a chart that’s modified as the Chaos builds. Bad things happen when the Chaos goes up, which leads us to fall into another situation; then if we get another bad roll that puts us into a worse Chaos combination... It would be really simple to write a program that just presents us with the final results, but we don’t get the tension building that we get from manually rolling dice and looking things up, and watching the Chaos build beyond our control.

Extended Times Between Play Interruptability. A solo wargame can be left on the table and returned to rather easily. As a result, Solo miniature wargames lets you experiment with different defenses and offenses quite easily. We have the time to learn rules and game mechanics at leisure. Most computer games have fixed "save points" (if any at all). So its a bit harder to get up and do other things. Also the length between save points can be quite long - so we need to allocate more time to continue the journey to that point (as opposed to Solo miniature wargaming where we can drop it in a second, or come back to it to fill 5 minutes before dinner).

The trend in PC games has tended to be towards "real-time" and there are some subjects that for some people are just more fun as turn-based games. Some of us like to be able to take some time to analyze what is going on in a game. This also has the side benefit of allowing the solo player to document what has happened. To many solo players, the development and recording of the story or putting the events of a battle into a narrative is a major attraction to solo gaming. Whether we are the global bookkeeper recording everything, or just the minor performer of a particular country, army, unit, or individual, solo is a much better venue to do this (note 1).

The Historical Laboratory If we think we’re smarter than Lee/Napoleon/Rommel/Patton/Ceasar/Alexander/Jackson etc etc etc then we won't find a better place than solo wargames to prove it. Or to explore alternative history (what if this were done instead of that; what if Blucher arrived at Waterloo a day earlier or a day later). While PC’s may be a better real-time fighting-simulation, they can’t allow us to plumb the depths of “any” historical engagement, the way Solo miniature wargames can. In addition, unlike computer games that use a random number generator, we can recreate exact situations using recorded dice rolls to see “what if” our troops were armed with repeating Winchesters in stead of single shot carbines, or if we had a less/more capable leader what would be the result of that unit routing/holding on the overall battle?

The Quality of Opposition Most computer AI (Automated Intelligence) is somewhat formulaic --- the designer money has often gone into a great visual game platform, but not into the AI responding like it should “in period”. Computer publishers used to publish games; now they publish interactive cinema with little basis in reality. Any computer game company will tell you that the single biggest expense for a game is developing the AI. This holds especially true with computer wargames since they are, by their very nature, incredibly difficult to program an AI for. This is part of the reason why so few computer wargames are now being published (that and the relatively tiny market, of course). Most wargame companies simply program an AI that is “good enough” to be enjoyed a couple of times solitare before the user figures out the game system, and uses the game for what it was REALLY intended for - to either be played online or through PBeM (Play by email). (Clearly there are exceptions here - like SSG).

Or else we find some weakness in the AI game system, and get lazy and exploit that more and more, to the exclusion of playing “correct period tactics”. One thing missing when we play computer- based wargames is that deep understanding of “what is going on” and how our choices influence things. Most PC-based wargames are so heavy on the number-crunching that it is hard to tell what is really happening – and because we can't grasp all of the factors we just fall back on a “gut” feeling, which is sometimes right or sometimes wrong.

In solo gaming, the opposition might be ourselves, also playing the other side, it might be preprogrammed (but with varying responses), or it might be random but realistic. The PC game will respond the way the AI is programmed. The next game, given the same situation, the AI will probably do exactly the same thing in the same order. With mechanisms available, whether using Tony Bath’s or Donald Featherstone’s suggestions for a solo opponent, or using ideas from numerous other games and gaming sources (like Lone Warrior or Saga), or using something like Mythic GME, we no longer have the (relatively boring) luxury of knowing that the enemy will do this so we should prepare by doing this (note 1).

Kitchen Sink AI’s Many computer games intentionally include the "Kitchen sink" in thier combat tables because they can--but they often don't publish exactly how each factor works or how it calculates a result. By contrast, in Solo miniature wargames, they have publish the entire system and the players can make exact plans on these details. We’ve played some turned-based PC games where some obscure condition was “triggered” and we suffered from not knowing that obscure condition's cause. The computer isn't going to “tell” us that we took massive damage because of obscure condition “X” either.

Miniature Rule sets are much more transparent, in that we can look up the thinking behind the rules, and if we don’t like the results, we get to fiddle with them. It’s important that we “know” and “understand” all the mechanics that are going on under the hood to figure out whether we will succeed or fail at a given attack. Often times, this stuff is hidden in a computer game.

Tweakers The thing many people loathe about computer games is that if some little rule doesn't work for us, or if we'd prefer to do this rather than that, or if we don't like using some particular units, then we’re stuck. We can't go into the computer game and put a sticky note in saying we'll skip that rule. We’re stuck with the computer game the way it was designed, and we can't tweak the game to our point-of- view beyond what was programmed into the game.

In fact, MOST Solo wargamers we know have at least a handful of modifications-to-the-rules that they favor (some go so far as to completely re-write the rule set). Don't like a rule? Change it. Don't like a particular setup for a scenario? Do something else. We don’t HAVE to be rules-wranglers, but miniature wargames give us that option, where few of us are proficient software programmers.

PC-Independent With Solo miniature wargames, we aren’t tying up the PC when the wife wants to do internet shopping, or emailing friends and family. The PC doesn’t have the opportunity of crashing right in the middle of the “best game we’ve ever experienced”.

Another good reason is that we don't have to upgrade the PC equipment when a new game comes out. We tend to buy a mid-range PC when our old one dies, so our “new” PC will be obsolete about 6 months after we get it. Our old PC lasted 5 years, so in 2010, we'd be limited to games that came out in 2006 or earlier. Ooops. So our computer is obsolete enough that we can't go down the aisle in Best Buy because we don't meet their usual minimum system requirements, yet new enough that we can't enjoy a lot of the DOS games we loved (for our purposes, we’re of the opinion that computer games hit their creative peak in the early 90's).

“Light” Versions We just don't see any "simple" (or to use a board gaming term, "light") computer wargames anymore. This is understandable, as the computer allows for a lot of complexity, but still... it's nice to sometimes not have deal with a dozen or more variables. Many of us aren’t interested in complexity for the sake of complexity. Large, complex, monster wargames don't appeal to me either. Many of us are more interested in the light-to-medium class of Skirmish wargame, sort of the Beer and Pretzels kind. This is why our current favorite wargames are almost all "card-driven" wargames. The level of complexity is just right... for us.There are a lot of light-to-medium complexity wargames that transpose very well into solo wargames. And its nice to be able to add a dash of Mythic GME (say 10% of a Roll Playing Game flavor) to our favorite face-to-face wargames rules.

Light versions also allow for a sampling of a different period, a different game engine, a different troop type at relatively small expense. We may be an Ancient / Medieval wargamer, but want to try skirmish Old West, or small unit WWII. Whether purchasing a small handful of lead figures to do the Shootout at the OK Corral, a bag of used Airfix FFL and Arabs to re-fight Beau Geste, or using paper troops downloadable from the internet, we can get a quick taste of a new game without major expense. If all we have is WWII PC games, and we want to play an Ancients PC battle, we usually have to buy a completely different and relatively more expensive program, and then go through the “new” learning curve for the new game (note1).

Getting Out in Front There’s a very real sense that solo miniature wargames break new ground that “just may” become tomorrow’s hit PC game. PC game programmers draw deeply off the very people who come up with these new Solo miniature wargames. On their own, many PC programming geeks would have us playing Mrs Pacman gets married to Space Invader love child version 4.8 cause that’s all they have in their gaming background.

Ergonometry Solo wargames excel in the human-factor design. With a wargame we can lay out a table (even when its a part of a series of tables or a part of a map) showing the entire battlefield on which we can easily manipulate the wargame pieces. In a computer wargame, we might have an overview map which doesn't show much detail and then we have to zoom in & scroll on a smaller scale map to find and move the unit we want, see the exact deployment etc. Far more tedious.

Visual Appeal Many of us spend enough time staring at the computer screen during work. Setting up a large wargames table, moving the units around (with that tactile feedback), and looking at the battle from various angles and view-points, are all nice diversions from the sorts of tasks we normally face at the office. Maybe all we do is add some scenery, or figure out a “better” layout for the board --- sort of 3-D daydreaming. Many PC games do not feature a “pause-on-demand” function that enables us to do this sort of musing.

Solo miniature wargames may appeal to some people over a PC game for the same reasons that books appeal to some people over movies of the same subject.There's just something deeply satisfying in having little metal replicas that we can paint ourselves, push around on a map, etc. We also want to “see” the charts that formed the guts of a wargame. We want to “create” terrain and villages on our table. There's this element of "imagination" involved in playing a Solo wargame that often isn't present in a PC game. Once again, Ambush! is a classsic example of this. Like reading a book, a player can imagine what each of the members of his squad look like, what the terrain they fight in looks like from their perspective, etc. It becomes very personalized. In a PC game, like in a movie, the visuals are pretty much pre-decided. In a solo game we can actually use figures from different sources painted the way we like them to look exactly as we imaging the gaming persona to be. For some of us soloists, the modification and painting of the figures is an important component to the overall experience (note 1).

Better Overview A lot of us like to be able to see the whole playing space at one time, something that computer games generally don't let us do as well. In order to fit a 34"x44" map on a PC screen, you have to shrink the image so much that you cannot make out any of the local details. A good scan of an entire battlefield in a computer game often loses details, whereas we don't have that problem when the miniature wargame figures are laid out in front of us on a table. More Personal Control If we have the miniatures in front of us, we can eye-ball a situation and say to ourselves --- “Now there’s a natural ambush spot --- the Enemy would have to be asleep, not to take advantage of that situation”. Or perhaps we just recently completed some terrain piece, and regardless of the numbers, we just have to “play” with it. We can do that with miniatures, where we usually can’t influence the PC as easily.

Like Reading a Good Book For many of us, the difference between PC’s and miniatures is in the rhythm. Playing TSATF (The Sword and the Flame) Solo only becomes pleasurable when we get into that zen-like pattern of the turn activities punctuated with tension and surprise (often brought in with Mythic GME). There's something relaxing about the sequence. I'm in the middle of a game of Barampta on the Sre Mela (a punitive expedition into Waziristan) right now and every day I play a day‘s worth of game time. Pull cards to set the scene, Roll for variables, look up the F-A-S event meanings, add to the daily After Action Report, figure out what’s probably going to happen the next day. It's like reading a good book. A Better “Cachet” Other people are more likely to accept what we do as Solo miniature wargamers. They might actually get involved, instead of just assuming your some sort of a wacko porn freak, internet terrorist or square-eyed geek, and turning their collective backs at the family reunion.

That Basic Tactile Feel We want to be able to “hold it”. We want to be able to pick a model up in our hand and admire the paint job, the detail, the shading, and the weathering. It's the same way with books for a lot of us. E- Books will never ever take the place of the printed page in our hand. Computer games may have lots of chrome but nothing feels better than moving the pieces ourselves.

What’s it Worth, in the Long Term? There is an inherent resale value to most historical Miniature Wargames. Most painted wargames figures maintain their value (though only a few really go up in value over time). Even if we get tired of a period, we can probably trade them or sell them on eBay for some different figures if we ever get bored with them. That's a lot more than you can expect to get from a used PC game. Miniatures last a long time, and are still “playable” 40 years from now; we can’t claim the same with PC games, nor with the PC platforms that run the current games. Nothing “dates” faster than 10-year- old PC games. If we’ve bought a computer program, and we either don’t like the way it plays, or have played it out, there is little return on selling that opened computer game. Nothing worse than shelling out $50+ for a highly rated game that “may” run on our system, only to find that it just doesn’t play well or have the “right feel”.

Revisiting Old Friends After Action Reports (AAR’s) are something I just keep coming back to, again and again. For example, after I finish with the current round of Colonial Solo miniature wargames with the associated binder on the AAR, I am going to pull out the Sub-Roman Britons and pick up on that solo campaign. Its like revisiting old friends.

And we’re going to keep a running campaign-log or AAR for the Saxons as well, this time. We want to keep a sort of dark-ages-flavor war diary (written by a monk?) consisting of the daily orders, asperations etc. We’re going to tie it into the Jack Whyte novels on the “real” King Arthur (the Sub-Roman Briton). Yeah, it's a geeky thing to do but imagine the finished product! The extra novels that Jack Whyte never wrote! (Okay, so I think it's cool and that's all that’s important).

That's why we do solo miniature wargames. Some of our wargames are like old friends. We love to take the models out of their storage and spend some quality time in quiet discussion with them. And if we happen to kill off King Arthur on the Saxon Shore, well, he'll be back next time The Singing Sword comes off the shelf, and he’ll be ready to argue with us again.

A Place for PC’s There are some outstanding PC wargames out there, and lots of Solo Wargamers feel that they are a complementary hobby, and there are some overlap situations, where we could go either way --- PC or Miniatures. There are some undeniable benefits to using the computer, such as saving the game, no tables and charts, no missed rules, no bookkeeping. If we'd rather play a computer game, then that's cool. In that case, we’d suggest it's partly about personal preference.

Notes This is a jointly-authored document, by Bob Stewart and JJ Parus (aconite13) Note 1: Credit to JJ for this whole paragraph

8. Different Types of Solo Games, and Various Viewpoints Issue 0.0 30 July 07

There are a lot of different kinds of Solo games, and a number of different “viewpoints” that we can adopt, as the player. Here’s a quick list of some of the more common versions.

Birds-Eye-View This is the classic intuitive stance, where we “split” ourselves in two, looking down from above, and dispassionately move both sides, optimizing their individual moves. Most new-comers to Solo play are most comfortable starting here.

Hidden Enemy Deployment This works out best when we “play” the Imperial forces (like the Roman Army or the Brits on the North West Frontier) “probing” likely hiding spots for the warbands. We can use card-pull to denote the enemy that we uncover, with the potential of having multiple warbands in any one space.

Zombat This is a variation on the above, but we have less hidden enemy, and more “dumb” waves of enemy just trundling toward us in the open. Zombie Combat mode. As long as the ammo holds out, the Zombies are gonna have a rough time of it. (Then we run for the exit!) Fortunately, there are a LOT of Zombies, so that makes up for poor tactics.

Decision-point These kinds of Solo games are not as common, but they basically put us into some sort of position where we need to make some critical decisions, and those decisions “drive” the game. A good example of this sort of game (in a 2-player version) is Ace of Aces, a WWI flying game where we are presented with a cartoon of the enemy plane in front of us, and OUR decision (lets say we do an Immelman turn), coupled with an Enemy decision (hard right), sends us to a new decision-point, with a new cartoon.

Programmed Enemy This sort of Solo game works well, as long as we have a logical range of enemy choices (usually keyed to the terrain), where the enemy “reaction” to our move is pretty straight-forward. A good example in F2F games would be Pony Wars, where the Indians “react” to our cavalry probes.

Card-Driven Solo There are a number of ways to “automate” the enemy using a deck of cards, and setting up a table with the “action” that relates to these cards. This is a good way to play one side, but it often requires a handicap (more enemy) to make up for the somewhat clumsy way the enemy forces move and coordinate attacks. We have some examples elsewhere in the notes.

Gotterdammerung This covers a number of systems where the enemy starts off relatively weak, but adds strength every move, and eventually becomes overwhelming and the steam-roller is irresistible. Named after the Wagnerian Operas, where the bad guy is doomed from the start, but dies a glorious death. At first blush, these are similar to the Zombat Solo games, but unlike Zombat (where we rarely lose), the brave adventurers in this kind of game ALWAYS get overwhelmed. Eventually. Or occasionally get away with a fighting retreat.

Narrative-driven Solo When games first came out as a part of mainframe computers, most were just a narrative that painted a scene (“You are in a cave”), then let you ask questions about the situation (“Are there any hidden exits?”). The mainframe would “search out” a couple of key words (like Hidden and Exit), and respond if it found them in its decision tree. Modern versions of this idea will let us “paint” our own scene (often using a card deck to pull “choices” off various lists), and modify it with some randomizer (like Mythic GME), and then let us play-out that small wargame scenario, using our own favorite rule set.

Chain Reaction games Some Solo games are based on Chain Reaction events, where we hunt around until we sight something (or worse, something sites us) or we trigger a trap, and then the rule set (like Chain- Reaction 2.0 from TwoHourWargames) sets up a series of logical actions, and use dice to decide who goes first, and who “reacts” to being fired at. Lots of fun for skirmish level games (usually up to a dozen or 20 figures).

Side-bar Games Suppose our main Solo wargame is a battalion-level British punitive expedition, using 15mm little guys. But with only 30 minutes available, we don’t want to get into the “next” move, so we might choose to play out a little Colonial skirmish side-bar game. Then we can take a dozen 25/28mm figures and do a Sangar (outpost) skirmish as a sidebar game on a 1 1/2 foot square area. We might have 20 Pathans trying to swamp 3 to 6 Frontier Guides in the Sangar’s stone circle. The rules for the side-bar game are usually different, too (often they are simple card-driven games). Side-bar games don't really affect the outcome of the main battle a whole lot, they just add a lot of "color", and possibly flesh out the characterization of some of the key figures. Side-bar games “tie in” to the main game, and use miniature wargames figures to fight them out.

Penny Ante Games These are similar to side-bar games, in that they are quick games meant to be completed in 20 to 30 minutes. One of my favorite is Prince Empsa’s Guard, where cards denote the walls of the pyramid, collapsing in on the adventurers, and the adventurers themselves are represented with coins. Again, like Side-bar games, they are NOT supposed to influence the outcome of the main campaign, just give some extra color. The main difference between Side-bar games and Penny Ante games is that the latter are meant to be played with coins, not figures, and are much more portable. Take them on a business trip, or set them up at a moment’s notice to entertain the kiddies at the family gathering. Because they use coins, the Aunts and Uncles won’t realize we are playing some version of The Lost World until its over. No nightmares for the nephews and nieces that would get us banned from the party!

Map Games There are probably 6 or more different kinds of map games, but we are going to lump them all together here. The simplest version might be re-cycling the old Avalon Hill beer-n-pretzels game, Napoleon. It can accommodate 3 players (French, English and Prussian), and lets the French do the attack. In the Solo version, we just leave the English and the Prussian ducats face down, and march toward wherever the French are going (they can choose to attack left, right, or center). Once enough ducats come together, we transfer the forces to the battlefield. Another series of Map Games is meant for scouting. We send our guys out, and they skirmish with the enemy, and some come back, and some don’t. And even if they DO come back, they may just claim the “sky is falling”, and then we have a credibility issue.

First-Person Shooters There are a number of shoot-em-up gunslinger games (from various periods, ranging from Robin Hood to Star Wars) that can be easily transposed into Solo games.

Puzzle Positions There are several wargamers who collect “puzzle positions” for both for study and for replay. These can highlight funny “traps” in rule sets (like moving something out of the way, enabling a “Through-Strike” by the hidden unit), or strategic ideas (like rushing an enemy line, with the intent of choking a subsequent second enemy line that has no room to redeploy because of too-tight- spacing). Some puzzle positions are just tactically-rich environments, where there is lots of thought, and no clear answer. We can go back to these a dozen times, and never find a “perfect” solution. The series of puzzles known as Defense of Duffer’s Drift (now available on line) are a great place to start with this sort of Puzzle Position.

Sim-Country Lots of Solo gamers like to play out the balancing act, we call “Sim-Country” (sort of a Simulation on how to run the affairs of OUR country). These started with computer games that made us balance off things like agriculture versus army, in games like “Sim-City” or “Civilization”. Too little food, and we get riots on our hands. Too strong a military, and we might get Mutiny. Mix that idea with a game like Diplomacy (where we have a dozen countries around us), and we have the makings of a Solo version of Sym-Country. We set up some rules for how to deal with our neighbors, and use die-rolls to see how they “react”. As an aside, Don Featherstone refers to this sort of game as Domestic Wargaming, where we act as the local fireman, who puts out the fires in the most expeditious sort of way, knowing that we might be called on to do several fire-fighting sorties at the same time.

Partisan Time A very entertaining Solo game can be constructed where WE represent a bunch of Partisans --- ragged irregular fighters who sign on for a short span with whatever side offers us the best deal. The fun comes in trying to “escape” or re-negotiate our deal, without ending up in the stockade (or worse!).

Zar Zan Zamin The Afghans lived by this code “Gold, Women, Land”. When we play Solo games from this viewpoint, we are “tickling the tiger’s tail”, earning Honor points by harassing the Brits (preferably without being caught or shot up). So we play the little guy, trying to steal a Mule from the wagon train at night … maybe a new rifle … and try and get back to our village to boast about it. Hopefully without the whole Ferenghi force tracking us back to the village and pulling it all down around our ears!

And there we have it. More than a dozen idea starters for really-different ways to play Solo wargames.

Bob Seur D’Armadilleaux Master of playing Solo with chasing his own tail.

9. Some Common Intuitive Approaches to Solo Wargaming Issue 0.6 23 Aug 07

This section is going to look at the “classic” way that most new-comers-to-Solo choose to set up a Solo game. While we were ALL new to Solo at one time or another, we usually have some sort of a general wargames background coming in. That means we have figures we like to parade, and usually a rule set that is comfortable, at least for gaming with good friends or gaming in tournaments. Almost any genre of wargame can now be played solo. And there’s really no such thing as a “right” or a “wrong” set of rules --- use whatever we are most comfortable with, as the mechanisms for Solo play are normally an extension on rules rather than being something completely replacing our usual rule set. We can start out from almost any wargame kid of background, and that includes miniature wargames, board games, naval games, air-war games and a whole host of Sci-Fi and fantasy games.

So what we really want to do is to address the lack of specific advice on how Solo games are actually played (note 1), cause many people feel lost when the familiar F2F (face to face) wargames framework is absent. The idea initially is to get as close to that over-the-table, F2F (face-to-face) wargame experience as we can, but with only 1 general (that’s us). At the same time, we need to say it --- Solo wargaming is a bit different than face-to-face gaming. Not better; not worse; just different. For a start, Soloists need to find some other options to compensate for the loss of the "freshness" of facing an opponent across the table, an opponent who doesn't always go along with "our" plans.

So for the “classic” approach to Solo wargaming, we’re going to set up two armies that are roughly equal, and then try and split ourselves “down the middle” and move either side dispassionately, using a bird’s-eye-view from above. This kind of approach works well, when we are looking at learning new rules, or new choices of armies within the rules, or possibly the effect of certain kinds of terrain on the choice of tactics we intend to use in tournament.

Bring the Game You Like Now its assumed that we are coming into the Solo experience with SOME sort of viable wargames rule set (that we probably know well and love) and based-figures that we use on a regular basis for F2F games (note 2). And we aren’t going to screw around with that set of rules at all in this opening section. Most Soloists tend to start off with off-the-shelf rule sets, but then just seem to “add stuff”. Oh, at first, these are just little things that we excuse as being "more realistic" especially in light of new research (note 3). And it’s easy to go back and play F2F and “forget” the little things we came up with.

We want to use some “generic” armies, although even some plain pieces of cardboard, with Red or Blue designating the two sides, will do in a pinch. That’s one of the side benefits of Solo wargaming --- we can “play in our underwear” (which is to say, the little guys don’t have to be painted to the nines, or not even painted at all; we can play a round or two, paint up the worst units a bit, and play another round).

Viewpoint For this first set of Solo games, we’re adopting an “eye-in-the-sky” approach for the Solo encounter, looking down from above, but playing no favorites. Don’t Cheat! As an aside, this is a great way to make sure we choose a very versatile (Red) tournament army, cause it has to take on a bunch of different variations for the Blue opponents. This isn’t the only way to play Solo wargames by any means, but the “eye-in-the-sky” (or birds-eye-view) is the classic viewpoint that most tournament players feel most comfortable starting off with. That versatile army is the key to playing a lot of “Civilization-type” solo games (Those “Civilization” or “Sym-City-like” games have some central army that acts like a police force for the area, like the British did in the North West Frontier, and a set of sub-rules that “spawn” a series of insurrections that the police force have to contain, one way or another. Don Featherstone refers to these as “Domestic Wargames”).

Red Forces Now we said that we’re going to designate the two armies as the Red force and the Blue force (keeping the nomenclature as generic as we can). First we select the Red army and set the Red guys down on the wargames table for the moment (note 4). We can place them more-or-less centrally, and evenly balanced, left to right for the moment. And to keep things simple, we probably want to adopt OUR favorite tournament army for the Red forces. If we have a choice, then lets take an Imperial army, (or some variation on a regular” army --- the one that we know and love (note 5). That way we keep things simple, and we can concentrate on “How to play Solo” bits.

Blue Forces Ideally for the opposing Blue forces we want something that would stand a chance fighting that “Imperial” Red Army. Furthermore, we want a bit of variation, so we want to be able to choose a Blue force that’s made up from the following army list options:

Some variation on our usual tournament army (note 6), or Max out the Heavy units (3 x Heavy Infantry and 3 x Light Infantry as scouts; note 7) or Max out the Medium Infantry (maybe with the Colonial-garrison troops option) or Exhaust the lights --- get a light army that is fast and nimble, so it can hit and run, or Max the Cavalry & use Heavy Infantry as a rallying point with Mounted missiles, or Max out the Cavalry (both Heavy and Light) as a mobile strike-force

There's a lot more initial Blue set-ups that are equally "viable", but that's a good selection of 6 to start with. Don’t feel we have to stop there! Add more if we feel like it, or if we see some other set-up in tournaments or magazines that appeals to us, then feel free to adopt it for the Blue options. Ideally, we probably want 13 or so.(And nothing makes us a better tournament player than facing all our worst- nightmare-opposition from this kind of a list, before we actually have to sit down and play against them in the tournament).

Which Blue-forces-option do we START with? Well depends on what’s in our toy box, otherwise its OUR call. We might want to start with an army that we “know” to get the feel of working the various Solo mechanics without added challenge of fighting with an army with which we aren’t familiar --- those hit-and-run light armies take a while for us to master the nuances and subtleties to get the most out of them. On the other hand, if we’ve been playing for years and have a good general idea of how different armies play, then we can take our pick of the opposition!

Grand Tactical Variations We try and select 6 army variations that are as widely differing as we can think of and NOW we can add in the Grand Tactical variations for any of the Blue set-ups: Deploy with a strong center, and minimal support on the wings (the steamroller) Cram to one side (1,2,3 for left, and 4,5,6 for right chosen with a 1D6 die roll). Refuse (or hold back) one side (either the left or right, chosen by dice) Deploy forward aggressively and use cavalry aggressively on one wing Deploy deep in the set up zone to maximize the distance between the two armies to start Prepare to dig in with woods and/or rough ground (either defensively or offensively)

So there's another 6 choices. 6 x 6 = 36 ways to set up the enemy Blue forces Choosing Our Own Amplitude There are some players who like to push the rules to the limit --- by that we mean to say that “cram right” for them, means the whole army jammed into a 1 square foot contact patch, in a most “un- historical” way (but these guys want to win, never mind reality getting in the way! They use unusual set-ups for their “shock” value, hoping to unsettle a more traditional-minded opponent). On the other hand, there are Solo gamers who belong to the “Gentleman-General’s” camp, who hark back to the days when the Great ones would meet in the center of the battlefield and exchange a Sherry while they deferred to one another, offering each other “first rights” for the ensuing battle. Obviously “cram to the left” means differing things for these two camps. The nice thing with Solo gaming is that we can “choose our own amplitude” regardless of the camp we belong to. With Solo, our opponent is always a Gentleman, he never moves his troops a 1/16th over the allotted distance, and he always see thing “our way”. What more could we ask for?

Working Against Variability Remember we said that Soloists need to find some other option for the "freshness" of facing an opponent across the table? Part of the challenge in "evolving" into Solo wargaming, is finding ways of re-introducing that "freshness". One way is to use some uncertainty or variability to take away the predictability or “logical” action-reaction course of the proposed game. The basic premise is that War is fundamentally far more chaotic than most Tournament wargamers would like. High command send orders to the troops on the front line based on imperfect information, and a light brigade of cavalry gets ordered to charge into the teeth of the enemy guns, or a light recon element can run into a heavily infantry unit, or perhaps a local commander can be ordered to counter attack when his defensive positions are severely outnumbered. We want to tap into a bit of this kind of uncertainty for our Solo efforts.

Later on in another chapter we are going to look at using "characterization" of key unit-leaders to sustain interest. (Now, don’t freak-out on us --- characterization doesn’t mean D & D stuff). By “characterization” we mean that we can use a random generator to slightly modify the capabilities of our Generals and/or some of our platoon leaders.

So with that in mind we set up our Red army with a conservative stance, and once we are happy with the Red set-up, we are going to dice for the option that the Blue army is going to adopt on set up. What this pretty much forces us to do, is to set up the Red side to be able to deal with ANY of the Blue options. And that ain't all that bad --- it forces us to think on the conservative side as the Red general. (for example, “reserves matter”). We are using Variability (aka Chance or uncertainty) to keep the game fresh.

Other Examples of Minor Variability Ready for some minor variability in the die-rolls? We all have "rotten" dice, don’t we? --- dice that just don't seem to like us and come up with more 1's and 2's that we think they should. Guess what --- we use that set of dice for the “Red” forces (cause it makes life interesting and handicaps us a little as the Red commander). And of course, the Blue forces get our “preferred/favorite” tournament dice!

Next. Lets consider variability in the length on the "normal" move (just a little!) from the way it’s presented in “The Rule Set”. We can do this by using one Red and one White die (where the Red is down, White is up --- so if we roll a Red 3 and a White 5 that’s a positive number, and our unit moves 1 inch further than usual). If the Blue forces include irregulars or warbands we might allow up to 2 inches faster (or slower) movement. The point is we aren’t drastically changing the flavor of the game, but we are introducing a bit of “uncertainty” as to the movement distances. So it makes it harder to “dress” the Red army’s line, and harder to coordinate attacks to arrive at the same spot at the same time.

This not only adds uncertainty, it adds more reality to the movement distances --- how many “real” armies get thrown off-timing because of mud, or rocky ground? Or they get lucky with finding a firm surface where there was only supposed to be mushy meadows. Also, with Solo there’s no more of those Rules Lawyers, where they always seem set up their stands a hairy millimeter within shooting range, or outside of enemy charge reach next turn.

Welcome to the “real world”. Any of us who survived boot-camp, marching or forming up under near-perfect conditions (that is, no gun fire, well fed, no enemies --- other than the Drill Instructor -- -no bugs, not sick since everyone had their shots, etc.), there was always someone out of place or at least, straggling a bit. Given this first hand personal observations, we can only imagine what a mess any formation or line-up would be on a real live battlefield with exhausted men.

A First Look at Home-grown Rules We kind of assumed that our initial choice for “The Wargames Rule Set” included all the standard rules elements --- shooting factors, fight factors, fatigue, morale, skirmish/evade rules. Now’s the time that we can add anything that we felt was missing. Like off-table reinforcements, or feigned flight, or cavalry burst-through when hitting a thin screen of heavy infantry. Maybe we really feel that the Cavalry would have chased after routing enemy, or that they would have gone swanning off to loot the enemy baggage camp, as in many ECW rules. Bring it on! Who says we have to play with "only" 3 or 4 pieces of terrain? Time to be a little creative (note 8).

The wonderful thing with this kind of approach is that most wargames rules provide a "stable" enough platform that we can fool around with "little" changes, and it rarely affects the playability or the outcome. So add a little at a time; see how it fits. Type out our new Solo House Rules, so we have them all clearly stated, in one place.

A First Look at After Action Reports We want to keep some notes as to the way the battle started out, the key factors that added up to a win or a loss, and the final outcome (the start of our AAR’s or After Action Reports). First time through, we don’t have to be detailed to the every die- roll, or make it an exercise in sequential maps. We are just trying to keep tabs on what we “liked” and what “turned us off”, for later review. Are we enjoying what we are doing? It still may feel a little awkward - that's OK - but if we are enjoying what we’re doing within the game, then that's what is important, and it means we’re probably on the right track.

Oh. And lets have some fun. I always like to go back through old After Action Reports and see where I had a lot of fun. We want to build that fun, right into our wargames. Have a look at this fabulous AAR as an example of one of the best:

“About an hour before dawn, my adjutant, Major West, stuck his nose in my tent and brought with him my first cup of coffee for the day. After a quick weather forecast, "hot again today", not a surprise in middle Tennessee in August, he departed and left me to my morning routine. I had spent a sleepless night mulling over the state of my brigade. I am not worried about four of the regiments, but the Third Indiana gives me concern.

The Third has been handled roughly the last two weeks of action. There are five new company commanders, four new first sergeants, and a sturdy proportion of the other NCO ranks are new to their positions. The commander is off meeting with Gov Morton at the request of the Corps Commander and has placed his LTC in command. This officer, while competent, is known to lapse into German to issue orders in the heat of combat. The problem is compounded by "seeing the elephant" --- not too little experience, but too much; the unit has been in service for 2 years and 10 months of its three year enlistment. More than the tempurture should be hot today and I question their performance.

I have decided to handle the Third carefully this day. I will not ask the unit to do much in the way of complex movement. I will try to keep them in reserve, and, if they must be deployed, I will try to see that they are in cover. I will advise Major West, that I can be found with the Third unless I am needed somewhere else. I can do no more at this late hour” (note 10).

Dynamic Imbalance Next,who says the two armies have to be all that balanced? Especially if we are dealing with regular “Imperials”, taking on an irregular (or Warband) army. This kind of handicapping may be heresy for most face-to-face wargames, but increasing the irregular army by 10 to 15 percent may give us a tougher game (we can't get around that "empty" irregular-force’s flank, anymore). Alternatively, we can double-up some of the irregular divisions (with up to 20 percent of "extra" force, deployed in depth behind the normal force). This makes the irregulars much tougher to break in the middle, and notice we didn't add any extra command points, so this still limits their deployment options.

What! We never played “irregulars” cause they don’t do well in tournament!? Man, we don’t know what we’re missing! Some of the best games we’ve ever played have involved irregular guys, who start and sputter, and do irrational things. Ah, but when they win, its such a rush! Even if we never take our irregulars out to play serious tournament games, we HAVE to get them out on the Solo wargames table --- they are scads of fun.

Remember, we're doing this to have fun, so at first we should keep it simple, and keep it light, and we don’t need to “win” by technicality or by a hair (note 9). In fact, where we are the only General on the block, we don’t need to “win” at all --- that’s a given! But we do have to have some fun. The key thing to remember in all Solo wargaming is to start off with simple set-ups and only add more sophisticated stuff as you gain experience. Getting completely buried in a quicksand of details early in a Solo campaign, is the surest way to become disillusioned with any Solo play, especially when we are starting out..

And if everything goes against us, and we are headed towards a vainglorious (if grizzly) end, just hum the theme song to the "300", imitate that neat sound of the Spartan spears snapping into place, and straighten our spine; no sniveling cowards allowed! Who want's to live forever?! Ya gotta take the Battle seriously, but not our immortality in the face of those Miserable Enemy Marauders!

So with our favorite movie quote echoing in our memory --- “Live Free; Die Well”; “Come back with your shield or on it”; “Go to your Death like a Soldier”; “Remember the Alamo!” then its time to roll credits...bring the martial music levels up a touch...(oh that's lovely ... sniff...pass the popcorn, will ya?) Bob Seur D'Armadilleaux Defender of the cookie jar, Friend to one-armed toy soldiers, Hanky at the ready, Cosh securely wrapped inside...

Note 1: Thanks to David Southall for pointing with fresh eyes at the need for this article; and thanks to JJ (aconite13) who was unwise enough to suggest we jointly tackle the project Note 2: Some typical rule sets that work well as a starting point for Solo efforts include (but are by no means limited to) Armati, DBA, DBM, Fire and Fury, Johnny Reb, The Sword and the Flame, and Warhammer Ancient Rules. In Solo wargaming a lot of the fun and “involvement” fades away if the actual move mechanics are too cumbersome. That’s where some practical advice is important --- keep it simple! Wargaming greats such as Don Featherstone and Jack Scruby (among others) always advocated using "simple" rules rather than huge legal tombs. I've used both, and have to say that simple rules (maybe spiced up with a dash of Mythic GME as an option that works with ALL rules, and helps add to the surprise element), those simple rules like Sword and Flame, or possibly Chain Reaction 2.0 for WWII, work the best when we try and find something for Solo wargames. By contrast, some OTHER popular wargames rule sets (with extensive lists of modifiers and exceptions) may be quite good for resolving disagreements in Face-to-Face tournament wargames, but aren’t necessarily optimized for an enjoyable Solo miniature wargame. Start with what you know, and if there is a choice, take the option that “seems” easier to follow. Life is too short to spend half of it locked-in with look-up tables. Note 3: Next thing you know, we are adding couriers, scouting rules, evade and pursuit rules, and a whole slew of other stuff! Wagon trains! Camp followers! Hospital sections! (umn, water boys). In other words, Soloists are too dumb to leave well enough alone, and too pigheaded to use someone elses ideas. (Oops did I just say that?) And no two soloists have the same identical set. And if they do, one reads his front-to-back, while the other insists on throwing all the dice with just his left hand (get the picture? We're doomed). But on the positive side, we are going to look at all this “extra” stuff in further episodes, where we can add the extra stuff as new “layers” if we want to. So you can always opt out, anywhere along the line. A great place to see how other Soloists work is to look in The Lone Warrior (the Journal of the Solo Wargamer's Association). It's a real bargain at $25 per year (in the States), for a quarterly 50 page Solo-only (no ads) extravaganza. They routinely run whole articles (10 pages plus) on various popular periods, and some odd-ball conflicts as well. Send your check to Solo Wargamers Association, 1707 Ridge Road, Levenworth KS 66048 attention Rich Barbuto. Best $25 you can invest, in learning lots more on Solo wargaming. Also available through MagWeb (see http:/www.magweb.com) membership is around $50 annually for access to TONS of wargamer magazines. Note 4: For our purposes, we are going to propose something like this for the Red side: We want the Red team to be a slightly Infantry-heavy-bias, “regular” army, (like an Imperial Roman army, or an Italian Condotierre army, or British Colonial army). Chose something from within YOUR rules list that echos that kind of idea. (We can always throw in ONE gun or ballista if the period warrants it, but don’t make it missile-heavy). Note 5: We are saying “Imperial” army, but it could be a Roman Imperial, or a Colonial Imperial, or anything in between. The point is that the Red army should be a regular army (as opposed to a warband or irregular army), with lots of European-style heavy units, and a balance of light units and cavalry (whether that’s Gauls on horse, or Bengal Lancers, or even tanks if we are playing WW2). Note 6: While we could use a mirror image of our usual tournament-army, the one we know and love so well, maybe we want to use a slightly different tournament option. Just make sure its a "balanced" option, with Heavy Infantry, 2 Imperial Cavalry, and a gun if appropriate. No fancy trick stuff to start. Note 7: For our purposes, the Blue army should be one with a bunch of set-up options, and we can “choose” the specific option for this game with dice. So one Blue option might be a “light” version with lots of scouts and missile troops; as second version might have heavier “allies”; a third version might maximize the cavalry troops, a fourth is specifically Heavy-infantry oriented, and so on. Note 8: Instead we can start with doubling the size of the terrain, but in a “uncertain” way. We lay out the terrain in the “normal” way, and then dice to see if it gets extended left or right --- 1 or a 2 means double to the right, 3 means extend the depth to double towards the enemy, 4 means extend toward the back of the deployment area, and 5 or 6 means extend to the left Note 9: Besides, many of us old Solo Wargamers are mostly follically challenged, and have remarkably little hair to speak of, so its harder for us to win that way. Note 10: This is a pretend observation. There is no Third Indiana Infantry (except in the War With Mexico). The Green rating to me is not limited to only new troops. Green may not be the correct term to reflect units such as the pretend unit above. But from a gaming perspective, its Basic Morale Point should certainly be a 4. As a brigade commander, I must handle my units within the limitations of the battle.

10. Stepping Out into Greater Uncertainty Issue 0.5 23 Aug 07

In the first part of this series, we looked at some common intuitive approaches to Solo Wargaming, or what we referred to as the “classic” approach, using a bird’s-eye-view. This section is going to look at Step 2:  Introducing a bit more uncertainty (for things like sighting, and some distances) which could include such things as variable movement rates,  Using positional uncertainty by use of (static) dummy counters,  Uncertainty about enemy unit identification and leaving the enemy skill-levels either unknown or undefined (within a range of values) and  Some improvements with simple terrain variations; also experiments with hidden movement  Adding an Intro Scouting capability (ie “Spotting” those unidentified cardboard counters).  We also look at some other extra rules that are usually not covered by the “parent” rule set.  We look at ways to shift our point of view, from the initial 50-50 top-down approach to “working the Red side” (75% of our time) against a simple pre-programmed enemy (the Blues, taking 25%)  We’re going to look at making the various bits work “smoothly” together Adopting any single one of these ideas is an incremental opportunity to improve the Solo experience. Combining these ideas in a more formal way leads us into another higher level of Solo play. A Place for Uncertainty … Now, when we come from a competitive F2F (Face-to-Face) wargames background, we need to get comfortable with the concept of Uncertainty or variability as an integral part of the Solo experience. If we were playing F2F in a tournament, then uncertainty/variability would (correctly) raise howls of protest, because that elasticity might well “overshadow” the Generalship of the players. But when we are playing Solo games, we can afford the luxury of accepting more “realism”, and one of the main factors we have to accept and work with in Solo, is uncertainty/variability. That means we need to “trot” forward, and not blindly charge (especially if variability means the target may be outside of charge reach!).

How long does it take to get from A to B? Depends on the terrain (rocky), the weather (wet and drizzly), the state of the troops (tired). So we can’t really put a hard number on it. How far can a scout “see” the enemy formations? Again, it depends on the terrain (lots of ravines and dead ground), the weather (fog), and to some extent the state of our troops (bored, inattentive, distracted, hungover). Also, we need to consider different sighting distances for a moving observer, as opposed to a stationary one (who might have binoculars or a sighting telescope that increases his visual reach).

So while we recommend that we continue to use the distances outlined in our favorite rule set, in addition we suggest we roll a die or pull a card from a deck to “modify” those “fixed” distances, so we introduce the Fog of War. That way we can always “go back” to using the familiar rules for F2F games, but we get the advantage of the uncertainty/variability for our Solo games. So for example, we can continue to use Red (down) and White (up) die to get variations on short-range distances (where we want a variable of plus-or-minus one on something like a move of 6 inches). And if we use a deck of cards, we can use the Red “numbered” cards as up, and the Black “numbered” cards as down, and simply limit the “swing” as we want (say plus or minus 20 percent max, as a start) to handle longer “fixed” distances (like firing ranges).

Why Would We Want Uncertainty in Solo Games? Well, there are a couple of reasons to adopt a little uncertainty in Solo gaming. First, it causes us to become a more conservative general (and that’s a good thing). So we will find we tend to move 2/3rds of the max distance, cause we know we want something in reserve, in case something goes wrong, or we “roll down”.

Second, that uncertainty will present us with new and more challenging situations, that we never would have explored or come across with “fixed-distance” Solo play (unless we were playing against a really good F2F opponent). We learn more from our mistakes, from trying to “retrieve” a messy situation than we ever learn from a win against a push-over opponent. So making our Solo “opponent” tougher, by making the play more challenging using variability/uncertainty is really a good thing.

Test the Water Nothing says we have to go whole-hog whacko-out-of-control, either. We can use a little bit of variability, and see if it’s “comfortable” --- sort of testing the water. If we can live with a sliver, then next time we can ratchet it up a notch, or we can add more variability/uncertainty in other Solo areas. And if things get uncomfortable, we can equally dial-it-down a bit.

One of the big questions in any wargame is that of scale. And this is a chance for us to have a look at the internal “scale” of the rules we use, and see if we can improve on it a bit. Scale usually refers to things like “firing distances” (as in ground scale) but can also be construed as the amount of “time” in a turn. Perhaps it's worth noting that a time scale of 20 minutes (for example) per turn is far more “abstract” than the distance scale, because there would be no precise equation for how many volleys and/or how many casualties should result in a 20 minute span, not only because of the morale level, mood, and degree of fatigue of the opposing soldiers, but because of the other general imponderables involved in combat. This is the chance for us to try and “correct” things that don’t quite “feel” right.

Positional Uncertainty. Real battle fields (prior to modern communications and things like radar) were messy things, and lots of mistakes were made as to WHO we were facing, and even WHERE that body of troops actually was located (including lots of examples of friendly fire). There’s also a very famous case of a French Napoleonic Eagle that was captured “from the Guards”. Only it turns out (with careful research done in the last 20 years) that the Eagle was from a French Marine division, and not the Guard at all. The point being that the Marines were mis-identified (and that error lasted over 150 years! note: see Empires Eagles and Lions as the pre-web-group sounding board).

This positional uncertainty is by no means limited to Ancient campaigns. Modern Afghanistan has large tracts of steep hills, with deep valleys, and GPS doesn’t reach into some of these lower valleys. There are numerous examples where faulty GPS readings in Afghan valleys have resulted in friendly-fire.

Think of a poor scout, frightened out of his wits, soaking wet from crawling around in the dew and the weeds, peeking over a hill and far from his buddies, and there’s a cloud of dust, with a vague standard wrapped in the haze and the body of men half-obscured by an outcrop or crag. Now that’s the “real” world. He comes barreling back to the General, twisting and turning and losing his sense of direction, and then gives some semblance of the truth (as he remembers seeing it) to a flustered map-engineer, who has greater worries off to a different compass point. Get the picture? So how do we introduce a “little” of that flavor?

Using Cardboard Move Counters While there are lots of methods, a good first pass is to use blank cardboard counters, cut to the same size as the various troop types in the Blue army. Mark the “real unit” identification on one side, and leave the other side blank (one for each unit). Next, we are going to include some extra “blanks”. Lets say we start with around 25% more blank-counters than we have Blue troops. Now, for our first efforts, we are going to keep the distinctive outlines that identify Cavalry units versus Foot units or Canon, but we could make it more difficult down the line, by making the Cavalry and the Foot the same size, when we’re cutting the blanks.

Next we shuffle our deck of upside-down cardboard counters and “deploy” the (unknown) Blue counters as per our previous plan (outlined in the first part of this article). Of course, we have some extra counters, and we may have to deploy these in depth, or further a-field, or a bit wider, just to get them all on the board. Nothing too drastic, please, cause we don’t want to scare the Red forces right off the board. Now, all of these blank Blue-forces counters get to move, wheel, and do all the “normal” things that make sense, and no one has a clue if any specific counter is “real” or just a blank, until they are “spotted” by the enemy. Moreover, if we have some variation in the Heavy Infantry (like one Vet unit, 2 line, and 1 Rookie unit) we won’t know where any of these end up, until they are “spotted”.

Then we decide on a proper “sighting” distance. For a first-blush, we might take long-range fire (say 24 cm for 15mm troops) as the acceptable “stationary sighting” range (and we can add a variable to that of plus/minus one with those Red/White die rolls). When we’re moving, that sighting range should be cut back by 20% or so, to 20 cm as an example. So now our Red-forces skirmish/scouting units become much more valuable, because we need them to “spot” the incoming Blue enemy, and when the Blue forces ARE spotted, the Blue-forces cardboard counter is flipped right-side-up, so we get to see what the actual “troop” really is, or find out it’s just a herd of goats, kicking up dust! (Its happened!)

The Sanctity of “Our” Rule Set Notice that nothing we’ve done really impacts the sanctity of “our” rule set --- we aren’t changing the combat tables, the way we calculate morale, the size of the bases, or the number of figures that go on any particular base. All we’ve added is a little “overlay”, sort of a “taste” of what we hope are more realistic things. And its up to us how much spice, how much of a “taste” is enough. (Trust me, the spicy stuff in Solo Wargames really grows on you!)

Having said that, one of the benefits of solo play is that it allows gamers to experiment a bit with our favorite rules without having to worry about our opponent's reaction. Even gamers who are content to use “just” commercial rules should try questioning them and attempting improvements. Things like doubling the number of skirmishers, or allowing a second rank of bowmen to fire, perhaps at half-effect. Maybe some of these experiments fall flat, but that is what experimentation is all about. One caution: the ratio between firing range to movement range is usually a key indicator in well designed game, and beware of tinkering too much in this area. Also the ratio of these two factors greatly determines whether or not the game's design favor tactics over brute numbers.

Now obviously Solo wargamers have different expectations from their various games. We usually get the most enjoyment when the battle results seem “realistic” when somewhat-historical tactics are used (and we all wish we knew more about what those actual tactics were). Most of the game is unpredictable, and we like to think we led “our” brigade well enough to do our soldiers justice. That gives the great satisfaction in a game, win or lose. When the difference between rolling snake eyes or boxcars in any combat or morale resolution seems to cover the extremes of experience as shown in the written record of the eyewitnesses of the period, and when those extremes are still within the bounds of the “believeable”, then we come away well content.

Some of our best gaming memories are developed when we have our head handed to us (even when the opponent is a Solo phantom of the other side!). When our brigade has had 30% casualties, they are worn out and behave like they've had enough. Short of coming home smelling of powder and spattered with blood, we usually can say we’ve had a great time --- with moments of triumph and despair to look back on for both sides.

Short-Step Solo wargame rules can never “exactly” replicate historical movement rates– to do so actually causes too many anomalies in the game, and also makes it possible for Solo wargame generals to (unrealistically) quickly re-deploy units in order to correct initial faulty deployments by quickly shifting troops to far reaches of the table top. This speediness would then probably require cumbersome artificial command and control rules, to counter a Solo players' ability to see the entire battlefield. So, one excellent reason to encourage shorter movement rates is to make it very difficult to redeploy once the battle begins. This self-imposed Solo restriction (which can be implemented with variable move rates, for that matter) helps to counter the advantage of players having that "helicopter view of the battlefield." by making it very difficult to redeploy any great distance quickly enough to affect the outcome once the battle begins.

Who Was that Masked Man? Another small change that we can throw in, is to differentiate between “seeing” there is an unknown disturbance, or group of men (or it might be like our herd of goats example), and “identifying” them as the enemy (and not a herd of goats), and further, taking the measure of WHO they are --- crack troops? Raw reserves? Local partisans with pitch-forks? Now, initially we may want to use this (seemingly extreme) rule interpretation ONLY for troops who are well-entrenched --- hiding in the woods, or in a gully, or similar. But its going to make you a LOT more leery of bravely marching past a copse of trees, until we really know what kind of bandits are hiding in there.

So with this latest idea, a Red Scout “sees” a Blue counter at 24 cm, and the Blue forces confirm if it is a dummy counter or the real McCoy (just have a quick peek under one side of the counter! Don’t look at the full unit designation). Then we may require that Red Scout to get within 16 cm, before he knows for sure exactly what “quality” of Blue unit we are dealing with (aha! The Young Guard!)

Hidden Movement OK, so how the heck could we introduce “realistic” hidden movement for the Blue side? I mean, the Blue cardboard counters are all “right there” on the table, right? And why would we bother?

Well, I suppose you could say MOST battles were really a sort of meeting-engagement format, including such battles as Gettysburg. Meeting-engagements lend themselves quite nicely to adapting to our Solo campaigns. They always provide a wide variety of “opportunities requiring a military solution” and how well or badly we do comes down to our immediate pre-battle dispositions, how well or badly we have organized our column-of-march, how well we manage the uncertainty factors, and whether our scouting has been accurate, and similar.

And that leads us back to finding a way to handle uncertainty (or hidden movement), for the Blue forces, because deployment usually can’t be handled in a totally random manner. Any attempt we make to deploy “completely randomly” tends to produce something quite absurd, with gaping holes that even the worst general wouldn’t commit to. For some wargames periods, with very “conventional” deployment, we might get away with simply varying the number of units per wing or per division, but in general this is not very satisfactory. So clearly we need another mechansim.

And in response, here’s ONE approach that works well for the Solo convert. Start with enough cardboard unit counters to have 3 Blue-Army sets (including that 25% extra for the blank cards). Now, what we want to do is have three different “armies” so while we start at ONE point, each of the army groups can move off that spot in different directions. So we need to be able to identify the BACKS (the blank side of the cards) as belonging to a specific Blue-Army set. We can do that by putting asterisks (*) in the corners on one set, and ampersands (#) in the corner of another, and leaving the “main” set blank.

We can either start with 3 different potential-Blue armies deployed on the field (so one left, one right, one central), or we can also use the sets to “fan out” from an initial deployment position (again with one set going off to the right, a second to the left, and the third might dig in, right where it stands.

Poof! So Much for Ghosts The key thing becomes the scouting (or skirmish) elements. Because as the Red Skirmish get closer to the “dummy” counters, they get turned up and revealed as so many ghosts. And obviously if ONE asterisk card is a ghost, that whole asterisk army is a decoy (note We could make it tougher by “adding” all the “*” and “#” scouting or skirmish elements to the “real” Blue Army core). If nothing else, it forces the Red commander to be a little more cautious, because that Blue attack could come from a number of different directions.

Now, remember in the previous part that we said that scouting or skirmish units “sight” an enemy at long-range fire distance (24 cm for 15mm troops). This time, we may modify that to say that a Red scout can’t “see” past an enemy Blue scout (real or dummy) until they are within short-arms fire range (9 cm range for Javelins, or possibly 12 cm range for arquebus, and maybe 18 to 24 cm for most other firearms). The thinking is that a skirmish or scout figure is going to be more worried about the guy immediately ahead of him, rather than the cloud of dust that is following up but a number of moves away. That way Blue skirmishers “block” Red skirmisher’s line of sight, in some instances.

This becomes a quite exciting game! The first couple of times we played this one out, we sat there for 30 minutes or more, trying to optimize the Red skirmisher’s moves. (No rush, so who cares? That’s the great beauty of Solo gaming, where its more about the journey, and less about reaching the destination quickly).

Simple Terrain Uncertainty How do we know what’s over the hill? All we have is some out-of-date maps, and whatever the scouts tell us. In modern armies, that isn’t a hindrance, but in pre-WWII conflicts, we may be way out of whack, especially the further back in history that we plunge. And what happens when our Map doesn’t match what the Scouts are telling us? Who do we believe? The point is, that the “real” location of that low-hill (or forest, or rough ground patch) could be out of whack with reality. We start with placing the terrain piece on the table at the “nominal” point, but when we get into scouting range, we need to “check” to see if we were right! The patch could be North East South or West by some amount. The easiest way to call this is with a deck of cards, where the suits (Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs, and Spades) correspond to N, E, S, or W and the numbers represent how far. So if we pull a 7 Hearts, the woods (and any troops hiding within) gets moved 7 cm to the East. That may cascade a shuffle of some other cardboard counters so they don’t get buried by the moveable woods, but that’s OK.

A side-effect of this kind of Solo House Rule is that we tend to want to put MORE terrain down, rather than have a Spartan-looking table. And that’s not a bad thing either.

Terrain often drove the battle --- and great Generals looked for “winning” terrain. There is a famous saying attributed to the Duke of Wellington who described battle as being a bit like ballroom dancing: We can sense ourselves and our partner and a few other people swirling around us, but everything else is moving too much, and blocking the view of others to really be able to describe what everyone is doing ---short of hanging from the chandelier (like the Birds Eye view).Graciously, Wellington failed to mention his skill at finding battlefields where he... and only he... had the best seat in the house.

Additions or Expansions to our Rule Set Granted, everyone has their favorite Wargames rule set. And its funny to see two guys sit down over a beer and compare and contrast “their” favorite rules --- “Y’know MY rule set has more terrain, and WE get a baggage camp or palisade” versus “Yeah, but MY rule set lets us break-off with Cavalry, and the Chariot rules are nicer”.

WHO CARES? (Which is to say, for a Solo gamer, it’s a non-issue …)

See, with Solo games, we just add the bits that we like, in successive layers. We stated earlier that MOST mature rule sets (ones that have been around a while, or that have gone through a bunch of revisions) are fairly “stable” platforms, that will let us change or add little things, without screwing up the basic flavor of the game. And since we are really accumulating these homogenized rules for our own use (because no one else is crazy enough to buy them for anything like what they are worth), we don’t need to worry about charges of plagiarism or copyright infringement.

And if we think that we are going to have a foot in both camps (continue to play tournament F2F games as well as playing Solo games), then we can always adopt versions of home-grown rules that work on a two-step approach. First, we come to some result “as per our rule set”, then we MODIFY that result, with our second-pass home-grown rule adaptations. That makes it a bit easier to revert to the tournament set.

Doing Our Own Integrated Research Eventually, we may get involved enough with the period to try and go back and do some basic research about the actual numbers that are behind the rules. How far did an ACW rifle really effectively travel? How close WERE those two groups that fought at the “X” (fill in the blank) campaign? (note 3) How many survived the ensuing melee? How many died within the week, of wounds that were incurred during the battle (the ACW battles were notorious for high casualty rates from seemingly minor wounds --- infection and trauma took an enormous toll, even several days after the actual battle took place).

It helps to document the proposed home-grown rules with extensive footnotes, including “where” we got the ideas. Nothing is more aggravating than having someone innocently question where we got the numbers, and being completely unable to substantiate them. Even if the reference we quote is nothing more grand than a novel, at least we should have them marked down for future reference (I remember having to go back to a novel by Shipway, for camel panniers for wounded Colonials on the North West Frontier!) Besides, we may want to give credit to the guy who had the original idea – if for no other reason than we might get to say “thanks” at some point.

There are lots of far more detailed (and respected) reference works for most periods. For example, Brent Nosworthy's American Civil War research --- a compilation of every reference to the range at which troops opened fire or engaged in a fire-fight, based on the 128 volumes of the After Action Reports, that indicates that the average fire-fight occurred at 141 yards (note 2).

We live in an amazing age, when a lot of the details are available to the public, often on CD, for a very reasonable cost. Time spent on research is an integral part of the Solo wargaming hobby, and we never regret the efforts made to get that much closer to our subject. The more we invest in knowing about a period, the more our interest in the Solo wargaming element is enhanced.

A New Perspective Our previous Solo efforts required a Top-Down view point (note or Eye-in-the-Sky or Birds eye view) where this time, we’ve laid out the beginnings of a Programmed Enemy Response (initially, this could be one of 36 different ways that the Blue forces deploy). We can now enhance the Blue forces efforts with blank dummy cards and hidden movement. We can also add some uncertainty, using variable terrain placement, Positional uncertainty, and some simple Scouting/skirmish modifications. So while we still act as the General for both sides, we can invest a little more time on “our” Red side, trying to beat the odds (which we always set up to slightly favor the Blues).

Maintaining Our Line of Retreat We can always “revert” to the basic F2F (face-to-face) tournament rule set whenever we need to, and all the effort we put into playing these Solo games will simply add a lot to our F2F games, because we are now much more seasoned in facing whatever situation we happen to encounter. We’ve probably seen worse by now in our Solo endeavors, and learned some better ways to respond. Solo gaming tends to make us a much more cautious F2F general (and that’s usually a good thing).

Solo gaming also has the insidious effect of making us less dependant on “winning” and more interested in the process, and in optimizing our situation. We just get more fun out of the time we choose to spend. And perhaps more than anything else, that’s really what its all about.

Favoring Smoothies Making it all work smoothly doesn’t just “happen” --- we need to work on that. Most game designers will admit to spending a LOT of time tweaking their rules to make it look effortless and smooth-operating. First, keep it simple (note 1); second, make it sleek (one card deck draw rather than 3 separate die-rolls or 3 separate look-up tables). Remember that most great game designers (like SPI’s James Dunnigan) favor shooting for a 95% playability rating and a 70% realism rating, rather than the other way around.

And most of all, Have some Fun.

Notes:

Note 1: Historically speaking, KISS seems to have been the best approach especially when handling Green troops. Give them straightforward, simple objectives without a lot of maneuvering. Probably similar to what the Heavies were asked to do in the ACW (American Civil Warl) and all those Green troops at Shiloh. Note 2: Reported by Dean West in JRIII #6738. Further, in msg #6755 Dean West indicates that an associate of Brent’s, a historian by the name of Joseph Bilby, is about to publish a work specifically examining small arms use at Gettysburg in the greatest detail. Brent also has a new book coming out this year or early next year which touches on this issue, as did "Bloody Crucible”. As an example of other prime research sources (on ACW effective ranges) we can look into “OR’s” (the Official Records CD – available from places like the Indiana Press) with similar supporting findings shown in Paddy Griffith’s Battle Tactics of the American Civil War (page 147 table 6.1) These seem to suppor an average range of 141 yards but only in respect of 1864/5. Ranges before this were shorter such as 1863 where it was 127 yards. The inference of the statistics is that there was naivety in 1861 on the effectiveness of weapons but that the lessons were learnt as the war progressed. That is, if you get too close, the firefight is short and devastating and of course as more troops became veterans they knew this only too well. (Thanks to Graham Empson for this interesting note). Note 3: For example, heres a description of a firefight in Battles and Leaders volume 2 page 510 which I think says it all: “…it was a stand up combat, dogged and unflinching, in a field almost bare. There were no wounds from spent balls; the confronting lines looked into each other’s faces at deadly range, less than one hundred yards apart, and they stood immovable as the painted heroes in a battle piece… and although they could not advance, they would not retire. There was some discipline in this, but there was much more of true valor.” (with thanks to Graham Empson for the reference to the quote).

Thanks to Graham Empson for his access to files and his generous feedback

11. Deck of Cards versus Dice for Solo Games Issue 0.0 7 July 07

Love that Lowly Deck Ah, the lovely Card Deck. Don't get me going. I'll ponitificate on the joys of using card decks all day! Card decks are cheap, seemingly last forever, and can be reused for some completely different game tomorrow. No problem if we spill coffee on one of the cards (who me?) cause there’s always the “parts-pack” or partial-deck off in the corner, to steal that replacement card from. And how can we talk about a card-deck, without mention of the visceral pleasure of shuffling cards? Whether we shuffle by splitting the deck in two and “interleaving” the resultant two parts, or whether we use the half-deck overhand sectional-shuffle, either one done well, done “crisply” is a pleasure to the senses and the mind. Then we get the various ways of cutting the deck --- in two, in thirds, and so on. The list goes on and on.

We can then choose one card from the 52 options (which is close enough to 1 part in 50 or 2% for easy math with one deck) or one card of 13 options (ignoring the 4 suits and just using the face value note 1). I like to include the two jokers (which each come up around 2% of the time --- one red and one black Joker card in 52) and assign some value if we pull one of the Jokers from any of the decks. We can also make use of the one-eyed Jacks and the directionality of the Aces (note 2), to choose to do some other tricks.

Now, we aren’t planing to get into any one specific game mechanism in this article, so much as look at some of the underlying math and uses, and a bit of philosophy (like why would we use multiple decks versus multiple dice, what are the comparative math probabilities, and similar). We need this as a platform to build on, when we look at other uses for card decks, or if we want to try and “improve” the flavor of a game.

Development of Dice But first, maybe we want to have a look at where we came from --- at the development of “dice” as an integral part to play in wargames. Everyone has a gut feeling that it goes way back, but few people have a specific reference. Turns out that before we had any objects we would recognize as dice, people used flat sticks, where the results were a kind of binary dice. Palamedes of Greece was said to have invented the forerunners of what we now think of as dice, in about 1400 BC. Cubical stones and clay die from this period have been found with numbers pitted or inlaid on their faces The earliest examples didn’t use 1 through 6, either.

Everyone wants a set of “lucky” dice, and its quite likely that early “solo” games players “tested” the impartiality of dice by left-hand-dicing versus right-hand-dicing (note 3). Dice have one elemental difference compared to cards, in that when using several dice they build a probability pattern that is more like the Bell Curve --- numbers near the middle of the range occur more and more frequently, while 3 x 1 or 3 x 12 become a much more rare occurance. Dice feel kind of sneaky that way.

Origins of Cards Cards are an integral part of many Solo games, and although some would point to early Chinese domino-like ideograms (or games using early Chinese paper money) as being “way old” (but it’s just a gut feeling), it is likely that the real ancestors of modern cards arrived in Europe via the Mamelukes of Egypt, sometime in the late 1300’s, by which time they appeared very close to today’s deck of cards. Wow --- so Cards were a much later invention! The Mameluke deck contained 52 cards in four "suits": polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Each suit also contained ten "spot" cards (cards identified by the number of suit symbols or "pips" they show) and three "court" cards named malik (King), nâ'ib malik (Viceroy or Deputy King), and thânî nâ'ib (Second or Under- Deputy). The Mameluke court cards showed abstract designs and were not charaterizations of people though some museum examples bear the names of military officers (note 4). More Modern Uses It wasn’t until the Modern Solo Era (thinking in terms of Scruby’s late-50’s news letters or Don Featherstone’s Solo War Games, 1962) that we started to use cards to inject some level of uncertainty and some level of personality into our Solo playing. Hats off in passing to Larry Brom (the author of The Sword and the Flame) for being an early adopter of using variable move (with dice) and variable turns (with card pull --- red for Brits and black for Natives), then reusing the same card deck to get “kills” versus “wounds” and identify key figures. This multiple use of a card deck was a great leap forward in variability --- keeping the whole wargame exercise both non-predictable (if we played out the “identical” scene) as well as keeping the interest levels high. Multiple Decks Two decks! More bliss! One for movement (who moves next), one for directionality (who comes on at any specific point --- place the cards face down around the 3 edges where the enemy might make an appearance). Maybe a third deck to describe variability in terrain (a road meanders left on a black card, right on a red card --- the degree indicated by the face number --- branching indicated with Aces and Kings). Or one card deck indicating variability in an otherwise flat top terrain --- red rises, black falls, face cards for details of the terrain (note ). OK, so a fourth deck would be nice to give variability in movement, sighting, firing, etc. Four decks. We could live with four decks. We put together a whole mini-game for Lone Warrior using card-draws and 2 decks for a kiddie's Pyramid trap called Prince Empsa's Guard. (note: Should be in the September 2007 issue).

Event Cards and Event Lists Gotta love them cards. I used to use event cards where I'd print up the specifics on that card (like “Water Running Low --- No Charge Bonus”), but they get ragged, and then identifiable from the back, and I'd put them away to start some other period (cause I cycle through about 5 different wargames periods) and lose them when I came back. So that's why I just use a standard card deck to "pull" the draw, then look up the meaning on a separate file. There’s more variability that way, too. Must have about 20 card-lists that I use all the time for the Colonial period, and a few others that are still brewing. That means that all I have to have is a TOTAL of 4 regular decks of cards (preferably with different backs, but two with red backs and two with blue backs) to cover all the periods that I game in. Those 20 lists may be translated into something more compatible with King Arthur, sub- Roman Britons, but the cards don't have to be retyped or anything.

Color Card Lists Using a deck of cards to configure a scene, or inject color into a commentary, is a whole topic to itself, but the bare bones is, we have a dozen or so lists of 13 items to do with some topic (the description of a temple, as an example) and we pull successive cards to “choose” any element from the successive lists of 13 options. First we choose the gate, then the door, then the walls, then the interior and so on. I’ve no idea who really started this, but my hat’s off to them.

Probability Thing is, while multiple Dice are more bell-curved, Cards are made of sterner stuff. And some of the odd-ball dice (percentage or 20-sided die) are about the same cost as a deck of cards anyway. And if we NEED a skewed curve (bell or otherwise) we can always insert extra cards of the type we want, to make a deck with double-the-aces for example. So in many senses, a deck of cards is capable of “replacing” a couple of dice, but not vice versa --- dice can’t “replace” a deck of cards.

To illustrate, notice that by placing probability estimates against things that “might” happen, we can then assign card values (every single card like the Ace of Diamonds, has an approximate value of 2% probability in a deck of 52 or 54 with both joker). So now we can reverse-engineer the probabilities to fit the deck of cards. Here are some of the most common “odds” that we need to look at: · Odds of turning over a specific card, like the 3 Hearts --- 1.85 percent (that’s about the same odds as throwing a 17 or an 18 over 3 x 1D6 die by the way --- rare as hen’s teeth!) · Odds of turning over ONE of the two Jokers --- 3.7% (we are only a bit less likely to roll snake eyes on 2 die, which comes up 2.78% odds) · Odds of turning over one of the 4 Diamond Face cards (J,Q,K,A) --- 7.4% and the odds of turning over ANY Ace would be the same --- 7.4% · Odds of turning over one of the remaining Diamond number (non-face) cards --- 16.6% (same odds of rolling one 6 on a 1D6 dice) · Odds of turning over a specific suit (ie any Heart) --- 24% (the odds of rolling under a 5 count on 2 die is only 27.78 by contrast, which is close enough).

So the point is, we can easily set up a table showing the correspondence between the deck of cards and the probability that we want. Ooops. There starts another topic for Solo gaming. Have to transfer the last 4 paragraphs, and start a new thread.

Notes Note 1: But notice that the "odds" are a little different if we are pulling a card from a complete deck with all 4 suits at 4 out of 52 or 54 so “about” 8% odds, versus turning over cards into a discard pile, where some cards then have fewer duplicates left in the deck (so if one Ace came up, the odds of hitting one of the remaining aces goes down to 3 in 52/54 or “about” 6% odds Note 2: With the picture of the suit on that ace showing up or down; we may need to underline the Diamond, though, to show which way is “up” Note 3: Come on, everybody has taken a handful of similar dice and “tested” them on a table-top, right? I bought 30 or so at a garage sale once, and put them into 6 lines, depending on what I rolled. Then I “rerolled” each die in each line, and moved them up or down depending on the second roll. Repeat repeat repeat. (No, it doesn’t work --- we don’t end up with a selection that rolls mostly sixes --- randomness is like that) But the real point is that people don’t “trust” dice! Even when just playing Solo games! Note 4: Both the info on the Cards and on the Dice comes from a huge research project on the Origins of Wargames, that will be presented separately at a later date

12. Maps and All Things Terrain Issue 0.4 2 Sept 07

Preamble Sitting there with your oh-so-pretty army, and no opponent within slingshot distance that we can beat up on? Then maybe we want to investigate one of these Solo Map games. Solo Map games come in all kinds of flavors, so don’t think these are the ONLY variations, but this is a great starter for new-to-solo players, who have been known to try ANY junque, just to get their little guys out of the storage trays, so they can boss them around, and make funny sounds in an attempt to imitate marching feet, firing weapons, and trumpet blasts (note 1). Our orders are to sting the invading forces, save the frontier fort garrison, and make it back with as many of our troops intact as we can, for the defense of the realm and homestead. Oh, I almost forgot, “and to win fair maidens” (note 2).

Map Game Variations for Miniature Wargamers --- An Overview There are lots of time when we want the table-top to represent only a part of the overall theatre of our Solo operations --- so the table represents only a small portion of the map. Map games for Miniature Wargamers generally fall into a couple of categories:

1. The map is pre-drawn for the whole theater, although some parts may be variable or not quite accurate (in other words, there is still a “chance” element at work). 2. The map is imported from some other board game (like Avalon Hill’s “Napoleon”) 3. The map is Modular, and we only know as much as we can scout. In other words each “panel” to any side could be one of a bunch of pre-drawn-up modules, or if we draw the right “chance” card, we may have to make up a new module, either according to some specific set of rules, or “off the top of our heads”. Often there are “circles of doubt” on such maps --- areas that COULD be built-up or holding fortifications, but we have to get closer to find out. 4. The map is drawn “on the fly”, with some sort of set of rules, and we need to record the map as we go, if we need to come back along the same axis (sort of the map equivalent of a D & D dungeon) We’re going to look at each of these types of Solo Map games, and have a look at how they work, starting with the pre-drawn theater map.

Mechanics of the Pre-drawn Theater Map After we’ve sorted out the opposing armies, then the second big priority is that we need a large- scale map. This time (for fun) we picked one of the AAA’s “Northern New York and Pennsylvania” maps that was hanging around, and getting kind of tatty Note 3). Any old map will do in a pinch, forget the actual ground scale. Ideally we want some area that has a couple of narrow bits (passes, river crossings, and other restrictions like that make for a more interesting game). In this example, we used an old map of the Route 15 stretch along the Susquehanna River, North of Harrisburg. There are rivers, crossings, a couple of old railway lines (that convert to secondary footpaths), some areas with narrows, and other areas with parallel smaller roads. American Civil War country. Great stuff. And it was free (bonus).

Third, we’ll want to take a couple of felt pens, so we can mark up the section of the map we are intending to really use. We marked the main invasion route with the thickest-tip black-marker, and a couple of secondary roads on either side with thinner-tip red-markers. The different colors of the markers represent the “serviceability” of the roads --- black markers let the whole column advance, while red markers will only let 4 heavy units (or 8 light units) travel over them at similar speeds (note 4) for that game turn. We can use a thin-tip red-dashed lines for the goat tracks (read, Railway Lines), if we are so inclined. Flank routes become really important, because we can’t just force- squeeze the whole army along a goat track with impunity. It gets bogged down, and really quickly.

Cities and Towns Circle the various larger towns along the way with the thick black-tip marker. Use a quarter as the template for the circle, so we get a reasonable and repeatable size. Main towns we come to are circled in black, and secondary towns (including towns off to the left or right) are circled in medium-tip Red markers. Don’t get carried away with too many circles. Ideally we want no more than about 1 to 3 circles in any playing area that might get transferred to a table-top for play. If we’re not sure, use a cautious number of circles to start. We can always go back later and thin these out by adding double circles to the more important towns later if we find there are too many circles transferred (note 5). Don’t be afraid to rename towns to be closer to what we’d expect in our “campaign” region. So “Waterdown” might become “Agua-Descente” as an example. Because its a fictitious campaign, some of the names of places are taken from local towns and cities that have the “right” feel (Waterdown, Clapson’s Corners, or Stoney Creek as examples) Others like Constable, Ambler Views, Barbuto Mills are peoples surnames (either friends and family, and many are members of the Solo Wargamers Association!) and others that are just fabricated (we changed the names to protect the innocent). More than just a way of adding color, using names that have meaning to US, helps us to visualize the general area, see the forests, the hills, and so on. much better --- we relate to places we know (and the topography --- like Tews Falls) in way that makes the whole campaign come alive.

If we are REALLY serious, we might research more appropriate names, and scatter them liberally over the Northern New York landscape. I’ve done both; the Agua-Descente option seems like more fun, and its a lot faster to populate the map with semi-legitimate names.

Laying out the Map Grids for the Table-Top Fourth, we need to start “scaling” the map. Ideally, we want to have a section of real map that is a multiple of about 3 ½ inches wide by 6 inches long (so three-tables-deep would translate into 3 ½ wide by 18 inches to 24 inches long on the map, at least as a starting point), preferably with room remaining to move left or right on the map, if the campaign warrants. It can wiggle a bit if necessary (like box-cars viewed from above on a twisty track). That 3 ½ by 6 inch section is the right ratio to transfer to the wargames table, but don’t get too hide-bound about where the boundaries are, just yet. (In other words, use a pencil to outline the possible table-tops, not a pen!).

Those campaign dice and cards have a funny way of moving the “best” boundary 2 feet in any direction (usually where you least expected it to go). In effect, we now have a map model of 5 or 6 wargames tables, stacked end-to-end along their longer axis. Nothing prevents us from adding more, but I’ve rarely needed more than about 6 to 8 “tables” before the scenario is played out. The beauty of this system, is that we have a built-in terrain generator, should we need to go galloping off in any other direction, not previously envisioned. Just look at the “real” map! Its sort of the lazy-man’s terrain generator --- complements of both Mother Nature and the AAA.

Modeling the Order of March Fifth, find a blank table top area (not so easy around here) and lets set up our invasion army, as it would travel along the main invasion route. It doesn’t have to be “on” the map, or even “on” the table-top. We usually just set it up on a 2 foot by 3 foot scrap of ¼ inch thick plywood (note 6). All we are trying to do is simulate the “order of march” (sort of a who-goes-first, and who-protects-the- sheep). Sure, we could have just drawn the dispositions on a piece of paper, but there is something luxurious in seeing it all unfold in 3D. We don’t need ALL the figures, just one half-stand (in other words, a representative bunch) to show where they all go. The first surprise is how LONG the whole assembly turns out to be, especially if we include the extra elements like the wagon train and the hangers-on. Lots of times, my first set-up ends up curved around in a horseshoe or “S” shape, just to fit on that too-small scrap of plywood.

Sixth, aside from the usual Rule set support stuff (dice, casualty markers, little guys, wheeling templates and all that paraphernalia). We are also going to want a couple of decks of cards, some cardboard suitable for cutting up into new bases (for little guys we DON’T have at hand), some cotton batten (useful for marking who’s moved, or who’s fired or who ran away), and a nice spiral- bound note-book. That notebook gets divided into two halves (for first timers), with the front part being the Army Commander’s Journal, and the back part being, well, “Notes” of course (note 7).

As an aside, when we are laying out a scenario using a “real” battle map (like lots that appear in military histories), the symbols for the various bodies of troops (taken from various source files) usually do not equate to their theoretical frontage. The symbols depicting regiments, brigades, divisions (or whatever) are often way too wide for the number of troops in the unit (even when we know that all the men of the unit were supposed to have been in a single firing line at that battle). In other words, those unit-symbols are abstractions and, therefore, shouldn’t be relied upon as "gospel" by Solo wargamers. That’s another good reason to see what the little guys actually “look” like when laid out on the table in order of march.

We are going to stop at this point, cause we have a “reasonable” map to work with. Now we are going to look at some other ways of creating a similar “reasonable” map.

The Holiday Collage Another clever way to “make up” a map, is to splice together a bunch of maps from Holidays (those tropical islands work really well, but we can even use maps from those week-end getaways to London or to Las Vegas). It may take a bit of creative bridge-work, to have one map join another (usually works best to find a nice straight road like “Main Street”, and cut along the middle of the road, so the Left half is London England, and the Right half is Las Vegas, Nevada!). The nice thing about this sort of combined-map is that it evokes all kinds of good thoughts (even if its about trips NOT taken … yet). Once around Trafalgar Square! Off to conquer the Mirage Casino! Fix Bayonets!

Another plug for the American Automobile Association, who seem to be rather generous about maps and such for “prospective” clients who are just thinking about going on a trip somewhere (but don’t abuse them too much --- they gotta earn a living too, so don’t be a pest).

Importing the Map from a Board Game The next Solo Wargaming map method we want to look at involves “borrowing” a map from a suitable board game. And for our purposes, we are going to look at a game called “Napoleon”, a beer-n-pretzels game put out by Avalon Hill some 30 years ago (came out in 1977). Its one of the most enjoyable board games that I’ve come across and is a stylized representation of the area around the battle of Waterloo. It’s a classic case of divide and conquer, where the more-numerous Napoleonic forces come on at the South end, and try and defeat one of the two allies, before they get a chance to mass together and swamp the French.

The 18 blue ducats (1/2 inch square wooden counters) that comprise the French Napoleonic forces have to start at the South (the Belgium border) and split up to travel over several roads, hopefully to concentrate on one point in the middle of the board that becomes the main battle field (Waterloo, in the original game). Meanwhile, the opposing forces are split into two areas, the Anglo-Dutch with 14 Red ducats starting on the North West of the board, and the Prussians with 16 green ducats on the North East side. Although the Prussians seem to start with more units, a careful examination of all the ducats shows that Napoleon has the best troops, and the Prussians have the weakest (although numerically more than the Anglo-Dutch) All these various ducats are marked on one side as Cavalry, Infantry, or Guns with various strengths.

Simple to Learn, Difficult to Master There are specific rules in the game for maxing out the number of troops going over the various main roads, back roads, and bridges, as well as rules to cover small meeting engagements, and reinforcing battles (with or without forced marches). They even had a simple way to quickly resolve minor skirmishes that were side-line affairs. The intent was for the invading Napoleonic forces either to win the main battle, or to capture one (or more) of 3 main towns that act as the Allies’ supply centers, and thus wear down or starve out the opposition to the point where they were no longer able to act as an army (50% losses). I admit I played this game until the board was ragged, and the counters were so scratched that I could tell many of them when upside-down and hidden, just from the unique patterns and nicks on their backs. A terrific buy if one comes available on eBay, and usually for only $20 or so. Buy two that are slightly defective or missing a counter, and you too can feel like an Emperor for usually under $30. (Uh oh, I guess I let the cat outta the bag on this one --- I better get the next 2 or 3 sets on eBay before this article hits press-time).

Teleportation to Colonial Times Reincarnation has a wonderful appeal, and so about 12 years back I resurrected that “Napoleon” game in the guise of the Indian NWF (North West Frontier), with the British starting at the bottom, and Waziri and Afridi as the Afghan opposing forces, waiting for them in the mountain passes. I poured over copies of various old NWF maps (bought on eBay for another song --- they only charge $12 for a map from an 1880’s atlas (check it out, a great motivational buy) --- and changed all those French and Belgium towns into their NWF equivalents. I dug out my copies of “Duncan MacNeil” fiction about the NWF (y’know, titles like: Drums along the Khyber) and had a ball. This transformed board-game lead to more great two-player miniature encounters, and eventually I modified the rules a bit to be able to play Napoleon/NWF as a Solo wargame. We didn’t need to know the composition of the hidden enemy counters to have them converge on one of the British Expeditionary columns, so it didn’t matter much if they were Afghan foot, cavalry, or field guns that materialized out of the hills. I bought several more Napoleon sets from eBay (usually advertised as missing this or that, and available cheap) and cleaned up the counters. I even tried a multi-map version, with several simultaneous British expeditions. Great stuff. Highly recommended.

Bending the Rules Then I fiddled with the counter composition, so I could use my current favorite larger battalion rule set to run the battles (note 8). This worked out really well, and many enjoyable days were spent watching the little guys wind their way into the passes. An added visual perk was to blow-up the revised NWF/Napoleon map, and use really small cardboard squares with some 6mm troops to mark the invading expedition’s progress (note 9). I still haul out that map occasionally (once a year) and have a go with it. Investing the time in transposing YOUR favorite board game map, is highly recommended.

But after 30 games or so, the same old scenery does become a bit stale, and I wanted to come up with some way of making a more variable map game, that would produce similar enjoyment to the Napoleon map game, but add some new complexity. And that meant some sort of Modular, interchangeable and intermateable terrain. While the end result isn’t “infinitely” variable, this has to be the next best thing.

An Introduction to Modular Terrain Map games using some sort of modular terrain is one of the best improvements we can introduce to our Solo Wargaming efforts. It sets up an almost infinitely-variable quest, that can expand in any direction we fancy. And with the Pockets of Uncertainty idea (outline below) no two games ever repeat, even if (by some unfortunate luck of the draw) we started both on the same base terrain module.

Now, Railroad enthusiasts had been using Modular Railway building codes for some 20 years, where a set of “rules” tells us how the intermateable tracks are laid out, and what the profile is between sections, and the various kinds of modules (corner modules, transition modules, double- sized switching modules), and so on. So the basic philosophy behind modular construction was well laid out. We just had to apply the same sort of thinking to Solo map modules (note 10).

A Center Meandering Road on Two Alternating Maps First, I wanted a center scrolling map “panel” that would snake its way up a mountain pass towards some far-distant ill-defined targets --- something like watch towers, or a couple of villages where the Afghans lived, or a friendly fort along the passes. That part was easy --- I started with a smaller standard 6” by 7 ½” cardboard panel, that I clipped from a snack box and trimmed to size, but these proved out to be rather awkward to pin to my cork map boards, or to photocopy, or to make them lie flat, so I redrew them on more common 8-1/2 x 11 sheets. These “Center-Map” panels alternate, with the first set having the road coming in at 1 ½ inch along the left of the bottom panel, and exiting 1 ½ inch along the right of the top of the same panel (in a sort of lazy S shape), and the second set being the complementary copy so the road goes from right bottom to left top.

Start with Making Up a Template If you are starting to draw these out, the FIRST module that you make up should be a plain “template” that you can use to set up all the future Center-Map panels from. Just mark the road entrances and exits with a short slash, as well as where the contours hit the edge of the map. On the flip side, we can do the “other” complementary Center-Map panel (just watch that cross-map goat trail, that you get that part right! Read on for more details).

Notice that these Center-Map panels can all be reversed 180 degrees (top-to bottom, or North to South) to give a different internal road profile (doesn’t change the entry or exit points at all). So the forth step was to simply “name” these shorter edges, and I chose to use a deck of cards and started numbering each different edge with a red card (so we might have the 7 of Diamonds on the North edge, and the 8 of Diamonds on the opposite South edge). Notice the center map Panels have Diamonds-on and Diamonds-out (or Hearts-on and Hearts-out). If you think about it, the Diamonds can meander left-bottom to right-top, while the Hearts reverse the process, right to left. That “meandering S curve” has NOTHING to do with how the center of the map winds it’s way around -- - that can be a real twisted spaghetti line.

One caution: leave lots of open spaces. There is a natural tendency to crowd tons of scenery onto these panels, and when we transfer them to the table, only THEN do we realize that all the terrain seems hilly!

Not Just for Hills This sort of map doesn’t have to be “just” for hilly North West Frontier, either. It might map the way through sand dunes in the Sudan, or even through cornfields and forests for American Civil War. The concept is quite portable to other terrain types and periods.

Corner-of-Module Hills Next, I added a small hill profile in each of the 4 corners, the edges of which start 1 inch from any corner. The result is an intrusion into each panel at a nominal 45 degrees, that can be just an irregular round hill, or a hill with some fingers extending into the terrain by about an inch, or just a gentle rise that crests at the corner of the panel. Each center-panel is a little different. Each panel has 4 such corner hills, so each of the corner “hills” is really made up of 4 different intermateable corners from 4 different panels.

This size makes it easy to get a 2” diameter drafting template (available from places like Staples) to mark the corner-hill entry points.

Crossing Goat Trails on the Center Map Panels The third refinement was to add a cross-trail that runs from near the bottom of the right side (1 ¾” up from the right-hand bottom) to the top of the left side (1 ¾” down from the left hand top). So now we have a main road (North to South) with a secondary goat track crossing it (SE bottom to NW top). Now it was time to add a bit more scenery (sloping planes leading up to the hills on either side, East and West) to the sides of the track. So on each long side I measured in by 2-1/4 inches (top and bottom), and the space between became the edge-profile of a gentle rise (both sides).

Now’s a good time to go back and make SURE that you have all the dimensions right! It’s a pain to make a small slip, and have to redo a bunch of maps that don’t interchange correctly (who, me?).

Road Widths Now we need to go back and put in the width of the roads. For our purposes, the main road is 3/8ths of an inch wide, top and bottom, and the goat-trail is slightly smaller at ¼ inch wide. Within any one module, the road can widen a bit, or shrink a bit, but at the edges of the various modules, they all have to intermate. On some of my modules, the roads flair out to a meadow or camp ground or fort glacis, and on others they may narrow down to cross a suspension bridge or similar, or even split up into several smaller skeins of trails to get through a rough ground area with boulders, but the edges have to remain intermateable.

Side-Map Panels --- Where Most of the Villages Are Now that we had the central track of the invading Expeditionary army, we needed some side map panels to lead off to the left and right of the main road. These are handled in almost the same fashion, except the North-South road on the side panel is a goat track at the far side of the card (it enters 1-¾ inches from the far South and exits 1-¾ inches from the far North of a side-panel). The same goat-sized-cross-trail exists, and wander off over a mountain path to another valley if we get adventurous, or if the game takes us that way. Remember this has to “mirror-reverse” the Center Map Panels, so (if we are looking at the left hand or West side) that Side-Map goat trail starts from 1-3/4 inch down on the top right, and exits 1/3/4 from the bottom on the left hand side. Again, the North side of the Map Card gets a black designation (like 5 of Clubs) and the South side gets a different black designation (like 6 of Spades). IMPORTANT NOTE: Notice the edge map panels alternate with a Club on one side and a Spade on the other. If we reverse the black Map Cards 180 degrees, they can be used on the OPPOSITE side of the Center-Map panels. If you work it right, the Clubs (at the bottom or South) become the West side, and the Spades become the East side.

Notice that ALL the roads on the side-panels are ALL ¼ inch wide at the intermateable junctions. Again, they can flair out or narrow down as you see fit, but the junctions all have to be intermateable.

Now is a good time to make up that SECOND template for the Side-Map Panels.

Imaginative Intestines Now that we’ve described the basic map system, the rest of the work becomes an exercise in trying to come up with imaginative variations of the intestine-like tracks that cross each of the cards. As a start, the main road on the Center Map panel can look like an X or an S, a T, an L or a Z (or the same, inside out or backwards or upside down). Pretty soon you add a K shape, something that looks a bit like a B or a D, and so on through the “alphabet”. Some times the “letter” has broken trails, as if a bridge is out, sometimes it’s upside down or on its side, or even a mirror image, but that alphabet helps a lot in coming up with “new” wrinkles for the main roads. Some maps can be mostly rough terrain, where the travel speeds are slowed down, and we can even do a suspension bridge, where we wind all the way around one mountain before we cross over the bridge. I have a three-panel map that surrounds a citadel, which could be in one of three different locations on that panel.

More for Scouts The basic maps give the Scouting Party a lot more to do. We need to detach a small party on quick horses to scout the various different trails, if only to “find” the basic map structure on the next three new panels. Once the scouting party reaches these, then we pull a card from a deck to determine what we have on that side. We always know where we have been, but we never know what’s over the horizon of a panel edge until we’ve sent the scouts out. (By the way, this is a great place for using Mythic GME to complement our scouting from our favorite rule set).

Circles of Uncertainty A couple of weeks of play-testing went by pretty quickly, before we realized that we needed a bit more Drama for the scouting party. Set locations for villages or towers became a bit too one-shot, and that’s when we went back and added some new interchangeable “Circles of Uncertainty”. Basically, each main map panel usually had 3 or 4 circles that could vary, and the scouting party had to advance to close range to “see” what these were. By the way, I happen to use a 1-1/8th inch diameter for those circles, but that’s just cause I have a pencil sharpener with a top that diameter! These circles are usually located in bends in the road (both sides of a K center joint) or near turns (two in a lazy S curve), or in expanded areas between a hill and the road (like dips in the ground). The club-and-spade side map panels get most of the villages, and have more circles at the tops of dead-end trails. If I happen to “pull” a village circle for a center map panel location, I just place it back into my circular “uncertainty” deck. I made up 40 or so circles to start, and while most were blanks or simply rough ground, a few have abandoned watch towers or farm house ruins or old fort walls, that could hide enemy snipers or a raiding party. One per round-deck has an active fort, and two per round deck have a headman’s village (for the flanking map panels).

We can use our own rule set for scouting, spotting, and placement of these round cards. Once they are deployed, we transfer the information to our Expedition’s “Knowledge of the Known World” (as recorded by the Political Officer), and back in the round pack they go.

Enemy in the Circles This leads us to the possibility of having the Enemy keyed to the map, in the Circles of Uncertainty. As a simple example, we can roll a 1D6 die for each Circle that we place; If we have a defensible area and roll a 5, we get a large skirmish party; if we get a defensible area and roll a 6, we have a significant enemy concentration or warband. In either case, we continue to roll for any nearby circles of uncertainty, to see if there are supporting enemy troops that might come to the aid of the first lot.

Maps On the Fly For people who are more action oriented, there are some other methods of creating random maps, “on the fly” that are quite suitable for hunting scenarios (that is, campaigns where we are “on a quest”, but expect to have ambushes or small bands that will attack us). These methods are very suitable to smaller skirmish games, but less satisfactory for encounters between two large armies.

Matrix Table Layout The first variation we want to look at is called a Matrix Table Layout. Use a card deck to decide the terrain. First cut of the cards gives the “overall” flavor of the particular map --- Spades is crags and mountains, Clubs is rough ground, Diamonds for Scrub and low woods, and Hearts for rolling ground with several dips and wadi that could hide enemy troops. That first cut of the cards gives the general terrain description, and now we want to see WHERE any specific “piece” of terrain is going to make a difference. So we lay down a pattern of cards in a 10 x 4 spread-out matrix over the playing table, face up. Use the face cards (2 through 10) to indicate the “severity” of the terrain (so if we have a craggy terrain, then a 10 of Hearts is a BIG crag). Red should be positive (UP) and Black should be negative (Down or even splits in the earth). The Court Cards (J, Q, K, A) should be kept for significant terrain features --- J for Improvised Defenses (like stone walls, ruins of houses and such), Q for built-up non-military defenses (like fortified towns, or perhaps a watch tower), K for significant military strong points (bunkers, small forts), and A for access points --- bridges, gates, easier paths and such. Now, we may have to make some “smoothing” if we end up with significantly weird cards --- like 4 mountainous areas with a river in the middle of them! But generally speaking these matrix-tables work out pretty well

Roads can also be configured with a Matrix Table Layout. We use the cards to determine the way the road turns. So we start “somewhere” (and we pick that edge point with cards or dice). The easiest way is to start in the middle of one side, and turn over cards every 2 foot, going clockwise, until we get to a Court card (J, Q, K, A). Once a court card turns over, that’s the start point for the road. Then we shuffle the cards again, and use progressive cards to determine the direction. Spades and Clubs means straight ahead, Hearts means the road wanders right, and Diamonds means the road wanders left. I like to keep the Court Cards as lesser versions of the significant terrain features we mentioned above. So J is for a small stone fence, Q is for a shed or cow barn, K is for an abandoned military camp ground area, and Ace is for a small abandoned military check-point. (Ah, but are they REALLY abandoned?).

The Spin Doctor’s Prescription Another way of setting up variable terrain is to use a circular spread. We take some arbitrary point as the center of our table, designate which way is North (the zero axis) and roll for the angle, the distance to the terrain piece, and the kind of terrain. The easiest way is with ONE 1D6 normal six- sided die (that gives us the 1 to 3 value, and anything over that, 4,5,6, we just subtract 3 to get into the right range again). Then we add a pair of 1D10 decimal die to get the balance. So if we roll 4 (on the 1D6), 8 and 3 on the 1D10 we get 183 degrees relative to our North angle that we set out. Now we can roll the 1D10 die again, and if we get 72, then the terrain piece is set 72 cm away from the reference starting point. Simple, right?

We can use another roll on the 1D10 to get the KIND of terrain, and a 4th 1D10 roll to get the severity of that terrain (1 being a mild rise, and 10 being a whopper of a hill).

Playing for Position Advanced Chess players don’t necessarily try to “think” 10 moves in advance, for any given position, but rather, they use their long experience to try and “better” their pieces. Translated into Solo Wargames terms, we look for hills we can dominate, optimum fields of fire for our guns, and roads that don’t pass too close to trees or other ambush points. We are essentially playing for position.

This points to the underlying truth in Longstreet's observations about the value of defense in the ACW period (which still resonates today). Find a key terrain feature, occupy it and make the other guy attack. Offense is then the counter-attack after they are disrupted and weakened by defensive fire. The difficulty is in finding a spot that we can really defend well and that the enemy feel they must assault. A location from which we can launch a decisive offensive blow is one example --- cutting off the enemy rear or supply side.

This tactic is still effective and is still part of the plans in modern armored cavalry tactics, using the air assault infantry as the anvil and the armor as the hammer.

Having played wargames for more than 30 years, one key to success is to make the other guy attack against the odds. Sweeping bold offensive moves can often be suicidal (especially when using written orders), unless they lead to occupying some key terrain piece and making the other guy counter-attack (note 11)

Making ‘em Up As We Go Who says the roads were suitable at all? In the American Civil War, roads were often “corduroy” construction, to try and strengthen them (especically after rain). This consisted of crisscross layers of logs, felled onto the mud (note 12). And we would most certainly know afterward that a Division had passed this way so to speak! Imagine being the Tail-end-Charlie --- in the dry we are dust choked, in the wet we are up to our knees in mud (think of the Germans in Russia during Operation Barbarossa, after the first freeze and then the thaw --- to say it slowed the advance is putting it mildly!). There were also quite a number of planked roads in use during the ACW too, designed essentially to carry heavy freight wagons so pretty handy for moving supplies (everything except the really heavy artillery). Providing the road had nice firm verges on either side, the infantry and cavalry could use that (and spread out a bit). It was mostly the turnpikes that were “macadamized” (a tar-and-gravel process) but even those didn’t always stay nice and smooth for very long under hard usage (and the road-maintenance crew may not have got that far yet) but this can all add a lot to the detail. The mental image of a limping infantryman struggling to keep up 'cause they twisted an ankle, pops to mind!

Up to YOU how you model this, but it is another example of the things that delight veteran Solo players.

Standardized Generic Brigade Cards No matter what choice of map/terrain we use, we may want to consider using some sort of Standardized (Generic) Brigade cards. (For you ACW-nuts, the idea idea to use brigades as the sub- group size since the constructs of Divisions, Corps differed between Union and Confederates). We use a series of 5 x 7 recipe cards (or computer files or whatever) to catalog different Army Sections. We happen to be using an American Civil War example, but it can be translated into any army period. We want to divide our army up into 5 to 7 Brigades (or army sub-groups) each of which gets drawn from a pack of those recipe cards. Some will be under strength, some over strength, but all should be “about” the same (+ or -20 percent, say, since brigades can have variable number of regiments, and specific regiment size decreases according to experience of that regiment).

Now, we can “chose” from these cards one of a couple of ways. If we are using the modular maps then each populated “circle of uncertainty” could get a Brigade card. Or, if we want to have a larger game, we could use some formula for either side like 3+1D6 where we get “three free” plus a random extra number of brigades. Notice this doesn’t necessarily give a balanced game --- we might have 4 brigades on one side, and up to 9 on the other. But neither does it guarantee that 6 (weaker, 20% lower) Blue are going to defeat 4 (stronger, 20% higher) Red force compositions.

We get to play the numerically weaker side, of course. That’s half the fun. Trying to “win” as the underdog (note 14).

Modular Terrain Recap The purpose of this chapter was to outline some methods of generating terrain, and showing how the enemy would be “keyed” into that terrain. In the case of Modular terrain, the enemy comes on in the Circles of Uncertainty that are defensible, and as a result “logical” choke-points where the enemy would try and hold up our invasion force. Reinforcements can come from any other Circle of Uncertainty, and try and reinforce the first lot that we uncover. This gives a different game for every time we play it, due in part to the high numbers of map permutations, and also because the Circles of Uncertainty are never the same.

Notes: Note 1: Boom! Pshhhhhh….Thwack! Barrump-pum-pumm; Too-doo, too-doo! Just don’t let the rest of the family hear you, or they will ask you to sign the dreaded “Power-of-Attorney” before your allotted time. That means THEY get to control YOUR little guys. No Way, man! Resist! Next thing we know, they are investigating typical sale prices on eBay! Note 2: If not “win”, then “rent”, maybe with options of “lease” Note 3: If you belong to the American Automobile Association, they give you trip-maps for free, when you are going on trips (but they need 10 days or so in advance to give you the full map package). Note 4: Presumably after the 4 heavy units pass over that road, it becomes a quagmire, and we have to wait until the next turn for the mud to re-solidify Note 5: For a more target-enriched environment, towns ahead of us get an “extra” enemy-troops card . . . towns behind us, where we have left a friendly Light Heavy Infantry (or better), get to raise a “friendly” re-enforcement, but that friendly town is left on Out-of-command-range orders until they are once again within 2 moves of the main column (as in the case where “our” column has retreated) Note 6: That’s for 15mm; for 25/28mm we may need something more substantial Try laying it out on the edge of the table in “S” curves Note 7: So the front part might read “We experienced several annoying raids on the sheep pen today; have to increase the guards tomorrow” and the cross-reference to our note section might read “Can’t believe it --- I rolled 3 sixes in a row for the sheep-raiders popping out of the bushes”. Some day yer gonna thank this old gaffer. You’ll be rootling through yer unwanted stuff, sorting it out for the garage sale, or the local Salvation Army, or mostly for the garbage can, and yer gonna come across one of your Solo journals, and sit down in the shade and re-read all about the Gumption campaign of Aught Four. Trust me, there is NOTHING as satisfying as going back and reading about a campaign that you took part in (if only in your own mind). And no one appreciates your warped humor as much as YOU will, 20 years later. (And 20 year old mulled wine tastes fantastic) Note 8: I ran the British were run as the Late Japanese Armati list (rifles acting at a bit further range of 30 inches as opposed to 24 inches for late Armati bow), and the Afghans were fielded as a combination of Rus (a sort of foot-heavy Viking-like crowd) and of Arab Conquest (mixed with cavalry, again replacing Jezails for the bows, but at the same range of 24 inches --- skirmish fire has half effect over 9 inches with Armati). Today, I’d probably try a different set of rules (like 600 Fighting Englishmen?) but Armati served the purpose quite well at the time. Note 9: Using 6mm troops, we can even get away with using Ancient Germans with a dab of paint for the turbans, to stand in as Afghans, or at least, that works for my fuzzy old eyes Note 10: Now is a good time to look at the photos of the modules --- a picture is worth a thousand words, so a couple of pics must be worth several dozen paragraphs of words! These "modular map" ideas are something I'm quite attached to (done a lot of work, and a lot of thinking, and these are the 8th version or so). Nothing says they have to be used in a vertical deployment either. I'm thinking of modifying a set to show ACW battlefields in a horizontal mode. Note 11: Credit to Randy Mott for this whole paragraph Note 12: For example, Burnside and the mud march after Fredricksburg - and it still went nowhere or Sherman in the Carolinas where they basically created the roads as they went (Thanks to Graham for this chain of thought) Note 13: Credit to Graham Empson for a lot of small details that aren’t specifically foot-noted in the text. It helps a lot to have another veteran Solo player to validate that the writer isn’t bonkers! Note 14: Thanks to Norris Darrall for the concept. His cards also list the Unit strength, Morale class (green, vet, elite), Weapon (Rifle Musket, Smooth Bore, etc) and fire effect (add or subtract 1) so for example, the "Hoosier Brigade” looks like this: 6th IND 5 3 RM 7th IND 4 2 RM +1 8th IND 4 3 SB 9th IND 4 4 RM -1 10th IND 3 3 RM 5TH IND BTRY 3 3 3" RIFLE

Alternatively, some can be left blank so that the player could select which units he wanted. “We had more than 2 corps from each side so the number of regiments to draw from was never a problem” (Norris). From JRIII msg# 6665. (Graham Empson comments that Depending on the year of the war and the theater of operations it became less likely that artillery would be attached at brigade level. It was more likely that the artillery batteries were at divisional or even Corps level). However, the basic mechanism works well. 13. Pick Your Type of Battle: What’s Your Oreo Cookie? (An Intro to Playing Solo Wargames Chapt 2.7) Issue: 0.0 26 Aug 07 Remember the Alamo! That brings us to our current topic, other kinds of set-ups that accommodate different "points of view" for wargames. And as a start, notice that most of the battles that have a famous ring to them were considered (at least by some people of the time) as massive defeats! They were battles like the Alamo, fought against massive odds. Who calls out "Remember the Battle of the Bulge!" (or any similar hard-fought win?). There’s just something about Raging Against the Tide that resonates with our psyche. A good fighting withdrawal, or a hard-fought defense is a wonderful Solo world to spend some time exploring. It doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, but how we fought (and of course how we documented) the Solo Wargame! But nothing says that we should always take the defenders side at the Alamo. In fact this whole chapter is about looking for OTHER points of view. And a good start might be to take Fernando’s side at the Alamo, and document trying to drive those pesky Yankees out of Mexico. A lot of Fernando’s brigade probably fell in the attempt, but that’s just a part of the story, right? We need to expand our horizons and LOOK for different points of view, to keep the Solo game interesting. Don’t just "play" the General, take the point of view of the foot-slogger (or Gunga Din, if that’s more appealing). So here’s some other creative ideas that we can be explore with our Solo wargaming, to keep things fresh.

Zombat is the term we apply to Zombie combat, where there are scads of the enemy, where they make up for their relative lack of technology (or lack of intelligence in the case of Bugs) with scads of combatants. Think of Ripley’s Marine squad in Alien 2 holding off the tide of bugs with the chain-guns. As long as the ammo holds out, we’re gonna be all right. Zombat wargaming usually means that at the first we easily overcome any opposition, but as the Zombies appear in greater numbers, they are going to force a retreat before we get swamped. Typically we get some limited amount of time to get our forces ONTO the board (3 turns, or maybe we throw a 1D6 die roll). Now, the distinguishing feature of Zombats is that the main characters don’t bite the dust --- Ripley always seems to get away and come back for another sequel. Zombat’s come in lots of different periods, from English Longbows fighting French Knights, through to Colonials fighting against the Zulus or Dervish.

Zombat Enemy Mechanics: After turn 3 (so our advance-guys get ON the table) take one full deck of cards (including a red and a black joker), shuffle, and place 9 cards face up and spread around the 3 table edges (4 cards for each of the long sides, equidistant, and 1 at the far end from us). Bandits come on with the Red cards (hearts or diamonds). The split (what forces come on for what card) should be about equal to the army we are fielding. So as an example, Ace is another sub-general, Jack, Queen, or King mean cavalry, 8 through 10 get Light Heavy Infantry, 6 or 7 get Heavy Infantry if available, 4 or 5 get Light Cavalary, and the lower cards get skirmishers. Make up your own table of what card equals which troop-type to suit. The Black cards in enemy positions are counted as blanks. Until the enemy’s main ("core") battle line appears (with the Red Joker), all these enemy units are on Skirmish orders --- fire and run, or get around the back and then they can try a rear attack. They all act independently, but if two similar ENEMY units are forced to converge and get within 12 inches of each other, they will "try" and combine with like troop types (ie Light Infantry with Light foot-troops, but not necessarily with Light Cavalry). Once the enemy "core" appears, then all enemy heavy troops try and reinforce the main battle line, wherever that is at all practical. (So an enemy Heavy Cavalry unit threatening the back of OUR lines isn’t going to quit his prime threatening position to waltz around the front again). Place one card at our entrance or embarkation point (that’s where OUR reinforcements come on). We get a reinforcement if we pull a black card for this ONE spot. That reinforcement is ALWAYS "in control" with an extra command-control. There are so few reinforcements, that this doesn’t make a big difference. When the Black Joker appears (doesn’t matter when, or what position on the table) then WE get another friendly "core" army coming on at that point, complete with sub-general (even if it is deep within enemy lines). Think of this as our reinforcements (if they come on in our staging area) or the remains of a beleaguered friendly frontier fort (if they come on in the enemy lines). We will do whatever we can to "save" that beleaguered garrison, even if this means avoiding a main battle in an effort to consolidate and bring our battered frontier- buddies back. That’s enough to get the solo game started, and fewer rules are always better than too many. Ideas count, and we don’t sweat the details. The distinguishing feature of Zombat games is that we do as much damage as possible, save the beleaguered friendly troops, and then get outta Dodge!

Valhala-Here-we-Come (Gotterdammerung --- or, Turn That Wagner Up, Will Ya?) (note 1) At first blush, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between a Zombat Solo game and a Valhala Solo wargame --- in either case the bad guys seem to threaten to over-run us or push us off the board --- but the devil is in the details. The main difference is in the "intelligence" or perseverance of the Valhala bad guys opposition, and the lack of escape available for the Valhala-bound Good Guys. Think of it as representing the fall of Constantinople, or the fall of Jerusalem, or Lord of the Rings with the big battle at Helms Deep (where no one expected to escape). Where the previous "Zombat" only THREATENS to swamp us with scads of dumb Zombie opponents, in "Valhala" wargames, the enemy’s win may seem inevitable, but the heroism shines through, holding that tougher enemy at bay for another round, another bastion, another few hours. Women and children to the life-boats! Not for the faint of heart, but very very gripping!

This used to be considered the top-of-the-heap in Solo wargaming. We’d set ourselves up as the Provincial Governor, and use charts and dice to check on the natives in a dozen different compass directions. Some of these systems became VERY complex, tracking things like transfer of power from Father to Son (and civil wars within the kingdom, or poisoning of rivals), drought or famine and the impact on a fragile peace, minor skirmishes and retaliations that became major blood-feuds, lasting for several generations. As the Governor, we had to dispense the Baksheesh that kept the various tribes quiet, collect taxes, impose sanctions when the natives ate the tax man, and so on. When diplomacy broke down, then we’d sent out the troops to set things right again. But not too many troops --- that’s too costly, and requires excessive taxes to make up the coffers again! So we are continually balancing the needs to the budget. Quite absorbing stuff, although the wargames-battles-part was usually only a minor fraction of the overall Solitaire game.

This is a neat game, where the Red and the Blue forces are having at it (usually in territory that allows for ambushes, or otherwise puts a premium on the hidden movement of small groups). Those two forces are usually semi-automated in a Partisans-like game. Now think of the Spanish Partisans during the Napoleonic campaign, or the Condottiere from the 15th century in Italy. They would hire themselves out to whatever town or count that offered them the best terms. But it was a common practice for these groups to work a season on one side, and then retire to winter quarters, only to be given a better offer on the OTHER side the following campaign-spring! So the Red and Blue forces are worked with some sort of Automated Intelligence, and WE get to play the spunky Partisans. Which side do we support? We need the best contract, not only in terms of money, but also in terms of getting out alive (and not being thrown in jail by our alleged paymasters, for turning coat too many times for too many sides!). And who says we have to hire on locally? Maybe we look for greener grass on the OTHER side of the battlefield.

The Apache were an American Indian tribe with a rather sophisticated viewpoint. They felt it was easy to kill an enemy, but that entailed a lot of bad karma (course they had a different word). So they looked for other ways to prove they were braver than their enemy. This kind of Solo game places a premium on being able to sneak up on a sentry, steal his gun while he is sleeping, and slip away before we get caught (or shot!). Quite a far cry from wall-to-wall brigade slug-fests.

Late Samurai battles were quite different than any of their European counterparts, in that they often featured massive running battles that ebbed to and fro. There are a couple of examples of this in the movie "Ran", where there is a coordinated attack, followed up with a coordinated running retreat of the same host of warriors, back to some retrenchment position, where the tide of battle changes once more. It looks like a massive scale soccer match, with thousands of players on each team. The only other parallel that comes to mind is the Mongol invasion of Europe, where the Mongol hordes under Subodai retreated 30 or more miles from their Polish enemy, in feigned flight. It was only when the brash Polish forces tried to follow and got really strung out, that the Mongols closed the trap and circled in on their sides to finish them off. Running battles are synonymous with map games. Put ourselves in the Getae (sandal-like shoes) of one of the lowly Japanese Ashigaru, running forward with our mates, trying to figure out what’s going on in all the smoke and the haze, wondering if its time to turn around and make a dash for it. There is a famous saying attributed to the Duke of Wellington who described battle as being a bit like ballroom dancing: We can sense ourselves and our partner and a few other people swirling around us, but everything else is moving too much, and blocking the view of others to really be able to describe what everyone is doing ---short of hanging from the chandelier (like the Birds Eye view). And THAT’s a perfect description of what a Running Battle plays out like.

In their most recent version, Narrative wargames are the pinnacle of the psychocrat (wargamers who are more interested in how the various parties to the conflict react and think, as opposed to technocrats who are more interested in weapons and statistics and angles of impact). The Narrative drives the campaign, and acts as the glue that bonds the various battles together. We are going to cover this later in its own chapter, but for the moment, we would refer you to wargame reports like Tagh Dum Bash, or the Magnificent 7, both on Yahoo at SoloWarGames.

When we come across an interesting position, we need to keep careful notes on these "puzzle positions". Put them in a binder, with solution ideas on the flip side from the position. Think about how you can hide the essence of the tactic, or approach the main motif or theme from a different angle. What happens if we introduce different kinds of terrain? Will one Super-Heavy Cat (Cataphract, an armored horseman) and a woods with some friendlies lurking in it, be the fighting equivalent of 2 Heavy Cav enemy divisions? Where do we have to set up our Cat? What if some of the Heavy Cav are impetuous and have to charge? Maybe we can angle the Cat so it would hit the corner of the woods, and that limits the impetuous charge liability? (We call this set up "Keystone- ing", where the impassible terrain acts as a Keystone to prevent impetuous charging). Think about importing ideas from some other sources (like chess puzzle positions from the week- end paper, or from buying some used chess books on traps and tactics) and adapt the key idea to some sort of wargaming position. Chess is a fertile source for ideas, because it was so popular 20 years ago, and a lot of time and money went into books on Chess Tactics and Chess Puzzles. There were huge prizes paid out for even regional tournaments, too. We may never see big money spent to pay big IQ’s to write wargames manuals, but there is a lot of meaty ideas waiting for us, in the guise of used Chess manuals. Look for ones with lots of annotated comments that aren’t all pidgin about f3 should have gone to g8. There’s lots of chess themes that cross-over, like a "discovered attack" (where we move an intervening body out of the charge path), or using a fork (where we set up to attack one of two targets), or "pinning a piece" (where our Cavaly might threaten a flank, if an enemy Light Infantry unit moves out of the way). All we need is a little creativity, and an inquiring mind. Imagination and depth determine the quality of our wargame plans and ideas. What sets a great Solo wargamer apart is their creative imagination --- we have to "train" and focus our fantasy (that part of us that says "what if we add THIS to the mix?"). We have to "train" our eye to see the possibilities "just over the hill", or what a position MIGHT be like, later on in the battle. All good generals seem to know how to pre-visualizse a battlefield. We don't necessarily need to "see it" in order to know what's going to happen. Grant is a good example of an ACW general who did that during the Wilderness campaigns. Don’t limit yourself to Chess, either. We’ve found some excellent strategic ideas in the weekend Bridge column that apply, too --- especially about using finesse to just marginally outwit our opponents. Doesn’t matter where our inspiration comes from, and I’m sure someone could thumb through competitive golf magazines and find sources of interest. The point is we can’t just play solo wargames exclusively, without getting a bit dull around the edges, so we need some regular source of external stimulus to draw on. The added bonus is that because this source of structured thought comes "way out of the box" our readers think our play has started to take on magical proportions, because few other Solo wargamers can decipher where we are coming from, and they rarely (if ever) see that telling blow before its just too late. Working up puzzle positions is a neat way to spend 15 minutes that we scavenge (maybe before dinner, or before we go to work), when there isn’t time to do a full turn on the present solo wargames layout, but we feel like flexing our brain power with something related to gaming. Whether refining an idea, or adding a layer of complication, or trying to flesh-out a completely new (and complex) theme, the time goes by really fast. Its also a fun thing to share puzzle positions with other friends, whether we talk to them live or send them the position by email or snail mail (post).

Summary And there we have it. A whole lot of ways to change our "viewpoint" on the battlefield, and make our Solo efforts more enjoyable. And we never know which of these becomes our bread and butter unless we try several of them out, like a kind of test drive. Once we have 8 to 10 hours of playing time (so we get past the basic mechanics) then we can decide which parts are right for OUR kind of Solo Wargaming. Note 1: Valahala-here-we-come is a lot easier to say than "Gotterdammerung", which comes from Wagner’s Opera for the Twilight of the Gods

14. Cinema Production style wargames Issue 0.0 16 Sept 07 An Intro to Playing Solo Wargames Chapter 2.8 Meanwhile, Back and the Ranch . . . Ever see how a movie script is put together? Disney did an excellent tour of how one of their movies was put together. They used to have something called “story boards” and develop the movie almost like it was a comic book, with only the key panels showing --- maybe one in ten. (Nowadays it’s a computer program, but much the same idea). And the movie itself switches from the “main event” with the big battle lets say, and cuts out to show some small parallel event on the home front. And some movies might have 2 or 3 different sub-plots going, all at the same time --- The Battle, The Home Front, The Reinforcements, The Captive Princess, the race to find reinforcements, and so on. The plots all weave around, and then resolve themselves in time for the final scene.

Some people refer to this as Cinema Production style wargames, because we tend to play them out as complete little “scenes”. That multi-level attraction is exactly the sort of thing we are trying to introduce to our Solo Wargaming, by introducing something we call Side-Bar games.

Side-Bar Games Suppose our main Solo wargame is a battalion-level British Colonial punitive expedition, using 15mm little guys, off to punish the rascally natives. But for most of us who struggle home at the end of a hectic week-day, with maybe only 30 minutes of hobby-related time available, we don’t FEEL like getting into just the start of the “next” move (cause maybe we are feeling just a bit lethargic, or the kids are acting up, or whatever). That’s when we might decide to take a little mental holiday, on the principle that a change in our gaming is as good as a rest, and we might ”choose” to play-out a little Colonial skirmish Side-Bar game.

Around here, the rules for the Side-Bar game are usually different from our “main” rule set, too. Often they are simple skirmish games or card-driven games --- beer-n-pretzel level stuff that doesn’t require deep strategic thinking. Lets step outside our comforts zone for a while. Side-Bar games are not really supposed to affect the outcome of the main battle a whole lot --- they just add a lot of "color", and possibly flesh out the “characterization” of some of the key figures. Why DOES that strange duck Col Plymshaw wake up screaming in the middle of the night? Why do Lt Master and Lt Crispin seem to despise one another? Why does Private Carruthers carry such a big chip on his shoulder? These are the kinds of undercurrents that we can best explore, using the medium of Side- Bar games. (Maybe it turns out that Lt Crispin rolled over and went back to sleep, while Lt Masters was desperately fighting off the Waziri at the piquet lines!)

If we start by supposing that the scale of figures we used in our main battle might be smaller, as befits a Grand-Tactical large battle --- they something like 15mm for example --- if that’s the case, for our Side-Bar games we can take a dozen of those lavish 25/28mm figures and do a Sangar (outpost) skirmish set-up, on a 1-1/2 foot square area. We might have two dozen Waziri (Afghans or Pathans) trying to swamp 3 or 4 Frontier Guides with our Lieutenant Masters, defending inside the Sangar’s stone circle. It gives us a reason to buy and paint up those “interesting” figures that we just can’t resist.

At the other end of the spectrum, we can use some couriers in 6mm, making a dash from the far- flung fortress-in-trouble, and trying to get the message through to the relief column. Who gets through the lines? Who gets chased off with too many natives? (Or who makes a valiant attempt, but is heard from no more?) This is the stuff of legends (and Side-Bar games!).

Don’t turn yer nose up at those 1/72nd plastic soldiers, either! There are a surprising number of clean crisp castings that will shock people who haven’t looked at ESCI or HAT for a number of years. They have some fantastic poses, and they are really detailed. More than once we’ve set up games, taken some decent pics, and had questions from amazed victims (er, viewers to the site) as to what kind of figures were in THOSE pictures. If we undercoat them with Fusion spray-paint (meant for painting plastic garden furniture) then these plastic figures resist handling as much as any metal figure of the same proportions. Once the paint goes on, we can dip them with Minwax to get that professional weathered and shaded look. With nothing that gives away the scale in the picture, they could easily be mistaken for 40mm little guys.

Side-Bar games “tie in” to the main game, and use miniature wargames figures to fight them out, but usually the outcome of that Side-Bar game won’t significantly threaten the main game (in other words, Stonewall Jackson won’t feature in the Side-Bar game, although his no-good brother-in-law might).

Some typical Side-Bar topics might include Raids, Convoys, the Paymasters Wagon, Scouting, Outposts, Spying out the enemy, Rush for the next bridge (or suspension bridge), The Pretender grabs the Throne, Saving the Reverend’s Daughter, Assassination attempt on the Colonel, Kidnapping, and other assorted mayhem of similar ilk.

The On-Going Saga Nothing says that Side-Bar games have to be one-shot 15 minute affairs. In one of my campaigns, the scouting was all carried out as if it were Side-Bar games, where the survivors of one day went on to probe other forests, passes, bushes, and assorted hidey-holes. Almost like a parallel story-line. We’d play a round of 15mm Grand-Tactical, and then do 15 minutes of the sidebar game between rounds. Previously we would have used simple card-pull rules for resolving the scouting anyway, so this was only a minor step-up in complexity, and gave a whole lot of enjoyment for that 15 minute slice of time at the beginning of a session. Think of it as sort of a “stretching and warm-up” session. Gets the creative juices running.

Narrative-enabling rule sets like “Mythic GME” are particularly suited to Side-bar games, because they develop an on-going After Action Report, and this helps to tie the various bits together (note 1).

Penny-Ante Games These are similar to Side-Bar games, in that they are quick games meant to be completed in 20 to 30 minutes. One of my favorites is Prince Empsa’s Guard, where cards denote the walls of the labyrinth underneath the pyramid, collapsing in on any unwary adventurers, and the adventurers themselves are represented with coins. Again, like Side-bar games, they are NOT supposed to influence the outcome of the main campaign, just give some extra color. The main difference between Side-bar games and Penny Ante games is that Penny-Ante games are usually meant to be played with coins, not figures, and are much more portable. Take them on a business trip, or set them up at a moment’s notice to entertain the kiddies at the family gathering. Because they use coins, the Aunts and Uncles won’t realize we are playing some grizzly version of The Lost World until its already over. No nightmares for the nephews and nieces that would get us banned from Grandpa’s birthday party! After all its only coins and cards!

In fact, most of my Penny Ante Games are often “disguised” as something more palatable, for the parent’s consumption and blessing. Now, before we turn up our collected noses, pooh-pooh the whole thing and walk away, let me hasten to add that most of my Penny Ante games come in layers, and while the first layer or two are PG-13 rating, meant for the youngsters, most of my games have several more advanced versions that take on a definitely darker tone.

Another example of Penny-Ante Games is a sort of Pin-the-tail-on-the-Donkey, except that in the PG-13 version, we are trying to catch a donkey that escaped (and this did occasionally happen). So we have one nickel for the donkey, and a bunch of pennies (for rank and file) and a few dimes (for muleteers) trying to catch the critter. If we get too close to his back side, he’ll kick! Nice innocent fun.

But in the more advanced Adults Only version, we are really describing a much more desperate venture --- tracking down that elusive sniper, where we want to creep up behind him, but watch out if we get too close and in his sights!

Penny-Ante “Plus” Games I am a great fan of the Two Hour Wargames system! Although at first blush it would seem as if the dice are controlling everything for a great deal of the play. In each of the games in the series figures (or units) are activated in turn and may continue to act until forced to stop. The heart of the game mechanism is the 'Reaction System" and this is where the dice come in.

At first, we get to place our guys, and move them forward according to what WE think makes sense. But when a figure moves into line of sight of an “enemy” figure both figures undergo a "Reaction Check" to see how they react. This may cause one or both of them to duck back, fire, flee, charge etc. Specific die rolls (1 pass, one fail, for example) leads to WHO fires first, and WHO reacts first, so to a great degree, the “control” element is taken out of the gamer’s hands. And as a Penny-Ante-+ game, I really LIKE that. If my “main hero” had his neck on the line, I might well think differently, but as a mild diversion when I don’t feel like playing “serious” Solo --- ya gotta try this cause it’s a blast!

The very first action in turn leads to further reaction checks and so on. In these skirmish games each player nominates one as his “personal figure” (usually a squad leader or group leader) and this figure acts pretty-much as the player decides (subject to some reaction checks). The dumb followers have much less free will. Leaders may activate followers within a certain radius of themselves on their turn instead of waiting for those figures to activate later. (Multi-player games can have players either all be on the same side and working against an enemy controlled by the Reaction System, or multi-player games take the traditional opposite-sides approach). The reactions make it a great system for solo play. A favorite from the series is Six Gun Sound the wild west rules. These include a nice campaign system and town generator. Everything’s there to play a Spaghetti Western except for the figures! The buildings even get populated with townsfolk (generated by the game), who will react and shoot back if shot at (but generally are pretty passive and lie low). Scenarios include Cattle Rustling, Jail Breaks, Bank Robberies etc.

The system is definitely oriented towards people who like Beer & Pretzels gaming, and who think that the rules shouldn’t get in the way of having a fun time, and who are comfortable in making up their own rules to cover unusual situations. This may not be to everyone's tastes, but as a Penny- Ante-+ game, it rates A1. One of the other main titles is Chain Reaction 2.0, which covers medium sized groups for periods from mid-Colonial through Blade-Runner (Near-future). This is a good start cause it will handle a dozen or so figures per side, without too much rule-keeping.

They are great for a light skirmish game with a cinematic-style flavor, although I would use other more traditional rule sets for larger (formed-body) Tactical or Grand Tactical size historical scenarios. Don’t think that just because I call them Penny-Ante-+ that they are some trifling kids- game stuff! You owe it to yourself to give them a try.

Summary We should ALL be trying out some mini-games in other scales that “complement” traditional over- the-table large-army battles. The rich flavor of having several layers of differing textures adds enormously to the palate of the wargaming experience, and keeps us coming back for more. It’s the spice that makes every solo event a gourmet experience. No one can eat pork and beans all their lives, without getting jaded at some point, so look around and find something a little different to chew on.

Note 1: Mythic Game Master Emulator is available as an Adobe download for $7 at the time this was written, from DriveThruRPG.Com and it works with any rule set. There is a separate chapter on Mythic GME coming up later in this series

15. Birds-eye-view of Solo Wargaming Issue 0.3 2 Sept 07

A Quick Review The first part of our series dealt with a simple Birds-eye-view approach to playing Solo Wargames, dividing our Generalship even-handedly between the two opposing forces (Red and Blue). We talked about setting up 6 different “army-list choices” and another 6 different “Grand Tactical set- up” variations for the Blue forces. Then we introduced a bit of chance (uncertainty or variability) with die-rolls as a modifier, to make the enemy Blue forces more competitive, to keep things fresh, and to keep our interest levels at a high pitch. We also touched briefly on some simple home-grown Solo rules to supplement our favorite rule set.

The Second part of our series dealt with shifting the focus of Generalship, so that we spend MORE time and effort on playing the Red forces, and we bolstered up the Blue forces with a number of deck-of-cards mechanisms that increased the uncertainty or variability of “where” those Blue forces were. We talked about the Fog of War, simple terrain variations and scouting, and an introduction to hidden movement for Solo games using blank cardboard counters.

In this Third part of the series, we are going to look at simple written commands and couriers, and examine the related reasoning and problems (where the timing of some Red combined-forces attacks are thrown off, and we get more unit-cohesion-dislocation). We’ll also look at some different options to improve our effort to create a pre-programmed enemy. In this module we explore the Fog of War further (and some related loss of control of our troops) based on their reactions to external situations. We’ll also look at some other ways to add to the “experience of being there”, including concepts for writing better After Action Reports.

Written Commands For a Solo wargamer who is used to using some sort of written commands, nothing looks stranger than walking through a convention hall, and seeing all those armies parading and pirouetting in perfect unison, doing three back-flips and a double-axle, and then falling on the enemy’s flank with razor-sharp precision (often while ignoring an enemy to the front!). See, in the real world it usually just doesn’t happen like that. And it doesn’t take very much in the way of rudimentary research to show that troops just out of “basic” training (and there’s a reason why it's called basic) are really only capable of column of march, forming line, advance, fire by volley, retire and independent fire (and even some these are fraught with mishaps). While unit formation changes do get better with practice, still, asking any body of troops (even seasoned regulars) to wheel in the face of the enemy is a command issued by officer with a death wish (note Thanks Graham … good comment). They will “go to ground”, or stand or retire but they won’t do any fancy wheeling movements --- there is just neither the time nor the space And just how loud can you shout some “new” formation order change, such that all ten companies can hear instantly? Monty Python springs to mind, it must be one of their skits.

Any sub-commander or (worse) unit commander who just went and “did his own thing”, without waiting for detailed orders from Alexander, or Caesar (Napoleon or Mountbatten or von Manstein), would find himself promoted to permanent latrine-duty the following week.

The sub-generals and unit leaders would be given strict orders by the Great One, and woe-betide the fool who didn’t follow those orders to the letter. No independent thinking. Do as you’re told until the Great One sends a “new, improved” order. See, if things went haywire, and the unit commander was following his orders, he’d be forgiven. If the courier with the new orders was shot, or went missing, and the unit commander just kept on doing the old orders, he’d be forgiven. But if things went all cock-eyed, then the Great One would probably be looking for a scapegoat, and army scapegoats live notoriously short lives.

For our purposes, written orders should be issued AFTER we put the Red forces down on the table, but BEFORE the enemy Blue forces make an appearance. So we have to be a bit cagey with how we write our orders, not knowing where the bulk of the enemy Blue forces are going to appear.

KISS and Written Commands In the beginning, commands (or any changes there-to) should be short and succinct. Something like “Go take that tall hill, and hold the far side”, or “Go stop those guys with the Green shields”. As we get a little more experience under out belt, we might graduate to 3 sentences. Sort of “Go harass the Guys in the Blue capes. Fall back if they charge. Rally behind our guys in the Red capes” --- that sort of thing.

Don’t try and bite off too much for the first little while. Its better to err by being a bit brief, rather than writing a novel for each unit. Remember that most commands written pre-battle rarely survive the first contact with the enemy. The one sure thing, is that things are going to change.

Consider this example: We are going to ask a “Green” untried regiment to advance alone into a stretch of woods to counter-attack an enemy brigade's flank (when we KNOW they are at great risk of being flanked by a subsequent wave of attackers). Then we are going to instruct that Green regiment to fall back to the edge of the wood after successfully delivering the counter-attack, reform there and then briefly deliver fire at the anticipated counter-counter-attack as it unfolds on our own flank. Then fall back yet again to another position to rejoin our defensive line and there hold off more assaults (that IS an actual historical account of what a veteran ACW regiment did).

Could a Green unit do that? Not this side of hell freezing over! The best we can hope for is to get them to advance and possibly hold their ground. Once you start them back the odds are strongly against them stopping until well away from the action (assuming the officers are not as the green as the troops). Mind that “Green” units had not “seen the elephant” (faced significant and determined enemy) and could therefore be persuaded to attack a position that seasoned and veterans would have baulked at. There is an example from ACW at Chickamauga where a newly raised regiment charged a position and took it (with 47% casualties as well mind you – bet they wouldn’t be so keen the next time).

Command Radius Many Solo wargame designs use some sort of "command radius" for the brigade and higher officers (or equivalents, in other periods). If the unit is within the command radius of the brigade leader, for example, then he can order his regiments to operate as he sees fit. Usually the Great One was able to use hand gestures or flag signals to control the larger groups that were within his Command Range. While that “range” varies from one rule set to another, usually it is around mounted carbine range (or mounted bow-shot range for earlier periods). And to keep it simple, we are going to ignore blocking terrain for the moment (so the Great One can make himself heard or seen through those pesky intervening woods). If we use sub-generals, they might have ranges that are proportionately reduced (like ½ to 2/3rds of the mounted-bow-shot-command-radius of the Great One). Typical rule sets let us “control” around 4 battle-groups that are close-to-us that way, and any number of light troops.

What happens if we have groups outside this range? Perhaps the local unit commander (whose unit is too far away) has to “roll” for command "initiative", and if he passes, then he follows orders without the need for the brigadier to be close enough to assure compliance. Sometimes a unit outside of command radius cannot be ordered to charge, and can only move half-speed that turn (a nice little house rule). Or perhaps, we use couriers to make any change to their orders (otherwise they plod on with the orders they had from the start of the game). Only in a dire emergency will the Great One work up a sweat, leave his original post, and go galloping off to intervene himself. Not done. Not dignified. Alexander was called the Great cause he could get away with it. Just cause Alexander didn’t need to belong to a health-gym, like some later Great (Flabby) Ones.

Couriers For our purposes, we will start off assuming we have unlimited numbers of couriers. If we don’t have enough figures, then we can always resort to using pennies to start with, and mount single horsemen on the pennies as we can. Mounted guys with fancy flags make really nice couriers. All couriers get their new orders at the top of the turn, and move at top speed (but with a variable die roll modifier --- use a standard deck of cards, but only the numbered cards count, with a Red-suit number-card for “up” and a Black for “down”) towards the intended new-order recipient (note So a Black 3 with a Red 8 would mean we ADD five move units to the speed of the courier, to a maximum variation of 25% up or down --- if the speed is only 16 units long, then we can only add 25% or 4 units for a maximum range of 20 units movement). All couriers can carry ONE set of orders (with a limit of 3 lines) for ONE target battle-group order-recipient, although skirmish guys in the neighborhood would probably match their actions of the nearest battle-group. So if the courier reaches the battle-group with a “hold” order, the skirmishers aren’t going to continue to march off to infinity and ignore their stationary bolt-hole behind that battle-group. If the orders go out to a sub- general, then he retransmits those orders to his various commands on the following turn.

Courier Disruptions What happens if the courier gets delayed? He might hit rough terrain and have to go around, or his horse might throw a shoe, or his head hurts too much from last night’s grog and he has to stop that infernal pounding of the horse’s hooves and take it easy. Or its too far, and he can’t use “charge speed” because that means his horse will be exhausted or “blown”. Well, we can use the remaining Court cards (J, Q, K, Ace, Joker) to add some detail:

Red J= Gets there “on time” (no delays on the way) Red Q= Yells out his “new” orders from an extra 4 cm away Red K= Adds a + 1 to local leadership’s morale/fatigue for 1 turn Red Ace= Gets caught up in the fight and stays 3 turns at +1 for morale/fatigue Red Joker= Acts like a local sub-general, and enjoys it so much he stays and adds a +1

Black J= Delayed by 1 turn Black Q= Delayed by 2 turns Black K= Horse killed half-way and he has to walk with the new orders Black Ace= He’s a gloomy sort, & counts as -1 from local leadership’s morale for 1 turn Black Joker= Killed in transit by a bad fall on the way. Message never arrives

Take these as “suggested” interpretations, but feel free to alter them or add to them as you see fit. These particular interpretations are rather mild. Solo Wargaming is all about “personalizing” the fit of the rules.

Pre-programmed Enemy Suppose we come up to a crest-line, where we know the enemy is just over the ridge, but we don’t have a lot of details just yet. Lay a limp piece of wiggly string or similar in a loose line across the center of the table. It can wind around a bit, and doesn’t have to be a perfectly straight line. Now we are going to come up with some inter-changeable terrain maps for the Blue (hidden) side of the table. We start with breaking it into 4 sectionsleft-to-right (so 2 middle sections, and 2 end sections, one left and one right). Now we want to come up with “different” terrain dispositions for EACH of those sections --- lets say 3 different maps for each of the 4 areas, or 12 maps to start. They don’t need to be super detailed, just show things like forest, scrub ground, open areas, rough ground (like ravines) and so on. Depending on the period or the rules, we may even have some defensive works (ditches, hedges, stone walls, and so on).

Notice that the 2 central areas should be interchangeable (so we could have 6 different pieces that could go in either of the 2 central spots). I like to have at least ONE terrain-driven battle-group or unit marked out for each terrain map. So the central area maps might have two squares that could represent 1 vet and 1 line-infantry unit just peaking over the top of a hill crest. A flanking area might have 1 Heavy Cavalry, with a wood or a rough ground anchoring one of its flanks. ONE flank map for each side might have TWO Heavy Cavalry units designated, one slightly inferior to the other. Some of the maps may be blank; some maps may have no visible enemy positioned (although there might be scrub or rough ground or woods).

Light troops can go anywhere, so I usually don’t mark them on the maps.

OK, so we now have 12 maps (6 for the center two Blue map-squares, and 3 each for the right and the left blue flanks). How do we pick-em? I’d suggest we start by pulling out some cards from a standard card deck (cause that lets us expand as and when we add more of our “standard” maps). So we dig out the Ace through 6 of hearts (for the center terrain) and shuffle them and place them near the center of the table as our 6-card Terrain-deck. Then we take the Ace, 2, 3 of Spades for the left flank, and the Ace, 2, 3 of Clubs for the right flank, as the 3-card Terrain-deck for the right and left sectors.

We can still use the multiple-deck blank-cardboard map counters (Remember? The ones using # and * on the backs of the cardboard cards? The ones that we discussed in the previous section.) if we want to introduce MORE variable-and-moving Blue forces. Or we may have the “blanks” holding the center position, while the *’s are off to the right a bit, and the #’s are off to the left. At some point our scouts or skirmish troops will “spot” a heavy unit from ONE of those sets (with the backs either blank, # or *) and then we need to dice to see if THAT is the main Blue enemy forces. If not, JUST “that” combination get removed, and we play on, still not sure about which of the other two options is “real” till our scouts do their job. But add complexity a bit at a time --- don’t try and do it all at once, or it becomes overwhelming.

Sighting Activation As the Red forces, we only get to see what’s on the other side of the crest-line, when our unopposed Red skirmish or light units get to that crest line. And even then, they only get to see what’s immediately in front of them (not to the left or the right). So here’s how it works; our skirmish/scout gets to the top of the crest (as marked by that wiggly string), where he can see the layout of the land on the Blue-forces side (at least, the Blue map-square that is immediately in front of him). Remember the 6 or so Blue forces army-list options from the first section? We are going to need to choose ONE of those 6 army lists (using a 1D6 dice) for this Solo game.

So once we’ve diced for the Blue forces army list from among those 6, now that the Red scout crests the hill, (the left-center of the battlefield, lets say), we draw a card from the 6-card terrain-deck to tell us which of the 6 possible Blue terrain maps we see (which might give us a central woods, with two Heavy Infantry drawn up just inside the woods, facing our Red skirmisher. We don’t know which of the two Blue Heavy Infantry blank upside-down counters might be a Vet until we get closer --- just that there are two Blue Heavy Infantry units).

Next, lets suppose our Red Light Cavalry crests the wiggly string on our left flank, and Whoa! Now we can see the terrain with potential Blue enemy positions. When we draw a Terrain-card for THAT map, there might be TWO Blue Heavy Cavalry upside-down unit cards facing us, and the inside one looks like it MIGHT be a super-heavy Cataphract (but we don’t know that just yet, until we get closer). Maybe we send a second Red Light Cavalry to crest the other end of the table, and the map we draw THERE has two MORE Blue Heavy Cavalry positions marked, (but lets say we ran out of available Blue Cavalry, cause we used them both up on the other end, and the Blue army-option we drew only has two cavalry). Well then, even though the Map says we have 2 more Blue Cavalry, Blue can’t put anything down there. (Course, if there is a woods, then Blue may be able to put some light-heavy infantry into that woods to compensate, and secure that flank; and if we are using hidden movement, we could use one of the * or # deck).

So this method lets us put a number of Blue heavy units out on the table, keyed to appropriate terrain. And we have MORE spots than heavy units in this example, so the heavies always “appear” in the areas where we are scouting. (Don’t cheat and send our Red scouts off to the boonies, just to trigger the appearance of the Blue forces in the “wrong” area! We want battles facing our Red opponents).

Filing in the Holes, And Making it “Sensible” Once the Blue heavy forces are laid out, then we can use the remaining Blue light forces to try and fill in the holes. And if there were any Heavy Infantry that hadn’t been “scouted” in the central area, THOSE might get shuffled around, too. Remember these “extra” Blue forces are all deployed as unidentified upside down cardboard counters, so it doesn’t much matter when they are put down, as long as they are outside of Red’s scouting range.

Scouts or skirmish units become a LOT more important in Solo games. They aren’t just missile catchers any more. They have a critical function in finding and identifying the quality of the enemy troops, and the ability to mass a number of skirmishers to “get around” the Blue blocking skirmish forces, so we see the real battlefield, becomes quite a little strategy and tactics game, in its own right.

OK I admit --- I use a fudge factor occasionally to “make it sensible”. I might allow myself 1 or 2 “swaps” of known elements that are really badly out of place, or some similar (minor!) repositioning. We don’t have to be completely hidebound about incomprehensible set-ups. But try and limit the fudge factor, so that we also give ourselves new problems to face, on a regular basis. No pain, no gain.

Reserves Matter One of the things that quickly becomes apparent, is the need for Red reserves. We probably should allocate at least 15-20% of our Red Heavy Units (or possibly a mix with some light-heavy units) as reserves. Blue forces need these Blue reserves to fill gaps. They should lurk around the back of appropriate hills or rough ground in Blue territory, ready to move into the gap or to pounce on unsuspecting Red troops who try and sally past the spot. We usually just “assume” the Blue Light Infantry are in the “most logical” place, and dice for them appearing (note: Mythic GME is a great mechanism for rolling for the appearance of these Reserve troops).

Get used to Red having a designated Reserve, too. At the moment this is still “optional” and may not make a whole lot of difference, but in future chapters we will need that Red reserve to keep our rear-lines open for communications back to base-camp, or to counter any off-table entrance by Blue troops (and they usually appear in the worst possible places), so get used to keeping a 15-20% Red reserve in hand. Another comment on reserves --- most players make the beginner’s mistake of reinforcing a WEAK link with our reserves, where the better philosophy is to hold off the Blue raiders with a minimum of our Red resources, and then we try and reinforce a SUPERIOR Red attack --- one that is likely to win anyway, and just becomes more unstoppable when we add a Red reserve (or when we add the Red General to the toss, for that matter). Remember, Generals like to hang around with the winners.

We Had a Blast! Nothing we do in Solo gaming has the same long-term impact as writing up a good AAR (After Action Report). I say that because I’ve gone back MANY times and re-read AAR’s that I wrote up 10 and 20 years ago. Some are so old and hoary that I don’t remember the game or the outcome at all. Some of our AAR’s mention friends (in passing or in the notes) that I haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years. Some of my AAR’s go back to my hand-written pre-computer days (note: ooh that makes me feel so ANCIENT!).

So how do we write “better” AAR’s?

First, concentrate on the big scheme of things, and brush everything else into footnotes. By that I mean, I don’t care what the story line is for why that Gatling gun went out of action as part of the narrative, but I sure like to be able to go to the notes, and see that Dave Wall managed to roll a six on his Gatling Gun activation die, three times in a row, and then tossed that die right out of the garage, and over into the ditch across the road!

Second, write it up while its fresh. In Solo play, I like to write it up almost blow-by-blow so that none of the fine points are missed. The longer we wait, the less we recall (and the loss is geometric - -- after 1 hour we’ve lost 10% but after 2 hours we’ve lost 25% and so on). That story about Dave and the Dice is the kind of little detail that means a lot, 30 years later. I still get a chuckle out of it. But it might have been forgotten completely, if I’d written the AAR just a week later. Memory does funny things that way.

Third, I like to assign fictional names for all the key unit-leaders in my games. We don’t have to go nuts, just pick up names from our favorite novels that cover the period. It becomes MUCH more personal, if “Color Sgt Barr” gets shot in the rump, as opposed to the shot hitting just some unidentified toy soldier, one of dozens that day. And we better keep some sort of a computer file (or even loose-leaf notes) to track our casualty names, and to make sure that anyone we name who “buys the farm” doesn’t just miraculously and suddenly “reincarnate” in the very next episode!

Forth, for me, that narrative is very personal. By that I mean if someone gets hacked up, I’ll often go back and give them thinly disguised names of business acquaintances from previous jobs that I didn’t much like. Even if this means I have to go back and “edit” in the right name in previous files! Its satisfying, somehow, to know that James Dickie (or whoever we choose) comes to a particularly gruesome end! Just remember to make sure we disguise that name! Won’t do if that Dickie-guy recognizes himself and tries to sue!

Fifth, I like to work in some military truism --- like “He who hesitates is Lost” to some of my AAR’s Almost like instructive little stories about how to make the right decision. I collect them in a computer file. Things like: “Military genius is a gift from God, but the most essential quality of a general-on-chief is the strength of character and resolution to win at all costs” (Napoleon) Ah, that’s almost as satisfying as a sip of well-aged wine! A little bit goes a long way.

It helps if the AAR starts with a punch, and it doesn’t even have to be a military-related punch. One of my Tagh Dum Bash episodes begins with “The death of a brother is never easy …” Something that sucks in the intended audience and keeps them captivated.

Sixth, if we are running a campaign, think about keeping one or more campaign diaries. These might be in the form of an old newspaper of the day, or a scrap-book with excerpts from the diaries of the various key people involved in the battles. Some wargamers find that the campaign dairy approach becomes more interesting than the wargaming itself! In addition to the fun derived from writing up such a dairy, it can become an interesting keepsake in years to come.

Bottom Line The more we tie our game and our notes into the things that are really central to our life story, the more the Solo experience (and the related AAR) are going to resonate for us. The more that AAR resonates for us, the more our enthusiasm is going to shine through for a wider audience to relate to.

Notes: Thanks to Graham Empson for some of his comments, liberally donated and liberally plugged into the text

16. Mass Battle Mechanics Issue 0.6 2 Sept 07

What, There’s MORE? Seems like we went out to build a little snowman, and already ended up with an 8 foot tall snow- Elephant! How could there be anything more to write about Solo Wargames? (Are they mad?) If we think we hear an echoing hollow sort of a chortle of suppressed laughter coming through the air vent, then we must have tapped into the “Collective”, of Solo wargamers who have gone before us. And they’re pleased to whisper that we have only just begun the most interesting part of the Solo fight!

In this chapter, we are going to look at some ideas for running mass-wall-to-wall battles. Because it seems like everyone likes to cram the wargames table, wall-to-wall, with every little guy we’ve every painted, at least once in a blue moon. Forget the room to maneuver the cavalry; forget the subtle approach, use those extra maps to wrap fish --- here’s another 50 figures that we haven’t used for the last 5 years, so where can we stick ‘em in on the table?

Oh, the first time we set ‘em up, those cheek-by-jowl slug-fests look so wonderful, and photograph so well, and two hours later, we’re already bored on the third move, and we can’t quite figure it out: where must we have gone so far wrong? (Better shut the cover on the air vent --- cause that echoing chortle isn’t going away any time soon).

Different Strokes for Larger Battles See, there has to be some different way of running those large-scale battles, so that we get more enjoyment out of collecting all those little guys and setting them out on the wargames table, right? Those old gray-bearded Solo types must be holding something back --- there has to be more than this! Well, fortunately there ARE some ways to spice things up (that aren’t that far-out or only suited for chartered accountants and similar mathematically-inclined nuts). And for the sake of argument, we are going to merge the needs from a couple of scenes that span the ages, but present us with a similar host of problems. Whether we are dealing with the Assyrians trying to take the walls at Babylon, or similar sieges right through to the 100 years war (around the time of Robin Hood), or some of the larger set-piece battles of the Napoleonic Wars, ACW, later Colonial wars with the Boers, or WWI trench warfare --- all these confrontations had at least one large set-piece battle where there was precious little room left to wiggle, and it was “Jump up and charge, into the teeth of death, and destroy that enemy whats-its! Onward 600! (note 1)

Was there really that little room for any kind of maneuvering?

It Wasn’t a Game of Two Pro-Football Teams at Peak Performance never happened. The first thing we need to look at is the common idea of having different “grades” of fighting ability --- the most typical grades being Green, Veteran and Elites. It can be argued that every regiment that fought should be rated "Green" in its first battle if the only criteria used to rate troops is "seeing the elephant" for the first time (in other words, when first faced with a serious enemy offensive). Certainly, most regiments at Shiloh in the American Civil War would be rated Green using that criteria. But the fact is most of these regiments fought very well indeed.

In addition to Green, Veteran and Elite, I sometimes kind of wish there were a "Mean" rating. Mean in the context of this paraphrased quote by Basil Duke:

"Good troops will win with almost any kind of gun. Mean troops can't win, no matter how well armed." (note 5)

Some people prefer the term “militia” --- worse than Green, representing a lot of the 90 day call ups. We could even introduce a "Seeing the Elephant" table (and in the case of ACW, it might vary by side and date --- the early Union troops get more Green and they decrease as the years roll by); the early CSA start strong and get weaker as the war progresses) to determine their morale after their first battle.

In addition, we should consider the “tenacity” of a troop, regardless of whether they are Mean/Militia, Green, Veteran, or Elite. Some of the “Heavies” that fought in these ACW battles were visibly more tenacious than the veteran regiments that fought along side them, and these Heavies were very well drilled and able to move and maneuver with as much "alacrity" as the vets . After the fight, the position they held out in an open field at Harris's Farm was clearly shown by a straight line of their fallen. Perhaps one needs to read Rhea's description of their performance in these fights to appreciate the point, which was that not all "Green" troops were poorly drilled nor easily driven. At Cold Harbor, these "Green" troops took heavy defensive works that the veterans did not for a moment consider to be assailable. Apparently, the Heavies were too inexperienced to realize that, and brave enough to try it, and to succeed.

General Sickness After the first few months of campaigning in a lot of major wars, the great proportion of the soldiers were no longer at their best, if not outright sick. They had holes in their shoes, they were facing almost chronic starvation, and barely a third to a half were probably ready to face a sustained battle at any given time. They were fighting the worst enemy --- General Sickness. That’s the plain (unvarnished) truth (note 2)

Oh, sure, we can point to elite units that seemed to relish rolling in the dirt, but these were exceptions, not the rule, and it took years of hardening-off before we ended up with that elite group that could wallow in the mire and not only survive, but flourish. Most battles had very few of those kinds of soldiers. So if we want realism, if we want things to get “interesting”, then we have to start handicapping those fresh-out-of-the-box troops.

And not just the troops, but their leaders, and the field they fought over. Few battles were ever fought over a billiard-table-smooth battlefield, and that was especially true when we had large armies facing off.

Some newcomers to Solo might be interested to know (in general) that the "Morning Reports" in the American Civil War period Official Records (OR’s) always contain several categories listing army strength. Usually, these are:

“Present for Duty” “Present and Absent” “Aggregate”

One of the quirks is that “Present for Duty” does not mean combat effectives, so that is why there has been (and still is) so much controversy over the strengths listed in various people’s OOB’s (orders of battle). A buddy did an exercise some years ago on Gettysburg (must be some kind of weird fun for statisticians!) and he spent many happy hours cross-checking the numbers. Strange thing is that “Brigade strength only” figures do not concur with “regiments in brigade” figures, nor in many cases do the “regiment figures” from differing sources agree with each other. The OR is usually very good but even it can actually disagree with itself, which can be somewhat disconcerting. At the end of the day maybe we can become a little “too” pedantic. In a wargame we can be “super-accurate” or “approximate” and it won’t seriously impact the balance of the wargame, for all intents and purposes.

”Present and absent” is usually double or more of the "Present for Duty" total. Effective strength is, however, the figure that really matters. "Effective present" is the figure used by historians to determine the size of the forces actually engaged a battle (note 10).

The Pock-Marked Road to Glory See, in almost every case there were always little terrain folds that we could take advantage of. Any vet that faced that kind of daunting battleground will tell us, they studied the lay of the land, and tried to ferret out what was just beyond the next crater, the next dead tree, and hoped that their diligence would find the magical hop-scotch-step that could keep those enemy bees (bullets or other missiles) from stinging them. Even if it came down to THIS patch of grass looked soggy, where THAT patch looked a bit firmer, and we could move a bit faster off it, and on to the next piece of shelter. Little things mean a lot, when the snap of missiles fills the air. Its easy to see how the common man in the trenches becomes superstitious.

And even if we are simply marching through plain American countryside, the likes of what was faced in ACW times, we still had inconvenient ditches, rail fences, bushes, dips, knolls, wild berries, streams and impenetrable thickets. There is a natural tendency to swerve away from dense obstacles, towards open ground. Or to swerve towards what we perceive as a safer passage --- that dip in the ground. And columns don’t pursue the ruler-straight surveyor-driven lines that are so encouraged in Tournament play. Whenever a column of men hit a patch of rougher ground that is angled to the front of the column (even if that obstacle is nothing more than light snow), then the column tends to veer off at a bit of an angle.

Most of the battles in the ACW were fought over scrub forest, rock-strewn ground, and so on which meant that the “battle line” was skewed, twisted, and developed gaping holes. It's no wonder that brigades advancing in a line soon became disconnected from each other, from their supports, and from their supply. In some cases regiments even 'lost' their sister regiments. Nothing like arriving in front of the enemy line (possibly not even the right piece of enemy line) all alone and in the firing spotlight with no friends in sight. Probably that accounts for a good percentage of the battles appearing to see-saw back and forth with attacks and counter-attacks arriving from some very strange quarters but that's the reality, so wargamers need to understand it. It’s all very nice to measure in a straight line across a tabletop with no impediments but that ain't the way it was. All we really do is use various Solo mechanisms to inject a little reality and gain a little insight into the conditions under which command and control had to operate (note 6).

Now, we can simulate that rough ground (where every dip and elevation seemed so critical in deciding who made it through) by using a matrix of randomly laid-down playing cards (note: those tiny card decks that are used for kids or for playing Solitaire are particularly well-suited to this). Take any grid area that we are going to work through, and we lay down a bunch of cards, face down (so we don’t see the face value on the cards just yet). Lets suppose we have an area in front of ONE patrol, of about 10 cards wide by 5 cards deep. Oriented the face-down cards all the same way (with the narrow edge toward us, and the long edge length-wise between us and the enemy).

And we can set up some rules to let us “see” a couple of yards in front of us, just like someone peeking out of the trench, getting ready to make that mad dash when the signal comes. We get to turn over the card immediately in front of us, and one to either side. Red means the ground is a bit higher (like the edges of missile craters, dead trees, rocks and such), and black is for lower ground (crater bottoms, ravines, foxholes trenches or stream beds), and we’ll reserve the Face cards (Jack Queen King Ace and Joker) for other events. If nothing else, when our platoon goes over the top, they are going to “drift” toward the relative safety of that dip in the ground to our left, where they are marginally less vulnerable to enemy fire.

With all the incoming fire, metal flying all over and hitting comrades with all the attendant gore, screaming, emotions, madness, blurred vison due to sweat and blood and smoke and whatever, getting in the eyes, in the lungs, just plain tripping over a log or stone or clump of vegetation, stepping in a concealed gopher or ground hog hole, shoe laces coming untied sometimes causing trips to occur, shoes coming right off your feet due to united shoelaces and mud or a cannonball, that translates into a big mess in the close order formations of those times. Some original/primary sources and paintings and sketches do a good job of describing all the confusion, chaos, and mayhem, but it's still hard to portray all of this in a wargame. Too little, and we’re sanitizing the situation; too much, and we get branded as some kind of politically incorrect monster!

The neat thing is that we can apply this kind of logic to almost any terrain that we face --- even the North West Frontier in skirmish play. See, that’s the great beauty of doing our own Solo rules --- its easy to transpose the ideas behind these rules to fit any of our other needs.

Down and Dirty A quote from a Bruce Catton book has stayed with me 30 years or more --- Catton wrote "The longer a soldier is in the field campaigning, the less he looks like a soldier and the more he looks like a day laborer." And this should be our motto, slung up over the painting bench! Wargamers all need to take a leaf from Model Railroad people, and start weathering their little guys! After only a couple of shots with those ACW Rifled Muskets, the troops ended up black-faced with the blow- back from the rifles. And no matter which side of the conflict, their uniforms became a patchwork of colors, not just one uniform hue. If we want to add realism to our Solo efforts, a good place to start is to get our little guys looking more Down and Dirty (note 13).

Effective Firing Ranges This is a good point to bring up another topic that is near and dear to the hearts of all Solo gamers, and that is the thorny problem of Effective Firing Ranges. See, if we take a period like the American Civil War, we had Rifled Muskets that were capable of lobbing a whopping great .577 bullet for a mile. Yet this wasn’t anywhere NEAR the distance that most firefights took place. Now, its not our intention to resolve the issue here, but simply to point out that we should ALL have a look at the firing rules of Our Favorite Rule Set, and see if maybe its time to try some modifications.

As a first blush, for ACW period, we may want to adopt something like the following (Taking Rifled Muskets as the baseline): 15mm 25/28mm

Close Range 2'' (100 yards) 5” Normal Range 4'' (200 yards) 9” (note) Standard Long Range 10'' (500 yards) 20” Elite Long Range 12'' (600 yards) 25”

Again, don’t take THESE numbers as gospel, just modify them to something we are more comfortable with. Notice that Effective firing ranges are WAY below what a man with a bench rest could produce using the same weapon. That’s because the accuracy of the weapon was dependant on a cool head (setting the sights at the right place), few shots fired (so the firer wasn’t trying to ram the musket passed the bayonet with skinned fingers as a result), level ground (because even at standard ranges, the bullet’s trajectory is an arc, and minor rises or falls in the land have to be taken account of), and so on. Many Civil War battles were between parties engaged at 200 yards or less!

As an aside, one way to limit longer range fire is to use a lot of woods, hills, crops and ridges like all ACW battles had. If you continually fight on a flat surface with limited terrain, you will see more long range infantry and artillery fire. Clutter up the field more and you will be amazed at how much this reduces long range fighting.

Giving them Heck --- or Hold Till You See the Whites of their Eyes Brent Nosworthy (an historian, writer and war gamer), explains in his book "Bloody Crucible of Courage", some of the many reasons why only 1 or 2 percent of all American Civil War small arms fire (on average) ever hit anything (although at very close ranges, the hit ratio was much higher). Effective fire at more than 250 yards in the heat of the moment just wasn’t accurate enough. Once we exceed the range of the flat part of the trajectory, and need to take into account the plunging effect of the bullet’s arc, human error looms large. Perhaps the most effective single volley of the Civil War occurred at The Battle of Cross Keys in 1862, when a large Ohio regiment of Germans advanced across an open field until it was 20-30 yards away from the opposing tree line, where a Rebel Brigade of Ewell's Division was formed. The ensuing volley from Ewell's men caused, in seconds, about 50% casualties amongst the Ohioans (note 8).

After the initial volley the subsequent fire (Regulars excluded – better training more experience etc) could at best be described as ragged. Most shot actually went high or wild, added to which green troops omitting the percussion caps on the nipple under pressure didn’t help (one rifle found at Gettysburg had no less than thirteen rounds rammed into the barrel! – volunteers for Ordinance Sergeant, please form a line). The point is, when the pressure is on, the majority of the line fired much fewer shots per second, and the effective range of that firing dropped dramatically.

Suppressive Fire Troops under fire (even if it wasn’t very effective fire) also reacted differently from on a parade ground. It wasn’t that unusual for Green troops to go to ground if they felt they had been hard hit, regardless of the period. And not just “Green” troops, either --- During the American Civil War at Laurel Hill, the Yanks opposite the Reb lines were asked to perform some diversionary attacks or to carry the position whenever Grant thought the Rebs were too thin somewhere on the line. In most cases, the Yanks got up, advanced a short piece, then went to ground because of the heavy fire (remaining until night and then withdrawing).

And it was very difficult to get them back up again – even if we wanted them to “just” retire. There is an example of a green Union regiment going to ground at 150 yards and a veteran support regiment walking over them because they just would not move! Troops at Fredericksburg were recorded as staying in the folds in the ground in front of the stone wall on Mayres Heights all day (couldn’t go forward but retreat was also fatal --- a case of self preservation (note 6).

Long Range Fire Frederick the Great made some appropriate comments on long-range canon fire: “It sometimes happens," he says, "that the General in command, or some other General, is himself forgetful, and orders the fire to be opened too soon, without considering what injurious consequences may result from it. In such a case the Artillery officer must certainly obey, but he should fire as slowly as possible, and point the pieces with the utmost accuracy in order that his shots may not be thrown away. Such a fire is only pardonable when the General wishes to attract the enemy's attention to one point, so as to make movements in another."

In other words, long range canon fire isn’t all that effective, especially before WW1! Here are some specific Artillery orders from Col Henry J Hunt, Chief of Artillery (who served under McClellan in the 1862 Army of the Potomic)

”In the fire of Artillery accuracy is of far more importance than quickness. The fire should be slow while the enemy is at a distance; it is to be quicker as the distance diminishes, and is to become rapid when canister shot is being fired at effective ranges, "The proper expenditure of the ammunition is one of the most important duties of an Artilleryman. An officer who squanderers the whole of his ammunition in a short engagement proves himself incapable of appreciating the due effect and use of his arm, and incur the heaviest responsibility. There are moments in which we should not fire, or only very slowly, and others of a critical nature in which there should be no question of saving ammunition; but the latter are only of short duration and do not lead to a lavish expenditure of ammunition; while the inefficient, constant fire at long ranges always has that effect." (note 15).

Hunt was a great exponent of the artilleryman’s art. He understood that removing enemy artillery by accurate fire was the first order of business, second to disrupt, annoy, and inconvenience the enemy infantry forming up or sheltering, and last to rest the guns prior to an infantry assault ready for the use of canister to deplete the attacking force. He actually rode up and down the gun lines at Gettysburg on July 3rd (from Cemetery to Round Top) three times and paused his guns readying 50% with canister for the expected assault,, changing damaged batteries for reserve ones and so forth. The result as they say is history but may be he played a greater part in it on that day then history has seen fit to attribute.

Too often we see demo games with long-range fire that is far too accurate for the period (note 17). This is a great place to do our own research and make sure our rule set is “damped down” to suit.

Obstruction of View Due To Smoke For earlier periods (prior to the introduction of smokeless powder), sometimes the smoke could obstruct the view. However, this report (from ACW re-enactors) shows the proper place for the effect. “Skirmishers acting in the open have no ability to obstruct visibility with their bodies, as could a close order line. Neither is the black powder smoke from a diffuse skirmish line sufficient to obstruct sight either (except in woods, where the smoke is kind of trapped by foliage and lack of breeze)– I have watched hundreds of skirmishers firing in front of our battle line, and we can always see right through them to the enemy positions. A battery's visibility would be far more obstructed by the fire of its own weapons. A salvo from a battery absolutely obstructs their sight, and for a few moments hides the guns behind a billow of black powder smoke as well.” (note 15)

But it is worth remembering that the climatic conditions have an effect also. In hot humid still air (think Gettysburg on day three) the tendency is for the smoke to roll forward from the guns quite slowly and its dissipation takes longer (and the same holds true for firing on the edge of wooded areas). In more windy conditions it will go with the wind and also dissipate much more quickly restoring the gunners view. The number of batteries firing also affects the situation, so the mass batteries of the Confederates in their arc actually contributed to their inability to see fall of shot, and that combined with the trails digging in resulted in overshoot. The Federal batteries also suffered the same effects of weather and gun concentration which caused their counter battery fire to over shoot the Confederate guns and cause casualties to the infantry in the woods to their rear instead while missing the guns they were supposed to be concentrating on. Some Confederate brigades had suffered 200 – 300 casualties before they formed up for the attack simply from the overshoots (note 16).

Re-supply Another key element that we can consider modeling is a limited ammo supply. The easiest way to take this into account is to have a stack of pennies that corresponds to the available clips (or loose rounds, or bags of arrows) that our men have available for the attack. As a first pass, troops in line shouldn’t carry more ammo (whether arrows or bullets) than they would expend in three turns of “full-out” firing. There might be an ammo mule following the unit, with enough extra ammo/missiles for 3 more rounds of play. After that, the ammo has to come from the local (divisional) supplies. Most armies were notoriously stingy about issuing “consumables” like arrows or bullets, and command didn’t believe in over-supply, because they thought the extra stuff would just be wasted on non-viable targets (firing at enemy outside effective range, or enemy behind cover, or similar). And to some degree, maybe they were right. Sometimes the problems came from ill-defined chain-of-command, or generals who didn’t much like each other, and who decided to “do their own thing”. To use the Army of Potomac in 1863 (at Gettysburg) as an example, the artillery was brigaded at Corps level with additional Artillery reserve of one regular and four volunteer brigades. This caused a problem or two in actual battle because, though Brigadier General Henry J. Hunt was Chief of Artillery, his “orders” (read, advice) to “cease artillery fire” to conserve ammunition, was completely ignored by Major-general Winfield S. Hancock. Hancock ordered his Corps artillery to continue firing to “bolster the morale of his infantry” (note 11). Lee’s concept of the grand battery was good, but the smoke generated meant that many guns were firing blind after a couple of rounds and as the trails dug in on each recoil the elevation increased causing the shot to creep up and over the slope (the infantry were down slope behind a stone wall) so the artillery and then rear areas got a pounding not the infantry which was Lee’s intent (note 12). That fear of “wasteful” firing was to prevent the mass deployment of sub-machine guns for years after they were developed and the bugs worked out. Man-carried mass-firepower had yet to come into its own for another 30 or 40 years. And even then, there were reactionary forces that still tried to limit the ammo supply for “economic” reasons.

Who says we get the “right” ammo? For any period? One way of simulating this is to paint a bunch of pennies with different designations. Lets suppose we are dealing with a 100 years war scenario, we could have longbow arrows, crossbow bolts, and even hunting arrows. Then there might be arrows used for the siege equipment that are different again. Reach into that bag, and pull out a random handful of pennies, and that’s what gets delivered. Can’t use ‘em all? Then we have to dispatch one or more of OUR men, to take the rejects off and try and exchange them for the “right” stuff.

Here Comes the Night Another idea worth investigating is Night moves, where we might arbitrarily allot 8 moves for daylight and 4 moves for night moves, with 2 more moves designated as Dawn and Dusk. The setting sun or rising sun could become significant as to when an attack would be pushed home, presumably to OUR advantage (with the sun behind us). Obviously for pre-night-scope eras, we’d have reduced ranges of almost everything at night (like half speed movement, and maybe as little as one quarter of the sighting distances). A quite interesting wrinkle would be “hearing” enemy moving around. The idea of setting out trip-wires and tin-cans left out there for someone to knock over and cause a rattle, probably goes away back. Old pottery shards or even dry twigs would give a nice crunchy warning under enemy feet. The British in the North West Frontier had a number of very famous canine pals, who’s principal duty was the early-warning-growl. One mutt named Bobby was eventually presented with a medal by Queen Victoria (unfortunately Bobby subsequently succumbed to a British taxi cab --- guess he never heard it coming).

Night moves give us the possibility of reclaiming our dead and maybe bringing back any surviving wounded. The bandsmen were usually tagged for this nasty job --- pound the drums by day, and transport the wounded whenever that was needed (even going out after dark). And 100 years war archers would also be out there, collecting any reusable arrows (often pulled from the last victim, if that were possible). Course, they may meet up with the enemy, intent on doing the same thing for THEIR side, and then some nasty little skirmishes might take place, between the ghosts in no-man’s land. These little night-fights continued right through to the Battle of Kursk in WWII, where the tank recovery teams from both sides would be out at night, trying to bring the “best” tank-wrecks back for rebuilding. And if the enemy came to close, then a nice little firefight broke out.

Night moves also gave us a chance to “map” the terrain we might have to fight over, the next day. And many a sharp-shooter, armed with a cross-bow through to a modern sniper rifle, would wriggle out to take up their favorite spot in the no-man’s land rubble during the night. This is perfect fodder for some of the little skirmish “side-bar” games that we are going to look at in a later chapter.

It takes a lot of work to capture the true feeling of battle in darkness. It is more than just limited visibility. Units, or parts of units get lost, on the way to who knows where. The grand opening volley (or any volley for that matter) could completely ruin night-vision. Rough terrain like swamps, trees, briars, ponds, or fences that were previously “unknown” to marchers could badly tear up their best efforts. We might experience good moon light NOW, but the very next turn the moon sank into the clouds and we were in pitch-dark again. There are whole new worlds to explore, out there after dark.

Terror Weapons No matter what the period, there have always been terror weapons --- weapons that really weren’t that effective perhaps, but someone thought they would instill significant terror in the targets to justify their existence. A good example was the Congreve Rocket and its like. Some boffin decided that these would scare the Zulus, so they were loaded up and packed off on the mules. Big flame on take off, lots of poof and sparks in flight, one or two Zulus burned with exhaust trails, and the rest of the Zulus pretty much just laughed at them. What was the use of the British sending Thunder- boomers, when the Zulus felt they were the Children of Lightning?

Leonardo da Vinci has been accused of producing similar Terror Weapon designs --- giant arrows that required a cross-bow that was just too complicated to build and maintain. Or short-range siege launchers that had very complicated clock-work springs to power the arm. They took up very little space on a parapet, and gave the defenders great peace of mind, until they were required to do the job. Then the shortcomings of any engineering short-cuts would really become apparent. But they looked so great on paper! (note 3)

Sometimes the “terror” seems more aligned to the NAME given to some relatively mundane contraption. Like the improvised booby-traps that were created during the ACW, when an unexploded shell would be rigged with a trip wire or other improvised trigger. Sure they were lethal, but rarely to more than a couple of curious enemy, poking around some confined area (an old building, or a disrupted railroad tie). But the name! Ah, who would want to mess with a “Land Torpedo!”.

So the point is, no matter what the period, Terror Weapons can have a really interesting role to play.

Fill ‘er Up Reinforcements would usually be parceled out by division --- there were never enough, and usually they were too green to be trusted in the hot areas of the front line. No one really knew if they would stand, or if they would run away once they faced a determined attack (what Bernard Cornwell so descriptively called “seeing the Elephant”). And the local commander had to be careful that these new recruits didn’t catch the battle-fatigue from those shell-shocked vets who couldn’t face going back over the top. Of course, most of the reinforcements were too green to see that head-on attacks were a sure way to win a one-way quick trip to paradise, so whenever the brass need a train-load of dumb guys to charge the enemy and “test” their defenses, then green reinforcements seemed to make up the bulk of the push. Its no accident that this became a staple of many movies.

Multi-national forces (Assyrian times to present times) also presented another problem with not only different languages but problems with the non-interchangeability of weapons and expendable missiles. English longbow arrows are of very little use to Italian-speaking units equipped with cross- bows.

Carry Me Back All kinds of things came in by local transport, although the nearer to the actual front, the simpler the mode. So provisions like weapons and ammo might start off coming by ship, but then be transferred to wagons. which brought the stuff in bulk to the local depot. But from that point the stuff may have had to be transported by something that could navigate more primitive paths and conditions --- perhaps mules or donkeys. And at the end of the journey, it usually required someone to manually hump that stuff the last few yards in a sack on his back.

Lets take a look at the problem of animal-carried supplies, for a minute. The local mules-camels- donkeys are bought up first, at exorbitant rates. Some reports said the cost of a local mule doubled overnight with any whiff of a campaign in the air. Then the weak, the old and the lame mules would all be taken at that same horrible premium, “because that’s all that was available”. Things like elephants would be hired to haul guns, knowing full well that they couldn’t be used on the front lines (elephants are too smart --- most of them turn around and bolt as soon as a gun goes off anywhere near them). So the elephant-gun had to be re-hitched to oxen to pull the gun into firing range.

With the Nile relief column for Khartoum, as well as for the Boer war, mules were rounded up from all around the Mediterranean, as well as from as far away as Missouri in the States. While these were strapping animals at the start of the campaigns, they were not suitable for the climate, and succumbed very quickly in great numbers, to the local diseases. (During the Boer war, the same was true of horses that came from North America; note 6). While we don’t want to belabor this aspect too much, we should keep track of mule casualties during any campaign, knowing that they would be a dwindling, and possibly irreplaceable resource (note: see the Tag Dum Bash campaign, detailed elsewhere, as an example of supply mules).

Feeling Loose The lack of health drinkable water was probably the single greatest threat to most armies on campaign. Men caught no end of horrible diseases from drinking bad water, and it could effectively cripple a whole brigade. Dysentery, Cholera, Typhoid, or simply “the trots”, the effect on a man’s being able to fight was about the same. There are LOTS of reports of the ranks being reduced to only 10% “effectives” because of bad drinking water. But what else could the Army do? Taking water with them was a last-ditch effort.

And THAT means we have to be more concerned with the Bandage Brigade, the wounded who were flat on their back (or worse, strung up on either side of a Camel-pannier) and the walking wounded --- those who were in no shape to stand in the front line, but were still needed to protect their own in the Bandage Brigade (note 4).

Every commander who lead a column into the field had to deal with the problem of attrition. Although he might start with a healthy army of 3000 men, disease and skirmishes en route to the objective might well reduce that force by up to 40% (what with the sick, wounded, accidents, bad travel conditions all taking their toll) before we ever reach the battlefield. Many a commander preferred to populate his army with strong farm-hands, who were used to primitive conditions, and living off the land with little to eat. Those town boys wanted all the things they took for granted --- dry boots, a comfortable bed, wine with their meals, a little lie-down when their feet hurt. And they were the ones who often succumbed first.

All of this translates onto our cheek-by-jowl wargames table in terms of “effectiveness” of any of the combat units at any one time. And instead of simply recording “hits” we may allocate some portion of that as wounded, and recoverable if our system of bandsmen/stretcher-bearers can get to them on time. We may have to make more notes (perhaps using a recipe card that follows the unit) but this becomes infinitely more absorbing than simply charging the elephants.

More to Morale And that leads us to look at Morale when we are fighting these large battles. We need to take into account the physical effectiveness (how many able-bodied men are available to press the attack) as well as the general mental effectiveness of the men (were a significant number involved with a previous failed attempt or two, in which case they may not “charge” full speed and distance, or they many simply balk). How about the unit leader’s situation? Is he still fit to lead? Or is he a hot-head who is bound to earn some glory on the battlefield, and doesn’t care about the attrition in the ranks? Perhaps he’s rattled, but still OK providing the neighboring units to the left and right advance. But if one of them balks, then he might balk too.

In many ACW campaigns the battles fought, even where we have “won”, may have resulted in the enemy withdrawing but our forces are so tired, disorganized, short on ammunition that any attempt at pursuit is out of the question. When troops get the feeling that they’ve “done enough”, its common that they will turn to the task of helping wounded comrades, or just wait for ammunition re-supply, or just plain stop and “get their breath back”.

When troops attack, then the loss of cohesion starts, due to terrain, enemy fire, misdirection, loss of officers and so on. Maybe they take the enemy position but the likelihood of supports being in the right position (or of the reserves arriving in neat formation to do the pursuit job), who are ready and willing to continue the pursuit is really dicey. Even when attacked by a smaller force (for example, half of our number with no artillery) OUR force with artillery suffered more casualties, units got tangled up with each other, couriers / aides got shot (so orders lost) and as a result we were incapable of pursuing the enemy at the end of the battle. Certainly gives us pause for thought on occasion, of just what it must have been like in reality, and how little we really know of what the lowly privates actually had to endure, let alone how the officers felt when their companies, regiments or brigades were so badly mauled (note 6).

So one example would be to track the Morale number on a 1 to 12 scale (12 being straight out of Basic training, and really fired-up and ready to go). We need to “activate” a group before it moves, by rolling “under” the morale number with a 10 sided die. Its automatic that they respond “correctly” at the start. But each time they take a 10 per cent hit, the morale goes down by 1 point. At 80 % they are back to a 10 as the morale count. New replacements only top them up “half” of what they lost, so if they are at 80% and get enough recruits to fill the ranks, they only go up half, or to 90% on the Morale number. As the battle wears them down, they keep on sinking lower. At first (say from a 8 to a 12), this might not affect them much. But as the battle goes on and morale sinks further, they are going to just go to ground. And if the morale goes below 5 (so 4 and under) AND they roll a 1 or a 2, there might even be a mutiny --- walking away from their post. Ooops.

Reserves count. If nothing else, they are needed to plug the holes.

Adding Army Elements that are Seldom Modeled on the Battlefield Don’t forget to include a model or two of some of the dozen or more other elements in the back of the Main Battle Line. Most of them would be on Skirmish/Run-and-hide orders, anyway. Things like the cantina (the food-n-equipment wagons), the camp-followers (hangers-on at the end of the column), and the hired help (the peasants who came along to search for booty on the edge of the battlefield). Then there’s the flock of sheep or other food-onna-hoof stuff, and a whole lotta extra horses (the real column probably had 10 people for every one combatant, what with grooms, pack animals, and swap-outs). We haven’t even touched on other key elements like a portable blacksmith, the whole Siege-train with Ballistas and other elements, or the hoard of priests. One buddy has a beautiful carriage-and-four used for the General’s Actress friend, that he regularly fields. Lightning raids through the lines and onto this soft underbelly of the enemy lines were the main pastime of a lot of the veteran light troops. And they usually found some easy pickings (providing the raiders were fast enough to get away with the booty and back through no-man’s land, or at least into the ground. And that’s a whole different wargame.)

An Intro to Characterization Leadership doesn’t come in one-size-fits-all. Unlike F2F (face-to-face) wargamers, Soloists are always exploring the warts and wrinkles and minor differences between the sub-commanders and the more important unit commanders, too. Any good general always tried to make best use of the various people under him. The flashy charismatic leader might get to head-up the charge on the right. The solid stogy old fuss-budget leader (Like Stonewall Jackson) would be given command where the enemy were likely to attack because obstinate defense was where he shines. The careful nit-picker who is always exactly on time, might get command of the off-board sweeping attack, that has to come in on the enemy’s right hand flank at JUST the proper moment --- when the enemy is engaged, but still hasn’t beat in our defensive forces, sent to hold him up.

We might “assume” that our over-all general acts just like our favorite rule set dictates --- maybe he adds 1 to the die roll for morale when he is within command-range (lets arbitrarily say that is mounted bow-shot distance) of a specific unit or troop. But from that point on, we are going to use some variability to see how the other sub-commanders and divisional commanders do. We want to end up with about a dozen or so “variable” personalities for that large set-piece battle --- two or three sub-commanders and the balance are divisional commanders. We don’t have to figure them all out at the start --- its more fun to find out the individual personalities when each man first moves. That means a bit MORE loss-of-control and as the General, we have to scrabble to keep up with the developing changes.

They Don’t Make Characters Like That, Anymore The other day we were reminiscing with a couple of buddies, about some real characters we used to play with “back in the day”. And the comment came up that they don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Probably just as well, cause I doubt they would be tolerated much in today’s tournaments. Then we sort of realized that the same was true for “real” generals --- lots of them were heavy drinkers, for example, and that ALONE meant they’d never hold on to their commands.

The reverse is also true, where during the ACW, General Lee was held back for political reasons for a whole year, before he finally was placed in command. Sometimes its “who you know” as well as “who you are nice to” that made a difference.

Now, we can make characterization as complicated, or a simple, as WE decide. We can have different attributes for the commanders, as opposed to the NCO’s, as opposed to the Grunts. Some of this helps a lot to flesh-out the after action reports (see the Personality Generator lists, which are chosen by choosing a card from a standard card deck). So we might pull a 6 of Diamonds for our NCO, which says he’s a tea-totaller, and chaste (but under pressure he might revert to being an alcoholic). Does it specifically affect the game? No, probably not. But it adds a lot more interest as we follow Corporal Brown’s career, and wonder if he’s going to remain on the wagon. That same table has lots of darker entries, too. Private Stevens may pull a 4 Spades, 9 Diamonds, 8 Clubs, and we see that he is a Con Artist, who sweats a lot, and has recently healed lash marks on his back. Whoa! Now isn’t that a lot more interesting that being just 7th casting of 9 on the stand? THAT’s why Soloists like

Non Playing Characters Soloists like to make use of civilians and other non-combat characters (or what they often refer to as Non Playing Characters or NPC’s for short). There are a bunch of ways to introduce these into our wargames, and if we look at the Tagh Dum Bash campaign as an example, we start off with mule drivers as NPC’s, and “find” another NPC that develops into a British Lord (because of the card- draws). Turns out he has some sketching skills and some language skills that are useful along the way. Later, we capture a poacher-thief who adds some color, but doesn’t last too long. A twist in the story and we get a Vet and a Reporter in a modern-day hospital, talking about Tagh Dum Bash. Later still, we come across a 13-year-old hostage who is freed from a bandit’s stronghold.

While none of these takes a direct part in any of the battles (although they have to be protected), they all add to the development of the saga. There are times when I wonder if perhaps we get more pleasure from the visualizations and creation of our fictitious campaigns than the actual resolution of the wargaming bit. After 30 years, I seem to be more orientated these days towards delving into what the individual soldier experienced --- his feelings, the scars (both physical and those inflicted on his mind). Could be that all the period research, coupled up with listening to vets, has made us that much more aware of the little guy at the sharp end and perhaps less wrapped-up with just the concerns of higher command levels (note 6).

Where do NPC’s Come From? While there are a number of options, NPC’s generally fall into a couple of versions. Some (like the medic in the wagon train) might be added as part of a scenario. Others, (like the Poacher in Tagh Dum Bash) are the result of a random die roll (from using Mythic GME as a complementary rule set). We could use other tactical cards as an option for calling up an NPC (Sort of like a Chance card does in Monopoly --- “Dando appears and gives a +1 to any unit he attaches to for 3 turns”, that sort of thing). This was more common 10 years back, and usually we prefer other more “realistic” mechanisms for modern Solo wargames play.

Recap In this section we looked at ways of “handicapping” units in a big battle (cheek-by-jowl) with health-related issues, as well as looking at some other aspects that hold one side back (night fighting, re-supply, topping off with green recruits, terror weapons and morale. Then we had a look at “characterization” where specific attributes are given to key figures for either side. We also took a quick look at using NPC’s (non-playing characters) as another way to add color to our After Action Reports.

Now we should START to feel like we are living in a movie --- our favorite movie, but not necessarily at the most comfortable part of the tale! May you always wargame in some interesting times.

Notes: Note 1: Course now a days the 600 of the Light Brigade doesn’t resonate as well as the 300 from the graphic-novel-movie of the Spartans). Note 2: And that’s the likely explanation of how 300 Spartans (and some allies) were able to hold off so many Persians for so long --- the Spartans were toughened up and used to living under terrible conditions, where the Persian army was not. Caesar preferred to recruit farm boys for his legion, knowing they would survive in rougher campaign conditions, where city boys would wilt and die). So if we want to really model a slug-fest, we need to look into all the gritty elements that reduced a unit to the point where it just balked. Note 3: Leonardo was an avowed pacifist, and some people though his real plan with all these drawings of terror weapons was to “leak” them to the enemy (minus a few critical details), who would spend tons of hours trying to make them work, to little or no avail. Note 4: This is something we examine in more detail as part of the Barampta on the Sre Mela campaign) Note 5: Credit due to Dean West (caveman 45) for this idea Note 6: Credit due to Graham Empson for these insights Note 7: And a long note this is, but interesting --- most cavalrymen in the Civil War weighed from 120 to 150 pounds, probably true for 50 years either way in History. Modern Horse-wisdom is that a horse can carry 20% of its weight effortlessly (they can easily carry more, but horses that are not on continuous service nor on marginal feed allowance might differ). A typical saddle horse weighs from 800 to 1100 pounds. A “Morgan” for example, weighs 1100, and an American “Saddle Bred”, a horse which was preferred by Kentucky cavalrymen because it had many gaits and was a pretty big horse, though tall and thin, also weighs at least that much. The Morgan stands 15.2 hands, while the Saddle Bred is almost 17 hands (or almost 6" higher at the withers). It could be that many of the enemy accounts of John Hunt Morgan's men riding "Thoroughbreds" actually refers to Saddle Bred horses, which look almost exactly the same and are also “hot bloods” of ancient and revered lineage. Saddle Breds were known in early America as "The American Horse." Kentuckians preferred either of these breeds if they could get hold of them. If a horse weighs 1000 pounds, it can easily carry 200 pounds. Too, as long as a horse is fed adequately, it gets more muscled and thus stronger the more you ride it. So, a well cared for and fed cavalry horse that is in service day after day is one tough beast. (with credit to Dean West, as posted on JRIII msg 6755) Note 8: For details of this incident, please refer to Krick's "Conquering the Valley." Credit to Dean West as part of JRIII msg # 6716 Note 9: Obviously the extreme range of an ACW rifled musket depends upon careful sighting to allow for trajectory of flight and so on. In general terms we will find few references to fire over 400 yards (cause it was a waste of ammo since hit rate is very small --- less than 2%). Most references are for 200 yards or less. There were instances where units charged without firing and though they suffered heavy casualties the enemy then retreated from their defensive works when the range was less than 30 yards (probably recognizing that a volley at this range by the incoming chargers would be devastating, and the possibility of being bayoneted may have had an influence!) Note 10: Thanks to Dean West of JRIII for the idea, and to Graham Empson for correcting the details in this paragraphNote 11: Note: Actually became somewhat academic anyway since some of his batteries were down to half strength and had to be withdrawn and replaced by reserves which had been moved further south after it too got clobbered --- come to that Meade moved three times after his white cottage headquarters got blasted, first to the yard, then to a barn and finally to Powers Hill to escape the bombardment [bet he thought somebody was out to get him!] (Graham Empson) Note 12: Thanks Graham Note 13: Dean West was recently musing in the JRIII group that “during his reenacting career he had probably spent merely a total of 140 days actually "in the field." During that time he lost two pistols, broke another, had gone through two pairs of pants, three pairs of suspenders, one shell jacket, a couple shirts, five or six pairs of socks, two bridles, four lead straps, had to have a stirrup leather replaced, replaced two hats and had his boots resoled three times. The point being, that active campaigning is hell on clothing, and much as he'd like to think so, he was not really campaigning that much. He cannot recall even one 20 mile hike, though he’d ridden on a "raid" of about 50 miles in two days (and it almost killed him).” Msg 6450. Dean says if he could wear out clothing as a reenactor in four months (of actual "campaigning" over seven years in the Pretend Cavalry), imagine how quickly clothing wore out when the boys were marching 10 to 20 miles a day, day after day (msg 6458, ibid). Graham recounts a conversation with a WWII vet, who said, “Two days in a slit trench with a cup of water [cold] to wash and shave with all that dirt getting in every nook and cranny and we weren’t very pretty to look nor did we smell too good. About the only thing that was clean was your Lee Enfield for obvious reasons”. Note 14: This whole paragraph is thanks to Stephen Staniforth, reported in msg 6392 of JRIII Note 15: Thanks to Dean West from JRIII, msg 6356 Note 16: Thanks to Graham Empson Note 17: Guns have theoretical ranges but also have effective ranges --- too may rule sets fail to distinguish between the two and also give guns more accuracy than battle conditions would actually provide. On a firing range in ideal conditions you have no enemy, plenty of time, no pressure so you can be accurate. With enemy shells falling around you, smoke obscuring your view, your gun trail digging ever deeper, horses dropping like flies [how can you save your gun with no horses left to pull it], nasty officers and gun sergeants screaming at you is it any wonder your accuracy goes a little astray. So yes the effectiveness of long-range is often overstated. Also noted is that they sometimes underestimate the killing power of guns at short range with canister, and the problems when you change ammunition type (think how a crew actually operates a gun. Man at caisson passes round to the carrier who puts it in his bag and proceeds to gun, gives it to the loader. Barrel is hopefully sponged ready then round placed and rammed home, friction primer attached gun elevation checked and everybody put hands over ears and BOOM- change the ammo and the ripple effect is obvious). (Thanks Graham)

17. Generic Solo Opposition Using Unit-Personality Cards June 07 Issue 1.1 Introduction Ever really felt like playing a wargame, but we didn’t have any of our regular wargame buddies available? Maybe we are on holidays, or the weather is bad, or we just can't manage at the moment to get our friends to give up golf (or skiing or whatever) to do wargaming (what’s the matter with them, anyways?). So, we sit down at the wargames table (alone), lay down a couple of armies that we have at hand and duke it out, taking alternate turns and moving each army, trying to amuse ourselves with the best battle under the circumstances. What happens, more often than not, is that we find ourselves stuck between making the move that we know is best and making the move that we feel that a live opponent would make since he would not be aware of our “deviously cunning plan”. We need something more --- what we really need is a sort of “enemy artificial intelligence”, but what we can probably live with, is some sort of an unpredictable “random enemy response”.

The Classic Solo Random-event Approach Turns out that random response is the “heart” of keeping interest levels high, when playing Solo games. And it’s a bit like “how much spice” in that the amount of randomness (like the amount of spice) is a very personal choice. Too much and the whole thing becomes inedible. Too little and the programmed enemy is just too bland. Lets take the example of a Caesarian Roman army going out to look for warbands to subdue. Now, we can just set the Romans down on one side of the table, and a whole host of barbarians on the opposite side (and this did occasionally happen) but a more common scenario was a smaller fight, where the warbands chose their ground (often woody, or with a nice hill to run down towards the Romans in column). So how do we simulate going out to hunt warbands in a Solo set up, using a random enemy response? Well, one way is to set our Roman column down in order-of-march, winding their way through the open glens in a forest, and then use a deck of cards along the sides of the trails (lets say about 2 charge-moves away), to simulate the forest conditions, and the probability of warbands.

First, we lay down the Roman column. Next, we lay down the face-down cards along each side of the Romans, and about 2 charge-reaches away. Then as our column proceeds down the glen, we turn over and expose any playing cards within spotting distance (lets say its 1 ½ charge reaches away). This first card tells us the “state” of the forest at that point. Red cards are closer to the valley track, and black cards are further away. So we’ve created a variable width to the forest walls along the sides of the track. If we get enough cards left over, we can lay down a second layer, and have more than one card turn over. I usually “move” the forest by 1 inch for non-face cards, 2 inches for face cards, and 3 inches for either of the 2 jokers in the pack. So If we turned up a black 3 and a red Queen, then we move that forest wall 2” in (for the Queen), less 1” out (for the black card) or a total of 1” towards the track.

We can use a second card deck to get the presence of a warband at any one point. Black face cards represent a warband, and anything else is empty forest. Now, this is a good example of the classic approach to using a random card draw to spice up your game. And it works quite well, but it is also impersonal --- by that I mean it takes the terrain into account, but not the personality of the commanders and sub-commanders.

Adding Personality How often have we seen it in face-to-face play? We tend to play the player, not necessarily the game. If we KNOW the player is brash, we might use a set-up that tempts them to walk into our trap (warbands in the woods). If we know we are facing a tough opponent, we might set up behind those woods, ready to scoot off to one side, when the tough opponent gets mired down looking under every tree and root for us. If we haven’t played this opponent before we might ask a buddy if HE has had any experience playing the new opponent. Is he tough? Does he favor cavalry charges? What are his weaknesses? In short, what’s his playing personality? Not knowing puts us at a disadvantage.

So --- what we have presented here is a system of “programming” the other guy’s army with a “personality”. This system borrows a bit from other classic miniature-wargames Solo efforts of the past, in that we are using playing cards. This system will simulate the differing (and sometimes frustrating) personalities of unit commanders and their troops. Sometimes they may be hesitant and seemingly unwilling to move forward and take the objective, and at other times they may rush headlong into danger and certain destruction without the slightest regard for the mission.

Set Up First, we set up “our” side of the board. We can set up with one of 6 or so “standard” deployments: using a Forward Approach (with our forces as far advanced as possible), or Deployed-in-Depth (with our forces spread out, but hugging the back of the deployment area); then we can deploy in a “balanced” layout (more or less centered with the mobile units (Cavalry) on either side, OR, we can crowd the left side or crowd the right side. That gives us 6 different set ups to start with, and assumes we are attacking (because in defense, we could add another 4 or more set ups to the original mix of 6). We still have lots more options that we COULD use. I like the “spring-attack”, where we condense all our forces into a small footprint, and “spring” out into a flank attack. Another favorite option is the “Hidden Agenda”, where most of my troops are hidden on deployment (in or behind woods or rough ground), so my opponent has an opportunity to go astray, hunting them down in the wrong hidey-hole.

Once we have set up OUR forces, then we can set up the opposition (using a dice throw if we want to simply “echo” our choices above, or using a separate deck of cards to figure out where the enemy forces go across the back of the enemy deployment zone).

In the case of enemy deployment by card-draw, figure that face cards are heavy units, 6-10 cards are medium units, 4-5-6 represents skirmish/scouting units, and A-2 cards are support- artillery/bombard/longbow units. Jokers are the generals. Deal ALL the cards out (face-down) in 12 piles, equally spread along the enemy deployment area, until they are ALL down.

So in a Medieval game, 6-10 cards are Medium line infantry, 4-5-6 might represent cross-bow skirmishers, Aces or 2’s are longbow and/or bombards, and Jokers are the King and his handful advisers, and J-Q-K are the Knights and or Men at Arms. (If you only have two units of Knights, they get placed on the first two J-Q-K cards that are turned over, and subsequent J-Q-K cards are just “dummies” and removed from play when turned up --- caution, just remove any “dummy” cards; we are going to use the other “real” cards later on).

Enemy Forces: So we will probably end up with a lot fewer actual enemy units than we have playing cards --- that’s OK, that’s what we wanted. By the way, we usually “expect” the automated enemy to get a bit disjointed with this kind of solo game, so we give them some sort of an extra handicap --- say 10 to 15 per cent more troops or more troop-value. The enemy units will get “placed” according to the cards until we run out of THAT particular kind of unit (ie, we draw a face card, but we’ve run out of “heavy units” so the rest of those face cards are blanks). I usually allow for 2 “swaps” of obviously badly-placed enemy cards --- usually one is the general, and usually one is a key heavy unit that is swapped with a skirmish unit near the back of the deployment area. Swaps can be done any time.

Visibility and Scouting: We start off the game facing an enemy that consists of only upside-down cards. We have NO idea if these are “real” or dummies. Its only when we come into medium firing range (or else 2/3rds of maximum firing range) that we can actually “spot” a target for what it really is. Until then, its just a puff of dust, and could be anything from a heavy unit to cattle! It can still take “hits” and suffer losses-due-to-fire, but we don’t know what it is until we get within identification range. (If an enemy general gets 3 hits as an “unknown/unidentified” unit, I still allow the general to be swapped out with some other unit that absorbs the hits, “saving” the enemy general).

Once a card IS within identification range, it gets flipped over (but don’t take the card away! That will become the Personality Card of the next section!), and the hidden card is replaced with the miniature that it represents. The card helps dictate what that unit will then do.

Personality Cards Now we have a single card for each enemy unit that entered the game (the rest of the dummy cards are discarded). Consult the list below for the meaning of the card in relation to the enemy unit. It is a good idea to leave the card behind the unit on the table so we can remember to apply the appropriate special behavior rules during the game.

(And by the way, there are miniature card decks meant for solitaire or kiddy play that are worth looking for, as they are only 2/3rds or half the size of the more common playing cards. Alternatively, when we are using very small-scale figures, I put a string between the unit, leading off to the related playing card, or I use a number behind the unit, and an identical number near the playing cards in a more convenient open area.)

Jokers Jokers are "echoes" meaning that they will behave exactly how the closest friendly unit (at that time) is behaving.

Hearts These are the Stout Hearts! These units seek to accomplish “the mission”. They will deploy in a manner that will allow them to best complete the objective or defend it. The optimum line of sight and self-protection are of secondary importance during deployment to getting the mission accomplished!

2,4,6,8,10 H These are the Brave Hearts! These units charge headlong towards the objective, without any real thought or tactical approach. Blood-lust is high! They seek to accomplish the mission by destroying all enemy units that are between them and the objective. Once they achieve the objective, they just won’t stop! They will then continue attacking the closest enemy unit in a preemptive attack designed to prevent the enemy from mounting a counterattack on the objective. BF&I --- Brute Force and Ignorance! Hoo-rah!

3,5,7,9 H These units advance on the objective using cover and attempting to minimize their casualties. If they are able to assault or shoot at an enemy unit they will, but accomplishing the mission is more important. Once they have reached the objective, they will defend it until another unit arrives. At that time, they will move on to attack new targets and prevent an enemy counterstrike. Competent but cautious --- their heart’s in the right place.

A,J,K,Q H These units try to remain out of sight until they are right upon the objective. They will not divert themselves to assault or shoot unless doing so helps them with the mission. Once they reach the objective, they then will pounce upon it and try to take the objective quickly. A Stab in the Heart! Once the objective has been taken, they will defend it until the game is over or they are wiped out or absolutely forced to fall back.

Diamonds The Diamond card signifies that this unit is primarily concerned with combat --- medals gained in combat are the diamonds that they seek! They will deploy in a manner that allows them the greatest field of fire or the best chance of reaching an enemy unit quickly.

2,4,6,8,10 D These units will always behave in a manner that allows them to inflict maximum casualties upon the nearest enemy unit. They will move to assault if that is their specialty, or blast away with all the firepower they can muster. If some of the weapons are out of range, the unit will advance attempting to bring more firepower to bear next turn. If an enemy unit comes with charge range, these units always assault.

3,5,7,9 D These units seek out the most damaging or expensive enemy units and attempt to engage them. They will even go so far as to maneuver and seek out their preferred targets. They will not bother to attack any target they cannot hurt, instead they will ignore it in favor of one they can hurt.

A,J,K,Q D These units attempt to achieve superior field position. They will move and attempt to take out enemy fortifications or units in and around the objective. Units with this card try to stick close to other Diamond-card-units to offer fire support and back-up in the event of an assault. These units try to be flexible, and survive as long as possible, harassing the enemy and then withdrawing to cover. If this unit is a combat type unit, it will always consolidate after winning a fight and attempt to get back into cover.

Spades Spade units are interested in maximizing self-protection. They dig in, like Spade-work! They always deploy in a fortified position wherever possible, and out of enemy sight. They’ll deploy in a manner that is helpful to the mission as long as the unit is protected from enemy fire by at least a 5+ cover- save (the maximum safe-cover value). These types of units always rapid-fire if they can, in preference to moving.

2,4,6,8,10 S These units do not move unless they have nothing to shoot at. If this is the case, they move forward to the next fortified position (or at least towards one) to take up a new shooting position (and get the old spade out and dig-in again!). Once they acquire a target, they remain there, firing at that target until it is destroyed or until it leaves their line of sight. If presented with multiple targets, it will choose the one it can do the most damage to or has the best chance of wiping out (so they get to bury the opposition!). Preference is always given to the weapon or weapons in this squad with the longest range. These kinds of units will never assault unless the enemy is within foot-charge-reach (6") at the start of the assault phase.

If an enemy comes within assault range that cannot be harmed by this squad, they will move away in the movement phase or evade (if at all possible), in an attempt to get as far away from the enemy as they can.

3,5,7,9 S These units will usually move forward towards the objective so long as there are other friendly units within a double-foot-charge reach (12") of it's current position. If there are no such supports, the unit will move towards the closest friendly unit and take up a defensive position. Shooting is the same as the 2,4,6,8,10 Spade cards, except that preference is given to the most numerous type of weapon within this unit (as opposed to weapon with the longest range). This type of unit will launch an assault only if the enemy is in foot-charge-reach (6") at the start of the turn. If an enemy comes within assault range that cannot be harmed by this squad, they will move away in the movement phase or evade (if at all possible) in an attempt to get as far away from the enemy as they can. A,J,K,Q S These units keep themselves in a position of cover and attempt to inflict maximum casualties on the most expensive enemy unit within range of at least one weapon in the squad. The unit will move towards the objective cautiously, and only if there is another friendly unit within a double-foot- charge reach (12") of the objective.

Units of this type will launch an assault only if the enemy is within double-foot-charge reach (12") at the start of the turn (or they are assaulting an unprotected flank) and if there is another friendly squad within double-foot-charge (12") of the enemy squad to be assaulted (or the friendly squad is threatening the front, while the Spade-squad is threatening the flank).

If an enemy comes within assault range that cannot be harmed by this squad, it will move away in the movement phase or evade (if at all possible) in an attempt to get as far away from the enemy as they can.

Clubs

Club units are the Body-guards, club-in-hand, and the units tasked to do “protection” work. They deploy in a manner that would allow them to screen or reinforce a HQ unit, or an elite or heavy unit. They will not stray any further away from these units than can be covered in a double-foot-charge- move (12"), which we refer to as the “protection range”. On deployment, they “attach” themselves to the nearest previously-unprotected eligible unit. Once ALL eligible units are “protected”, then any extra Club units can double-up previous eligible units (so two Clubs protecting the HQ or leader-figure as an example).

2,4,6,8,10 C These units never move more than their "protection range" from the chosen protected unit. They will fire upon the closest enemy unit to their protected unit or squad. They will move to assault any enemy that comes within either move or assault range of the protected unit. If an enemy unit assaults the protected unit, this squad will immediately move to join in that fight, wherever possible.

3,5,7,9 C These units roam about, usually in front of their protected unit (PU) but within their protection range (like friendly skirmishers or forward scouts). They will attempt to clear out any opposition that comes within range. This unit will attempt to screen enemy fire and keep a continuous skirmish line that blocks the enemy line of sight. If an enemy unit assaults the protected unit, this squad will move immediately to join the fight (if it is able) or skirmishes back and through the protected unit. A,J,K,Q C These units attempt to form up along-side the protected unit, to cover its flanks. They will usually abut-with or stay-within half-a-foot-charge reach (3") of the protected unit for maximum assistance during assaults. (Optionally, we can allow casualties to be taken from this unit rather than the protected one as long as the entire squad is within one foot-charge-reach or 6" of the protected unit.) They will never move more than one-foot-charge-move (6") away and will always try to interpose themselves between their protected unit and enemy units, wherever possible. They never assault unless an enemy unit comes within one-foot-charge-reach (6") of the protected unit.

Optional Rules --- “A Change of Heart”

As an optional rule, when a unit rallies after falling back, draw a new card for that unit. The unit will now behave in accordance with the new card. This would represent the unit getting reorganized, maybe a new leader assigned, and deciding to be more careful, or seeking revenge against the enemy that tried to kill them.

Optional Rules --- a Change of Card In the above examples, we used a common card to denote the type of unit, as well as the personality of the unit. This can become predictable after a while, so the option is to use a different card-pull for the personality card. I generally use a “standard size” deck for the presence of a unit, then pull a smaller kiddy-size card to represent the personality of that unit.

Optional Rules --- The Three-Part Personality Nothing says we have to have “just one” personality governing an army --- we can draw cards for the Commander, his significant sub-commanders, and even a card to give the personality of the men themselves. Think of this as the “Elan” of the General (Charge of the Light Brigade), the “Orderliness” of the mid-level command and NCO’s (who like to have clear objectives and orders), and the “Gung-Ho” factor of the grunts --- who may well throw caution to the wind, and go charging up the hill without orders, in the face of terrible odds, and surprise everyone and TAKE that hill.

Using Common Sense --- Keeping it in Context Most important of all, don't expect the cards to tell you everything about a unit. You have to use common sense as well as the cards to determine a basic guideline of how the specific units will behave. Try to be consistent and keep the card-draw in context with both the Army and the Unit’s capabilities. Remember if we cheat, we aren't cheating anyone but ourselves! (Also known as “Sometimes the Bear gets US!” --- live with it! We don’t have to “win” every Solo battle we play.)

Where the cards seem to contradict basic unit principles, try to make the card fit the unit. Interpret what the card means within the context of the unit’s abilities and format. (So a Heavy Infantry unit won’t act like a skirmisher).

Example 1: We draw the King of Diamonds as the Enemy Saxon Commander’s card. He wants to move towards superior field position (top of that low grassy knoll, where he can deploy his shieldwall), harassing the enemy Vikings and then withdrawing to cover (maybe a local woods or swamp?) The local sub- commander-level Saxon leader figure draws an Ace of Diamonds (same suit, same characteristics as the Boss), so he will endeavor to follow the Commander’s orders down to a “T”. However the rank- and-file of that band of men draw a Queen of Hearts, and while they will obey their local leader figure, they will try and keep to cover, and may well go berserk and try and get in that One Stab to the Heart on an enemy stronghold! Example 2: The Pretender-Pharaoh draws a 9 of Clubs --- that doesn’t mean he will ACT as a skirmisher, but rather that he will ORDER a lot of skirmishers forward, to screen his main battle line. The Sub- commander draws a King of Spades, and HE wants those skirmishers off to one side, so that his bow-equipped heavy units can inflict shots at maximum range. When the Boss’s back is turned, he is going to wave those skirmishers to one side! The Main Battle Line pull a 7 Diamonds. They have NO USE for waiting around for someone to get pin-cushioned. If the Sub Commander is otherwise engaged, they are going to charge down that sand dune, and go tackle the biggest baddest enemy head on!

Example 3: The General for the 7 Years War English troops has determined to stop the French at the Pont D’Augh-naughts. He pulls a 6 of Hearts, which means His Heart is in the Right Place. Competent but not Spectacular (and that makes him a worthy opponent!). However Lt Jeffries of the Grenadier Company pulls a 10 of Diamonds, which means that Lt Jeffries is a bit of a hot-head, who will try and inflict a maximum of casualties on the nearest enemy, even if that is a low-value target, and even if Jeffries’ attack pulls him out of position. (Not a man to be trusted to “hold” position!). Now we come to the Grenadiers themselves --- an Ace of Diamonds! That means they have more medals on their chests than the next two units, combined. They will spread out in line to give one great volley, and then fix bayonets and charge, till they run out of steam! Some Thoughts on What Solo Rules Do (And What They Don’t Do These Solo rules are not intended as new “extra” abilities for units. We might occasionally get the impression that certain units may want to defy restrictions placed upon them in the game, or become fearless, ignoring terrain or whatever. These rules are, by necessity, broad and unfocused. They were meant to apply to all types of units in all armies. So the vocabulary is not intended to be exclusive, nor is it inclusive. Just try and use common sense to apply the card results to our units in context (See Using Common Sense, above).

If the card suggests that the unit should do something which is obviously impossible (due to the scenario, terrain or other game factor), just have the unit do the “next” most logical thing --- don’t charge that machine gun when the next most logical thing is to keep it busy, at a distance. The whole purpose of cards is to generate an interesting "Personality for the other side” in a solo battle, to inject an unknown or un-thought of variable, so adapt that and do whatever you think is most feasible.

Solo gaming is not a one-for-one replacement for over-the-table gaming. People that attempt this are usually disappointed, because just “optimizing both sides during their move” ends up being tasteless, and more of an exercise in book-keeping. Solo gaming isn’t better nor worse, but “different”. It uses our favorite rules, so we become a better player if we add solo gaming to our usual club night or tournament experiences. But Solo gaming has its own unique flavor, and several related attractions. · We can take the time to “optimize” the rules and look up anything we don’t know · We can take the time to do a decent set of maps, so we can reconstruct the game · We can replay from some key point, with a different strategy and tactics · We can add as much (or as little) “personality” as we want to, borrowing from Role Playing Games · We can write up a nice little After Action Report --- sort of a personal diary that we can revisit · We can pause a game, and improve the paint on a unit we’re moving (shading, touch-up, whatever) · We can “link” successive battles into a little mini-campaign · We can model things like Transportation or Supplies or Medics that aren’t normally wargamed

Parting Thoughts This system offers several other interesting possibilities: · We can deal cards out to both armies and play them out to test army ideas and get new strategies. Nothing says that we have to have the “right” painted-up troops to try a different army (or even a different period). · We can let a new player draw cards for his units to aid in his decision making process, and help them to concentrate on learning the rules. It can also serve as a handicap to help a weaker side. · Use this Solo system for allied units during our regular battles --- allies may not be all that cooperative with our commander. This will help give our allies a unique and separate feel. Alternatively, we can field a third smaller partisan army, that may cause trouble for both our traditional face-to-face sides, trying to get us both to get out of “their” country. This is a LOT of fun. · Arrange to play a regular game with an opponent where both of us use these rules on our units. To keep things “sensible”, roll a d6 for each unit-to-move and draw a card for it only on a 3+. That card stays with the unit from then on, throughout the game. · You can adapt the rules to Saga, or a whole host of many other miniature wargames rule sets.

Credit due Very little that we find is 100 percent new and original material. We usually build on the backs of other contributors, and this essay is no different. The bulk of these ideas were originally worked out by Graywinter, and posted by Raygun1966 on the SoloWarGames web-site in Feb 2006. They were SO good, that they deserved reworking a bit, to make them more universal in nature. In this version, we are aiming to adapt them so they can apply to ANY rule set, and ANY period (from Chariot wars to hyper-modern).

18. Scouting for Solo Wargames and Variable Terrain

Preamble Two of the biggest problems facing any army commander in the pre- radio-equipped days, were establishing the "real" terrain situation, and finding the enemy. We might have old maps, that had roads slightly out-of-position, or that showed bridges that had long since been destroyed. We might think a ford was navigable, only to find the river at that point was in full flood. We could come around a bend, and find a new watch-tower or improvised defense. A road could be marked on the map as a "main route" and turn out to be a goat track (or vice versa --- a goat track might have been widened into a significant road).

When our scouts did manage to "see" something, it could be an undetermined crowd (like a wedding party or even a caravan of traders) or it could be a serious threat (some sort of armed band of men, lurking in the woods). So we have to first locate the "disturbance", and then figure out if it is hostile, and beyond that we need to know the quality and quantity of the opposition (note 1). Assuming that our Scout makes it back alive, then we have to deal with his (variable) ability to impart what he really saw and what he really knows to whoever gathers and assesses that intelligence. In the meantime, that enemy body of armed men that he "sighted" may have moved! In this case, we can simulate this by "moving" a couple of blank counters (face down) in several different directions, and only turn the counters over (to expose the "real unit") when we get within scouting distance again. Counters that are "sighted" (and turned over and proved to be dummies) get removed from play, while the rest keep moving, until they are properly "sighted".

Typical March Security For the sake of brevity, lets assume we are commanding an "Imperial" column of march --- doesn't much matter if it were an Ancient Egyptian "Imperial" army, or a Colonial British "Imperial" army (or even an American Civil War Union army), the principles behind March Security and Scouting are approximately the same. We are using the idea of an "Imperial" army to mean a large, well-organized state- controlled army (as opposed to a rabble of warbands), regardless of the time-period. Oh sure, a more modern army is going to be better- drilled and have a more-uniform way of reacting, according to their operations manual, but there is more in common between large aggressive organized armies, than there are differences --- the weapons and the names for the officer's ranks might change, but the role and execution of the scouting and march security for a Colonial period army is going to be a good "first approximation" for how an Assyrian army or a Roman army acted. We may not have any Assyrian army tactics manual, but this is a case where form follows the needed function.

If the Imperial column of march was large enough (note 2), they usually had several concentric lines of scouts --- the farthest patrols out front and out on the sides were usually composed of one NCO (or Junior Officer) and 4 mounted Scouts, acting about 2 miles in advance of the column. If they were going North, then there would probably be 3 such patrols (North, North-East and North-West). And there would be a mounted reserve about a mile back (which could replace scouts reporting in, or go and scout other disturbances as they came up), followed up 200 yards back with a half-platoon of foot (note 3) as an Advanced Party (onto which the scouts could fall back). About 800 yards behind that, the second half-platoon of foot acts as a Support hinge, between the scouts-and-advance-party and the main column.

The idea is that if the Imperial scouts came under attack, they could fall back on the Advance party, and the Advance party was usually strong enough to hold its own against a disorganized enemy (or warbands) until the Support joined it. The whole forward group would delay any incoming attack long enough for the main army column to react, and move into the appropriate form of battle line.

Modeling the Scouts We need a way to model this scouting arrangement, so we are going to use a map and some coins to condense the effort down to something like a more manageable scale (6mm or so). We need a dozen pennies (in groups of 4 pennies with one dime for the NCO) as the scouting element (note 6). Notice that the scout-onna-penny depicts the AREA that he can see and control, not the area that the scout stands on (as with formed infantry in a firing line), so it's really a kind of extra-wide skirmish/scouting base.

These three groups can fall back on the Advanced Party (represented by one quarter, and 6 more pennies with one more dime as the NCO), followed up with the Support (which is a second quarter). So what we end up with is this:

**** **** **** Scouts (pennies with their bases touching, note 4) # # # NCO's (or Junior Officers, as dimes)

****** Advance Party Scout-support (pennies) # NCO (dime)

--@-- Advance Party half-platoon of foot (quarter)

--@-- Support Hinge half-platoon of foot (quarter)

The Meeting Engagement For every big set-piece battle that has been written up in the history books, there were undoubtedly a much larger number of much smaller meeting engagements, some of which produced a significant battle, and some that didn't --- and that's what we want to simulate with a map-based scouting game. The Imperial forces head North to engage the enemy, but that enemy could arrive within an arc, from North East through to North West. And if we are unlucky, some enemy elements might even arrive unheralded off to our flanks (something old Stonewall Jackson was infamous for), so we need to have SOME scouts held in reserve, that can deploy off to the sides of the Imperial column, as well. This threat was especially true with unruly tribes (from Amorites to Gauls to Zulus), who covered enormous distances in relatively short order. There were ALWAYS some wily opponents who were known to go around by some goat-path, and ambush us on a flank, if the Imperial forces weren't fast enough on the march (to get out of the trap), or were not careful enough with their March order security.

What Can Possibly Go Wrong? So with that many scouts, we ask, "What could possibly go wrong?" And a dozen or more answers (with some estimates on the probability) range from:

· Finding the Enemy Scouts (about 6% probability) · Finding a "significant" Enemy body (about 2% probability) · Finding a fortified enemy position --- could be a watchtower, a village, or a camp (4%) · Finding friendly survivors (like an outpost, falling back on the column; 2% probability) · Our scouts wiped out (and we therefore don't knowing ANYTHING; 6% probability) · One or two survivors who come roaring over the hill like Chicken Little, crying that the Sky is Falling, and drawing all our military efforts and attention completely in the wrong direction of any subsequent attack; (about 4% probability) · Our Scouts caught in some potential ambush out there (about 10% probability) · Our Scouts weren't up to the task of finding the hidden gorge with the bad-guys (10% probability) · Finding partisans --- local forces not aligned with us OR with the enemy (4% probability) · Finding gun-runners --- suppliers of arms to the enemy (4% probability) · Finding important details about what's "over the hill" in terms of terrain (like road conditions, bridges, towns, roads, fordable rivers, and so on; 25% probability) · Finding some important "clues" but no living souls (about 10% probability) · Coming under enemy fire, and forced to withdraw prematurely (so no "good" info; about 10% probability)

Notice that by placing probability estimates we can then assign card values (every single card like the Ace of Diamonds, has an approximate value of 2% probability in a deck of 52 or 54 with both joker). So now we can reverse-engineer the probabilities to fit the deck of cards.

· Odds of turning over a specific card, like the 3 Hearts --- 1.85 percent (that's about the same odds as throwing a 17 or an 18 over 3 x 1D6 die by the way --- rare as hen's teeth!) · Odds of turning over ONE of the two Jokers --- 3.7% (we are only a bit less likely to roll snake eyes on 2 die, which comes up 2.78% odds) · Odds of turning over one of the 4 Diamond Face cards (J,Q,K,A) --- 7.4% · Odds of turning over one of the remaining Diamond number (non- face) cards --- 16.6% (same odds of rolling one 6 on a 1D6 dice) · Odds of turning over a specific suit (ie any Heart) --- 24% (the odds of rolling under a 5 count on 2 die is only 27.78 by contrast).

So the point is, we can easily set up a table showing the correspondence between the deck of cards and the probability that we want.

Even assuming we get a "live" Scout comes back (and assuming he really knows the truth of the matter in that particular sector), is he capable of transmitting all that detail through to the General? Or does he stutter and take forever to get it out? Or is he held in contempt by the General (perhaps as a womanizer or Poodle Faker), such that the General doesn't want to credit his information as being accurate?

Number of Reports It seems logical to limit the number of Scouting Patrols we have out at any one time. The model we chose has 3 forward patrols and the potential of a 4th made from the Advance Party. Each patrol requires an NCO, and in the best of times, he would lead from the front! Also we probably want a balance between "Lots of Great Intelligence" (which takes tons of time and resources), and "the need for speed" (we can't just dawdle around forever, or there will be a row back home). Put another way, if the column is moving too fast, it will probably outstrip the usefulness of the scouts --- we'll arrive at the danger zone before the Scouts get back to warn us of the danger.

The Scouting Sidebar Simulation Now, we could set up a nice 6 foot by 12 foot table, spend a couple of weeks putting down appropriate terrain modules, and probably suffer burnout from trying to keep up the scenery production schedule (long before our highly detailed 28mm scouts took to the field, er, wargames table), or … we can come up with some sort of compact scouting game, using the coins, and plot the results on a suitable map. Sort of a Play-the-Scouting-game and if there's no action, move the whole column forward "x" amount, and play another Scouting-game turn. That way our whole battle field can be simulated with a standard 8 ½ x 11 inch page, and the representative "figures" can be a couple of 6mm figures, which is pretty close to coin sizes.

Lets take a look at a Scouting game, using cards-n-coins. We send out 3 sets of 4 Scouts plus an NCO, and use the cards to "call" what they see. They are all pretty spread out --- figure ¾ inch to 1 inch apart in 6mm scale (the idea being to keep within touch, either sight or bugle or pistol shot). There are advantages for using the 4 Scouts up front, with the NCO held as the local reserve in the middle, but by all means, go ahead and experiment with some different set-ups. Remember, Imperial forces usually had NCO's that lead from the front! We'd suggest 3 such forward-scout-groups, and we back these 3 forward- groups up with a Scouting Reserve, under a 4th NCO, that is around 4" back in 6mm scale. The end result should be a bit of a "fan" spread out in front of the main column. If we are moving in dense-cover, or other high-risk areas, we MAY want to have 2 more scouting groups (4 pennies + 1 NCO each) off to the sides (East and West of the main column).

That "fan" is going to get distorted by the terrain, as well. Scouts go like clappers on the flast and in the open, but they may get severely slowed down if they are "scouting" rough ground. And they may not be able to pass through some kinds of terrain at all (dense woods being too obvious a place for an ambush, and swamps favoring the local inhabitants who know how to avoid the quick-sand). Sometimes a scout can only "screen" this kind of terrain --- hold a watching brief from a safe distance, and yell loud and clear if anything or any one moves.

Modular Terrain A quick note on Modular Terrain, as it really improves the fun with this Scouting game. This is the subject of a whole chapter in an upcoming Solo book (previewed in the files of the SoloWarGames Yahoo group), but here's the basics in brief. We want a center "line" or main road, made up from several S-shaped-curved map-modules, running North-South. We want some other map-modules that give some level of detail on either side of this main road. If we chase some bandits OFF the sides of this "known world", we want to be able to repeat the whole process all over again, as if the bandits had simply gone from the main North-South valley into a parallel valley that also goes North-South. That's the idea in a nutshell, and one look at a couple of these modules makes the whole thing clear --- it's one of those cases where a picture is really worth a thousand words.

To get into more detail, we draw up three different SETS of interchangeable (and intermateable) map-modules, each one drawn up on an 8 ½ x 11 inch standard piece of paper (so we can photocopy the masters, and they lie flat on a table). We are going to give each North or South (narrower 8 ½ inch) edge a unique deck-of-cards value (like the 5 of Spades), so we can randomly select a specific map on- the-fly using a standard deck of cards. Two roads cross each map- module --- the main North-to-South road, and a goat-trail that goes East-West. Think of them like a lop-sided "X" shaped map, as drawn by a little kiddy, so the entry point and exit points are a bit twisted, relative to the edge of the paper.

The North-South Main Road Have a look at the accompanying map-module drawings, cause they will make it much easier to follow the written explanation that comes next.

The first two sets of map-modules are for the middle, and are "alternating" and shaped like "S curves" that fit into the middle of the proposed campaign board. Think of the first (which we are going to call the Diamond North-South map-modules, cause we are going to mark the first one with an Ace of Diamonds on the bottom edge) as wandering from the bottom left to the top right. For the second set of map-modules (which we are going to call the Heart North-South map- modules, cause we are going to mark the first one with an Ace of Hearts on the bottom edge) wanders the OTHER way, from the bottom right to the top left. All the North-South entry points on this map are centered at 1-7/16 inches from a corner, so we can draw more variations, and all the roads and the landscape features mate up with the next module.

Flip either of these center map-modules 180 degrees (North going where South was), and the opposite (unmarked) edge becomes the next card-number up (so, the "2 Diamonds" goes opposite to the "Ace of Diamonds" and so on), and similarly we have the "4 Hearts" (goes opposite to the 3 Hearts).

OK, we can draw up more of these map-modules, so we alternate going up the main road with a Diamond-center map-module, then a Heart- center map-module, and that gives us a nice gentle "S" curve for the main road that can be selected from a simple 1d6 dice throw initially, and from a standard deck of cards as we add more map- options. Each individual map can have SOME variations in the twists of the road, or in the position of the hills or in rough ground and other terrain, to suit OUR campaign and tastes.

We probably want to end up with at LEAST a 3-sheet x 4-sheet map- module matrix to start off (a dozen in total), and then we can add more as required. Each of those maps represents ONE wargames table, so that gives us a huge area to play our map game on --- like 12 tables! That's the equivalent of 15 foot x 36 foot!. Remember we said at the beginning that we COULD repeat the center maps on the outside of either of the side maps, so we really have an unendingly wide field, and we could play on a 6 x 6 or 8 x 8 module field if we wanted to. More to the point, we really don't have to decide the actual limits of the map-field --- we can just play the game, and develop our little "known world" as chances and chasing after the enemy dictates. THAT's why we want to make up more map-modules than we need in our initial 3 x 4 matrix --- something might suggest that we need to go off on a tangent!

Subsequent map module variations will all have "new" unique card names for the North and South edge (so one will have 5 and 6 of Diamonds, the next will have 7 and 8 Diamonds, and so on). The reason we have a label for BOTH ends, is because flipping them (North to South) may give us a completely fresh set of tactical problems that we have to solve.

Done more than we can handle with a deck or cards? No problem! We can start all over again with the BACK of those 8-1/2 x 11 inch master charts. So we end up with TWO maps with a 3H and 4H on the edges, and we can choose which map with a flip of a coin or similar. (Also note - -- because we need PAIRS of cards, we don't use the King in the center panels --- just draw another card).

Making the Maps Legible The easiest way to make the maps legible is to draw the whole thing in pencil first, cause it's easy to correct any mistakes, and smooth out the width of the road curves. Once we are happy with the result, go back and use different writing tools for each element. The main road should be drawn over with a fine-nib felt pen or equivalent, so it stands out strong. The secondary "goat path" (going East-West) should be in a bold black ball-point, so it is still well defined, but not as in-your-face as the main roads. Don't worry about mistakes, cause you can always use White-Out to correct an error. Leave the contour lines for hills and valleys and such in pencil, cause we can always go back and change things around a bit as required.

A couple of false-starts that I tried and abandoned included painting the roads with acrylic paint, and drawing "everything" in various thicknesses of black ink. The painted versions were a LOT of work, and the paint made them less flexible (couldn't use green hills for sandy desert for example). The version with everything in black ink became too confusing as well --- too many lines, what with hills and elevation lines so we lost the effect of the main roads. Now I stick to using felt for main roads, black ink for goat trails, and pencil for all the rest.

The other false-start was making too many really-twisty-road examples. It's hard to fight over intestines! Keep it simple, and just go for more variations. We can make up specific modules as required --- I have a 2-module fort, and a 3-module hilly pass with a loop and a suspension bridge. They are scenario-specific and I use them when I draw either a King or a Joker.

East-West Goat-Tracks on the Center Map-Modules All of the Center map-modules have a goat-track running ACROSS the main North-South road, and this goat track has uniform entrances on the top left of the West side of every Center map-module, and the bottom-right of the East side of every Center map-module. This gives us an easier job when we come to making up the Side map-modules, cause we only have ONE pattern that we need to match.

Side Map-Modules OK, so once we have a couple of our center-panel maps, then the next thing we want to add to our "standard" Diamond-center and Heart- center map-modules, is a set of East-West map-modules with lots of goat-tracks that we can used for either side, that get marked with Spades and Clubs. These ALL have a secondary goat-track road running North-South situated as far away from the center main road as possible (so for example they run from the bottom left of the West side (with the road itself centered 1-5/8 inches up from the bottom) to the top left of the West side (again, centered 1-5/8 inches down from the top --- they may wander around like an intestine, but that's where they start and stop).

This time when we flip the edges of the new map-modules (so we have a "blank" instead of a 2 Spades at the bottom --- flipping the map 180 degrees and interchanging the North and South sides), we still have the same entry and exit points for that goat-track going to the center, but we now have to use it on the OTHER side of the center maps (although the shape within any one modular map square can be quite serpentine!). Also notice that the position of the entry and exit points for the East-West goat track is the SAME for EVERY center map, regardless of the card-suit.

So basically what we are saying, is that if we have a side map-module that has a 7 Spades on one end, then it will have a 7 Clubs on the opposite end, and if the Spade is at the bottom that map-module MUST go to the Left, but if a Club is at the bottom, that map-module MUST go to the Right. (Sounds a lot more confusing than it really is --- just look at the pictures of the map-modules themselves).

Recap on Side-maps We originally said we had 3 kinds of maps --- two of them that we described are the Diamond North-South map-modules that alternate with the Heart North-South map-modules. The third kind is the side map- module, and it can go ANYWHERE along the sides, but it only orients ONE way with the other two kinds of map-modules (and if we take a side map-module from the East and use it on the West, we have to flip them 180 degrees). So, all these side map-modules will have some Spade designation at the bottom (when they are on the left or the West of the main trail) and a Club designation at the bottom (when they are flipped and used on the right or the East side of the main trail). The standard entry points for these maps are all goat-trail size, and the first trail meanders from top of the East side to the bottom of the West side (sort of reverse of what the goat trails did in the center modules). And the North-South goat-trail is as far from the center modules as possible, entering at the left of the South, and exiting at the left of the North edges of the board (see the diagrams, much easier to follow the text).

Areas of Uncertainty, Villages and Built-up Areas Didn't take long to realize that even with 2 dozen map-modules, sometimes we pulled the same panel often enough that it gets boring. So that's when we came up with the idea of having a bunch of "Areas of Uncertainty" --- these are basically 2" circles on a map (I used a large coin to draw about 3 to 5 per map) where we don't know what's "there" until we scout them out. Once I come in close range (like javelin shot), then the scout "sees" what is in that area --- either we roll a die against a table value, for towns, rough ground, ruins and so on, or we make up a bunch of circle-cards with the values or drawings on the back. If we get "nothing" on that spot, we don't need to worry about enemy forces, and we can move right through them. But if it is an area that might hold enemy troops, then we need to roll for that, to see what we are up against (Mythic Game Master Emulator does a great job at this, cause it gives us both a Yes-No answer, AND an Extreme-Yes (could be double the number of enemy that we expected) as well as an Extreme-No (no enemy, but lots of snakes, so stay clear!)

Most of the Villages are usually located on the side-panels. That gives us a reason for dead-ends (with circles for Areas of Uncertainty) on the side-panels. I occasionally have a "special" set of scenario-specific center panels for any larger towns, or wrecked forts, or other reinforced or improvised defenses.

Other options for these Areas of Uncertainty might be refugees hiding, or a bridge or similar structure that's damaged or otherwise out, or a couple of bandits in hiding, trying to play possum until we pass by. Approaching these Areas of Uncertainty from the North may require a whole different set of tactics than what we'd use if the map is reversed, and we are approaching from the other direction.

When the Scouts Collide The interesting thing is the card deck resolution, when two scouts come into contact with each other. They skirmish, of course, and each pulls a card from a NEW card-deck, reserved for "Scouts Skirmishing". On a number card (2 through 10) they fight, and a loser-by-2 takes a wound for this turn; a loser-by-4 is killed outright; on an Ace, the owner of the Ace successfully flees back to HIS camp, discretion being the better part of valor; on a Jack Queen King, the owner of the face card is captured. On a Jack --- he lies by 10% about his forces; on a Queen, he tells the truth about numbers, but lies about disposition (where they are); on a King, he blabs it all. If a Joker gets pulled, the Scout just disappears --- no one knows if he was captured, or if perhaps he has "gone native" --- just given up on the whole thing and gone to live in Tibet (note 5)

We'll get into the specifics in a moment, but the point is to design an elegant way to handle several elements at the same time, with a relatively simple pull from a deck of cards.

Putting it All Together Now we can start putting together a table (in the Files section), where we draw a card when we come into scouting range of an Area of Uncertainty. Basically the Red suits give us some sort of encounter, and the Black suits don't. Beyond that, we can figure out if there should be a skirmish battle, or a fighting retreat by the scouts, or replacement scouts sent out (after a couple of turns, when they are deemed "overdue/missing-in-action") and so on. Please don't take these are the ONLY way to play it out --- just a good first pass at a BETTER way to play out the Scouting Game.

As usual, constructive criticisms and comments are always appreciated.

Bob Seur D'Armadilleaux Scouting out where the next Oreo box has gone and hidden itself, in the recesses of the fur lined foxhole

Notes: Note 1: Credit due to Krok Free Companie for the basic idea of the 4- step approach to identification Note 2: We are going to use the term Imperial, but it could be Roman Imperial through to Colonial Imperial, and we are going to try and keep the rest of the terminology generic enough to apply to many situations and armies between this range. Note 3: Whether a Platoon or Legion of Heavy Infantry, the principal is the same Note 4: For Roman period, the scouts would probably be irregular horse with bow; for Colonial times, they would probably be native troops equipped with carbines. The principal is the same. Note 5: Credit due to Graham Empson for his ground-breaking work on the scouting game, first laid out in Lone Warrior issue 157 ("C Troup Goes for a Horse Ride to Find the Stagecoach"), and to Peter Walker from his article in Lone Warrior 134 ("The Other Side of the Hill") Note 6: The tree-branch structure for colonial scouting was laid out in "Battle in Africa", a great little compendium with line-of-march and support-wagon details.

Scouting Factors for Scouting Game

Issue 0.1 20 Aug 07

Basic Scouting Factors Basic Sighting

(Note 1) Factor Distance (note 2)

Farmer or civilian ...... 0 18 Basic Solder (Gunslinger)...... +1 24 Scout (Stationary Picket) ...... +2 36 Tracker (sniper, or signals man with telescope) . . . . +3 48

Scout on his own ground ...... +2 Scout on higher ground ...... +1 add 12 tracker on higher ground ...... +2 add 12 Target (like villager) on his own ground ...... +1 Target moving, Scout stationary...... +1

Scout moving, target stationary ...... -1 Target on higher ground ...... -1 Target part of much larger group (posse) ...... -1 Target in Rough Ground ...... -3 Target completely in Woods ...... -2 Target behind hard cover (building) ...... -2 Target behind soft cover (corn) ...... -1

To find out if a Scout sees the target, add up the factors and both sides roll a 1D6 If the Scout sees the target, then roll to see if the target is aware of the scout. Scout rolls a 1d10 (or 2D6 if d10 not available) and target rolls 1d6 (note 3)

Notes:

Note 1: This is rolled PER SCOUT, so if there are 4 scouts in the party, we roll for each set of eyes looking out at the terrain. Note 2: For 25mm this range is in inches, for 15mm this range is in centimeters (roughly half an inch). Note 3: This is rolled PER TARGET, to a maximum of 6 times so if there is a party of 5 farmers or civilians, then the die roll would be repeated 5 times. The direction is unimportant, but the Range is.

More Scouting Ideas

In any of these cases, the next major hurdle is usually the Scouting function. Scouts are the subject of a number of problems, for example: 1. They may not come back from a scouting mission, for whatever reason (caught). 2. They may not have an accurate picture of what lies ahead (“Millions of them”) 3. They may know the enemy are “there” but without any identification of what units or what the specific strength (ie, “Some enemy in the woods”) 4. They may be chased, or deflected, so that the information is late 5. They may decide to try and hold some salient feature, hoping for reinforcement

Even if the scout gets back, with accurate and timely information, we still have several dilemmas: 1. We have conflicting reports (different scout says they are East not West) 2. We have conflicting advice (go for the bridge versus it’s a trap) 3. We need to decide if we react NOW or wait for more troops to arrive

Granted that we can resolve all the above, then we need to look at the road structure: 1. How many heavy units will the road accept until we bog down? 2. Are there other parallel routes that our lighter troops can take? 3 What is the operational security like (ie, can we limit the enemy attack routes)

There’s more to life than scouting for Musicians

Bandsmen as Multi-taskers

Lots of people add a color party to their wargames units, but don't really think about using the bandsmen (musicians) in prototypical fashion. See, the bandsmen were also the stretcher bearers! And when they weren't used for that, they distributed water and ammo from the mules to the forward positions. Remember the movie Zulu? Yup, the kid with the distance-marker stakes was a bandsman (shot dead by friendly fire). We probably want some extra artillery figures to show stretcher duty, and if we get two gunners with the usual empty- hands-arms-at-side, slouched-over (you know, the typical figure for guns) then its an easy mod to make them into a stretcher party.

And if we do this right, the same stretcher party can "carry" a box of ammo on the stretcher, when going out to the firing line.

My stretcher parties are all NPC's (Non Playing Characters), which is to say, they don't usually fight), so I mount them on squares with rounded corners to indicate they are not Active Duty troops. But they hustle out and around the line, collect the wounded, take `em back to the Doc (at walking speed) where they get sorted out into walking wounded (still capable of firing if attacked), visually impaired (bonked on the head, but still capable of loading a gun), or basket cases (loaded into the dreaded Camel panniers).

Bring `em Back Alive These bandsmen/stretcher-party guys were pretty active after dark, the day after a big battle (at least, one that might continue into the next day), looking for the casualty that was left behind on the battlefield. That brings up a neat skirmish game possibility with Boer-War stretcher parties on both sides scouring the battlefield, and possibly running into each other. (Works for lots of other periods, too).

Sniping at the bandsmen was a favorite pastime on the North West Frontier. If the Pathans hit bandsmen from some of the "Green" troops the rest of the men tended to muddle around (so it slowed them up). And even "Trained" troops were likely to try and shoot off a pointless volley (cause the Afghans were well-hunkered-down behind the rocks) to show their rage and displeasure (which uses up ammo). Just don't go shooting the Gurkha's bagpipers --- it only gets them mad, and a mad Gurkha goes berzerk for the next (1D6?) moves!

Another possibility is the wounded bandsman who plays on. (first check if he's wounded, then 1D6 and on a 5 or a 6 he plays on ...) Several Scotties won medals for exactly that.

I "reused" my old Mikes Models Colonial figs (which are more like 10mm to 12mm) as young bandsmen. Now I wouldn't go out and "buy" and paint extra figs for this, but reusing old figs is fair game. They can double for the young kid that gets recruited. (I still have a bunch of other little-guy drummers --- think they were Minifigs).

Ah, the freedom of Solo Wargaming --- we get to make up all kinds of rules as we go! (Course, everyone looks at us askance, cause we end up talking to the little guys, with no one as a "real" opponent across the board! And even the wife gives us a weird look, when we start imitating the pipes and drums --- BrrrrRRRRRrrrrRRRRrrr Rump Pah Tah!)

Bob Seur D'Armadilleaux (Its hard to eat Oreos and imitate drums at the same time, y'know; ya tend to get Oreo shrapnel all over the little guys!)

19. Baggage Trains on Campaign, Transportation and Supply Issue 0.1 26 June 07

Adding some supply animals to the wargames table is one of the best things we can spend the time and money on. Most wargames only model the tip-of-the-spear, the actual fighting men that get to the battle. What a lot of modern gamers don’t realize, is that in Victorian times, this was possibly as little as 10 percent of the whole column-of-march. Even a pared-down “fighting” column, expected to rough-it, had a 5 to 1 ratio of fighting men to camp followers! A British battalion in column would have at least 17 wagons of supplies! Collecting these ahead of time was a massive (often intercontinental) endeavor. For the Zulu wars, agents were sent to Cyprus, Spain, Italy and Texas, just to procure draft animals.

What Was the Usual Practice? A “standard” rule of thumb was one bullock for every man (whether combatant or non combatant), and THEN you added bullock-loads to feed the bullocks. On campaign, a mere Captain would be severely reduced to a single body-servant, cook, waiter, groom, grass-cutter, four coolies for conveying his small baggage, a plankeen with 9 bearers, and four baggage bullocks and drivers. Poor fellow. Roughing it. By contrast, officers like Sir Evelyn Woods brought 40 cases of their favorite wine, on campaign. We haven’t even talked about the other bits, like the artillery train, water supplies (a big part of the desert campaign baggage trains) or the hospital supplies (including the infamous Kajawa camel- panniers for the badly wounded --- that meant strapping two poor wounded fellows prone, on either side of a camel; the best inducement ever designed to make patients want to get better, fast). Pretty soon the baggage train takes over the whole wargame table. It would be about 50 feet long in 15mm. The real McCoy would have been the better part of a mile long, from front to back, assuming tight controls and no stragglers.

Modeling the Baggage Train But that doesn’t prevent us modeling some of the stuff. In the Tagh Dum Bash campaign, I used a simplified 1 mule-per-man to start (three 20 man platoons, so 60 mules), with the idea that we could run the mule train 3 wide or 4 wide so that it was only 15 elements long. I added 8 muleteers, so each was leading a train of 7 or 8 mules. We can substitute some camels for mules as we wish, although there seemed to never be enough healthy camels available --- everyone back then complained that the camels they got were old, sick or diseased.

If we were using a smaller scale, we might add some scyce elements --- the grass-cutters who had to forage for the mule’s food along the way. Minifigs made a nice Zulu figure that was supposed to be a boy with a sleeping matt, but could be painted up as a syce.

In theory, we might even have had a mixed load of pack animals. North West Frontier could have had a couple of Elephants (who packed the load of 10 bullocks), mostly bullocks (cause they were the easiest pack animal to find), about ¼ might be donkeys, and another ¼ might be camels. The officers might have had pack-horses, but these would have been a very small part of the train.

And of course, no baggage train would be complete without “Countess Mont Belle”, the Colonel’s “Actress” (in a suitable coach-and-four) and the Sutlers --- the band of sturdy women who tag along to sell the commodities that the men forgot to bring, like tea, better rations of meat, or spirits. I particularly liked Madame Fleurie and her Goode Tyme Dancing Acadamie that followed one of my campaigns. Madame Fleurie’s jaunty little two-wheeled cart was pulled by a zebra. Very chic.

Signals! We have to have a couple of Heliographs. And no camp is complete without a temporary tower to receive signals.

Attrition Long-range shots would be more effective on that mass of the mule-train, so in Tag Dum Bash we took 1-5 on the men, but 6 & 7 on the mules/muleteers. This was just a first guess, but the attrition from fighting (with combatants) has tracked pretty well with the attrition on the mule trains. Also, the baggage animals died off --- they went lame, ate bad stuff (during the Boer war a third of the mules succumbed to sickness), they were bit by snakes, or just couldn’t keep up the pace. In Tagh Dum Bash, we used “snowmen” (we took a simulated attack by natives, but translated the results into an avalanche falling on the column), and I suppose the same could be done with a sandstorm for the desert.

Baggage animals had a nasty habit of stampeding under fire. This could get quite exciting if we were talking about an elephant. Even stampeding mules would hamper forming a square in time (and under fire).

Protection on the Road Lets suppose we have a platoon of British, 3 platoons of Egyptians, and one troop of Cavalry. Most of the time, we would have had a forward-heavy column to start (say two of the Egyptian platoons), with the baggage train stuffed in the middle (probably with a half-platoon of Egyptians to guard each side), and a full platoon of the Brits at the back of the bus to act as rear-guards. If we had any guns they would probably go behind the Brits (who didn’t like to eat their dust), assuming we had a decent rear-guard in place. All the ammo and powder would usually be on a separate train following the guns (they might get moved up if we were expecting action to the front, very soon). As the column progresses, “scouts” are deployed in pairs as piquets, off to each side of the column. They stay in place, looking outward, until the column passes, then fall-in as part of the rear-guard. Withdrawing those piquets was a tricky thing, especially if we were traveling through rough terrain with lots of hiding spots. That’s where the Cavalry would prove useful. The other role for the Cavalry was to extend the forward “eyes” of the whole column.

Hm? The General you say? Well they tended to stick in front of the baggage train, so that the Countess Belle didn’t complain too much about the dust kicked up.

Speed versus Squares No question, moving in squares was much safer. Trouble is, squares are also a lot slower, as they need frequent stops to “dress” the square. Also, a general who always marched in square would have been considered excessively cautious by his peers. The best scenarios encourage speed, and only allow forming square when imminent enemy attack is certain (besides, squares give a whole lot of benefits to the Brits and their allies). Getting that baggage train into the square slows down the formation, and adds to the excitement.

Raids Raids on the baggage train can take on a couple of scenarios. First, the enemy want to steal them --- maybe using a “fake” attack on some other part of the column as a diversion. Second, just killing off the baggage animals would seriously hinder the Brits. Third, sometimes the enemy just wanted to show off --- get in there and steal some small trinket to prove they were warriors. Fourth, there was always Madame Fleurie, or Countess Belle (the Actress). She’d make a great addition to the harem. Stampeding Mules Pack Mules are ornery beasts that don’t take kindly to change. They don’t think much of loud noises, and especially don’t like prickly things (like thorns or bayonets). So when the raiders break into the baggage train and try to take them away, they naturally do as much opposition as they can. Specifically, if a muleteer tries to get them out of harms way, they will stop on a 1 or a 2 (on a D6) and rebel and stomp on a 6. If they are loose they can be caught on a 1 or a 2 (on a D6) and will run on everything else but a 6 when they stomp the catchers. The direction is random --- 1 for North, 2 for South, 3 for East, 4 for West, 5 away from the raiders/catchers and 6 follow the nearest loose mule.

Further Reading There’s a great 4 page write up in Battle in Africa by Whitehouse, from Field Books on collecting supplies and march security. Other good novels that outline supply trains include George Shipway (Free Lance in NW India) and Duncan MacNeil (mostly NWF like Drums Along the Khyber, with one in Boer War)

20. Stretching Our Solo Wargaming Imagination Issue 0.6 9 Sept 07

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain (note 1)

Training and Stretching Exercises No professional athlete would ever consider “just go out and do it” without going through a series of muscle-stretching exercises first. And almost every professional athlete has a “coach”, and some sort of a training regime that they follow. So why should Solo wargamers think that THEIR efforts aren’t worth at least some token stab at an equivalent philosophy?

There is a real need to learn how to Train and Stretch your Solo Imagination. Too many Soloists fall into a rut of repeating the same handful of scenarios again and again, without trying to “grow” their universe. (note 2). Its not enough to simply change the uniform (so that this week we have Gurkhas replacing Punjabi Frontier Force); we need to dig deeper into the details, to find new worlds to explore, feel the bandages, hear the gunfire, smell the cordite …

Creativity is allowing ourselves to make mistakes; Art is knowing which ones to keep.

The point is to jump-start our imagination, give up partial control to randomness, and challenge ourselves to come up with a good story and have some fun. Without the dice, we're daydreaming, (and nothing wrong with that as a pastime); but with the dice and some cards, we get the opportunity to surprise ourselves. Because whenever we get an answer from the dice, we should ask ourselves, "What's the most interesting interpretation we can make?" Doesn't have to be weird or non-sequitur. Keeping in mind other events that have happened in this scene or game, attempt to apply some logic, but look for the unusual.

Finding new Bad Guys to Conquer How many of us try to identify or fight with any enemies besides the officially “approved” opponents? How many of us look at the more obscure theaters of operation in the period we game in? Take ACW for example and lets investigate the operations in the Far West (Arizona New Mexico) and explore the horrendous hardships of just staying alive let alone the “minor” problem of actually managing to find the enemy. Take a look at the problems of supply logistics, the weaponry available (imagine in your retreat having to bury your guns in the sand because you have no horses left to pull them), turning up to a fight in your own personal clothes ‘cause the uniform we were issued with has shredded off our backs. And maybe we are bringing our own weapons (that take their own unique size of ammo) too. Look at the situations where unless we over-run the enemy fort and supply depot we will actually starve since our supplies are exhausted – it will certainly give us a different perspective on warfare, if nothing else (note 3).

Some Colonial wargames examples might include pirates; gun-runners, other Colonial nations (note 6), nomads and raiders from other areas, or even the battles against the “elements” themselves (note 7). How about the predations from some “companies of adventurers” every now and again --- they could be lead by a disgraced Colonial captain or commander, and made up of various native mercenary elements, out to carve their own empire “just outside” the reach of our current mandate, but with dire consequences to the balance of the fragile peace in the area (note 8).

No matter what the period, or what the army is that we favor, our Tactics have to change to face different enemies. British Colonials used large squares against the Zulus, and command-of-the- heights in the North West Frontier. Against Sudanese armies the British adopted massive firing lines, and used cavalry to “trigger” pre-mature attacks, positioning Gatling guns in the corners of squares, often using thorn-brush zaribas to try and keep the Beja (Fuzzy Wuzzy) at bay. But none of this prepared them to face the Boers with their trench warfare and hit-and-run tactics. The point is, we need to expand our own scope to include other kinds of warfare from the same period, even if it is undertaken as a sort of one-off exercise.

After the American Civil War, lots of disgruntled veterans went out West. But some also went south and offered their services to various ‘rebel’ causes in Mexico too --- which added significantly to the problems faced by the French and THEIR Colonial ambitions! (note 4). And others must have “given up” and shipped off to other points of the globe. Think about the havoc if some ex-ACW participant brought a couple of Buffalo guns or sniper rifles as “trade samples” (or any similar modern-for-the-time long-range rifles) off to the North West Frontier, where such things would sell at a fantastic premium. They probably only brought a few as “demos” to solicit orders for more. And needless to say, the British troops in the area would take a dim view of such a serious threat to the balance of power in the North West Frontier!

How about developing skirmish games against the “underworld” gangs that often seem to thrive around the home-base cantonment? Maybe the Regimental Officers have been out on the town, and were attacked by thugs in the alley out back of their favorite watering hole (or swindled in some crooked deal?) The bad guys could include mutineers, turncoats, Thuggees, general bazaar scum, and even other Europeans out to make a fast buck. These are all valid combative elements for a suitable small skirmish game.

Looking for the Golden Rule Don’t limit ourselves to only using our “existing” rules, either. We can look for complementary rules like Mythic (note 9) or we can read through some other competitive rule sets with critical intent --- we want to find ideas that we can “splice” onto OUR favorite rule set. I usually scour the Historicon flea-market, looking for older rule sets, cause they often go for as little as a dollar. And I don’t limit myself to pure “Colonial” rule sets, either --- any rule set that covers the period of 1810 through 1920 (or that offer some sort of Solo capability) is fair game, if I can buy it for a reasonable price.

Cavalry tactics were roughly the same for the whole period, so if I can find a “better” way to integrate some element of Cavalry (from a late Napoleonic rule set lets say), I’m quite happy to try and shoe-horn it into my Solo gaming. Some mechanisms (like Morale, or Scouting or Spotting) may come from periods even farther a field, but providing they can be made to “fit” the period we are working with, then they are viable candidates, too. The point is, we have to be open to exploring new ideas. Never stop looking for a better, smoother solution because there will always be new or improved ideas coming onto the market and all it takes is a little adaptation and some imagination. See, we need to Train our Imagination on the topic of integrating other rule mechanisms (and not just borrowing tables and dice roll modifiers, too).

Other possible sources for rules include those we find for free on the Web, or modifications posted as part of SoloWarGames or similar sites. Don’t forget to go BACK through the old archive of messages, too. One of the most productive “searches” for Soloists, is to have a look for how other players handle writing-up unit-orders. Order-writing is one of the pivotal differences between how a Soloist operates as opposed to playing in a tournament, or playing face-to-face.

Let’s be clear about one thing --- looking through new rule sets is hard work! Especially for us Gray Beards that have insufficient memory to start with. So budget a couple of hours a week (maybe in 1 hour sessions) and make lots of notes. If nothing else, we need an index of what idea is on what page, to start with. Plan to go to some local conventions with the intent of sitting in and watching at least a part of a couple of games, to see how the rule sets work. A two-hour session sitting in on one of the demo games is the equivalent of 6 one-hour sessions that we spend doing rule research on that same set of rules at home. That gives us a chance to ask some of the other players how THEY feel about the rule sets, without tying us down to only one table. Look for things like move-templates, shortcuts, and playing aids (like firing templates or quick-reference rules). Sometimes we can adapt these ideas to our own Solo games. Make a mental note of any glitches, so we can get clarification later (cause its bad form to stand up in the middle of a game, and dress down the Game Master for some “dumb” rule interpretation!).

Just remember to Keep it Simple --- we are looking for smoother Solo-adapatable systems, and we don’t need lots of complications or extra look-up tables, to make a period “feel” more realistic. The “simple” solution may not be the easiest to find and distill (note 5). But it will in all probability be the best --- all you have to do is persevere.

Go find the convention tables with the most laughter. If they are having a great time, then maybe the rule set contributes to that. Its sure worth investigating.

Ping-Pong and Chain Reaction Have a look at some “new” rule mechanisms (like Chain Reaction 2.0 from Two Hour Wargames, note 10) This is quite a different set up from the usual “I go, then he goes” alternate-move approach, and the built-in dice throws are particularly suitable for adapting to Solo play, especially for small- to-medium Skirmish encounters. Think of 2 opponents stumbling along toward the point where they see each other, but not quite there yet. Then a third opponent pops up where he can be seen by one, and can see the other. Whoa! Now how do we resolve this!? That’s where the rule set Chain Reaction 2.0 shines, and makes the combat resolution both exciting and a bit unpredictable. We often finish off a scenario with a “Wow! That was fun! Who would have thought … ? Lets try it again!” and then we KNOW we have a good rule set.

A Change of Scene We tend to think in terms of the “usual” scenery for our games, without going out and LOOKING for new variations. For example, Colonial games for the North West Frontier tend to stress frontier forts, watch towers, maybe a fortified village or two, and then they bog down. But there are LOTS of varied temples out there --- several Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and even earlier Zoroastrian designs, that change the flavor. And even in the Forts, we can have widely different designs for Mogul, Persian, and Islamic as opposed to either Colonial or Native designs. When was the last time we saw a rope-suspension bridge? (note 11). We have to stretch our thinking, and expand our known universe. If we do it “right” then we can probably reuse a number of elements (like side walls or interior details for buildings) and simply interchange the “new” elements (second floors, watch-towers, wall-extensions or covers). Who says we can’t use a native village bazaar scene as a venue for some of our games? (A crooked street with lots of striped awnings, that the British are marching through when the attack comes, pouring out of the alleyways) The point is, we need to keep an open mind, and look for “new” battlegrounds.

Don’t forget to explore using various ruins, too. These could be simply rubble piles, or may have signs of really early local life (in the Colonial case, both Alexander the Great and Bactria tromped all over the North West Frontier area). There were probably even earlier Ancient-Indian/Sanskrit- based civilizations to consider. Civilization tends to get layered, especially when we are dealing with prime real estate (like canyon narrows, river crossings, defendable places of one sort or another).

Think about including those unusual places and environments, at least in a modular, token, way. We can reuse other buildings or turn them around, or add different roof designs to hide the re- deployment. Look for different building heights (maybe made up with various modular “stacks” and different slanted roof lines).

Investigate some scenarios that are widely different from those that we always see as part of the "official demo" games --- after all, how often can we “Save the Princess from the Cannibals”? (After a dozen times or so, we just feel like letting the cannibals contribute their bit to natural selection). Look into 2 x 2 foot modules that can be quite different, depending on the rotational view. Look for back-drops (they can be fairly wide, but quite narrow, front to back, especially if they go on the edges of the board). (Note 12)

Integrating the Bits One of the things I always look for at Conventions is how the “professional” presenters (like Duke Seifried) integrate the bits. They have a dozen or so 2 x 2 foot modules, a couple of stepped hills (with lots of flat sections of hill, or rough-hewn stairs leading to various levels), But they also take care to smooth over the joints between the table cloth and the modules. This could entail using aquarium sand, or small aquarium gravel, spread out in loosed handfuls. Another good idea is to mount plastic “scrub” (made from bits of aquarium breeding grass) onto painted pennies or washers. The nice thing with this is that it doesn’t get in the way of figures moving through the area (or in the case of the breeding grass on pennies, its easy to move the pennies out of the way of specific figures).

At the end of the day, we just roll all the ground cloth into a loose tube, and cart the thing home to the back yard, where we can separate the sand and gravel, and give the ground cloth a shake to get rid of any dust.

While we are on the topic of Integrating the bits, one clever trick that several convention presenters use in their demo games, is to “smooth” the transitions between ground-cloth and modules, using medium-sized aquarium rocks and stones. These are usually about half the height of a figure, and usually all the same color. Some of these are glued down permanently on the modules, but lots are just strewn around on the ground cloth near the base of the various modules. They look even better if they are “feathered” --- the largest rocks on the module, then medium size, then the smaller rocks (all the same color) further away.

If we use aquarium sand (because we can get a specific “shade” of our choice, without any resident bugs or larvae in the bucket!), we can spread this around on the ground cloth to help integrate the bits, as well. This doesn’t have to be deep, or even continuous. A light dusting here or there works just as well as a cupful in a mound. It’s the “impression” of sand that we are reproducing, not whole deserts with 30-foot sand dunes. And the nice thing with aquarium sand is we can always go back and buy another pack of the identical color, so if any gets lost along the way, its no big deal. (By the way, if we use sand at a convention, don’t forget to take along one of those little portable vacuums to clean up any that falls on the floor --- we want to be invited back, next year!).

Stepping Out Step outside your comfort zone, if only for a holiday. Go discover another system, time and place; an alternate universe that may be parallel to our usual one. Go find out about the joys of press- ganging recruits for the Territorial Forces, or Rapid Deployment Forces or other space-opera steam- punk forces, protecting new colonies, or protecting embassies or trade missions on primitive worlds, fighting terrorists, liberating hostages, arresting fugitives from justice, robbing banks (or the pay- train), hi-jacking freighters, repo-ing ships, get caught up in mutinies or rebellions, go prospecting on asteroid belts, smuggling, go serve the latest reincarnation of John Company as a starship crewman or as a ground-pounder, guarding orbital casinos and other space stations, mining sites, research facilities, exploring new worlds, exploring old post-holocaust worlds or making voyages as free traders. Try some non-military wargames (sounds like a contradiction, but the “enemy” could be an avalanche, or mule-kicks while trying to coral an escaped mule). Give yourself a break and live a little!

We don’t have to invest a fortune in new figures, either. Just a handful --- enough for some skirmish games. Get Gritty How about some different-era small-scale guerilla warfare in some backwater South American country? Those Colonial khaki uniforms would have seemed quite at home, right up til 1940 or so. Go escort some kidnapped bride from the Gringos, across a hostile land to meet her husband at a ransom exchange site. Melt into the local civilian population and fight off threats to take over from that grease-ball number 2 at the same time; threaten a construction project, and rescue the Gringo’s native slave-laborers, doing the jungle clearing. Track that murderous band of cut throats that are “pretending” to be rebels, while they commit outrage so that the waiting government forces can justify massive retaliation. Or spotlight a single small patrol fighting a life and death struggle with Esmerelda, a relentless Rebel sniper who always gets her man. (See Len Deighton’s novel, Mamista for other ideas) Don’t limit yourself to always playing the “good” guy --- sometimes playing the Guerilla can be a blast. Change the Magnification Try using a different figure scale or map game. Or try adding in some naval miniatures, or air miniatures that complement our usual land-based action. Colonial wars continued into the late 1930’s along the NWF with very little different, bar some minor improvements in small arms and one or two mod-cons (modern conveniences) like armored cars or biplanes. The NWF always seemed to get the rejects and the worn-out tools from other theatres. So if we “usually” do 15mm, then a change “up” to 25/28mm with a skirmish involving an armored car is a great way to break out of the doldrums. Or we can go the other way, and scale “down” to use micro-planes on a map- layout, to do bombing runs (with leaflets) or similar.

My Favorite Novel, Part Twenty-two Take one of our favorite novels apart, and use it as a basis for the next wargame. It doesn’t even have to be a novel from the “usual” period that we play. It’s easy to translate something like even a Jason Borne novel into OUR period. Just generalize the themes: the Hero had a blow to the head, and memory loss, so he’s listed as AWOL by his regiment, and suspected of “going native” or even worse --- helping the rebels). We can mix and match a bunch of similar settings (Blade Runner, Total Recall 2010, and novels by Jeter and John Ridley all have a similar flavor for 1920’s-in-2010 or so), and we end up with a wonderful rich brew as a background for our next campaign. If you liked the bits, yer gonna love the resulting blend.

Meanwhile, On A Different Continent … Investigate warfare of the same time period, but on a different continent. If our main thrust is Colonial India in the 1860’s, then a change of scene by going to look at either the First Opium Wars in China, or the American Civil War, is well in order. It becomes really interesting to compare and contrast the different tactics used (like Brit Squares, versus ACW with their massed cavalry attacks, as one example).

Mythic GME, and the Next Best Thing Have a look at complementary rule set like Mythic GME (Games Master Emulator) as an inexpensive way to boot-strap our imagination. It works in conjunction with any rule set, and it encourages us to do things like “take the SECOND most logical explanation (with the “right” die roll; hence the Next Best Thing in the paragraph header). Other elements of Mythic GME are the interpretation of word strings (which are gleaned from their FAS or Function-action-subject tables -- - for example with three percentile die rolls of 65.21.25 we would get PC negative, Release, and Friendship, which might be translated as the Major Character in our battling force --- the Playing Character or PC --- gets into some squabble which dissolves a long-term friendship with some subordinate).

Mythic also encourages us to look into “remote” scenes, that may have some minor effect on the outcome of the battle, albeit in a limited or peripheral way. As an example, we might have to work in “Closing a Story thread”, Increasing and Wishes. One interpretation could be that someone just got a Dear John letter, where the lady back in England is breaking off, due to her increased wish of getting married soon. See how the ol’ Imagination engine gets tweaked? That may result in the affected soldier being brash, and “not caring” if he survives the next encounter with the natives --- could result in a wound and a medal, or a dumb act of bravery on his part, who knows?

Mythic GME is a 60 page Adobe-compatible download, currently available for around $7 US from DriveThruRPG.com and the best $7 you are likely to invest, this year. There is also an active web site available at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Mythic_Role_Playing/

Scavenger Hunt Take a trip to some local garage sales, or used book stores that specialize in selling old magazines. Have a look for PC gamer magazines in particular, as they often have a lot of good ideas we can pilfer. I bought six old issues for a total of $5 recently, and spent an enjoyable day, going through them, ripping out whole articles that were of interest, and making a pile of “idea” notes for future use.

One of my recent novels on the Civil war, cost a whole 10 cents at a garage sale! It was falling apart, and the binding was shot, but it was all there, and a very enjoyable read. Exploring New Rules as a Regular Thing Make it a habit to take an hour a week (as a minimum) and go find a different rule set to explore. Notice we said “explore”, not necessarily “learn”. If we make it a habit to see how the mechanisms work, then we can move to the next step of “trying” to splice on some of the more interesting bits, as house-rule modifications for our favorite period. That’s a wonderful way of keeping our gaming “fresh”.

The current rules I’m wading through are Johnny Reb III, and there are already a bunch of basic ideas that I can pilfer for my Colonial period house-set. Something as simple as having a different number of figures for different Colonial platoons, to represent under-strength “vets”, and up-to- strength Imperial Infantry Companies that are possibly new-to-India. That idea ALONE make it worth buying the JRIII rule book.

Summary: Time to do some spring cleaning in our Solo Wargames thinking and in our Scenarios --- dig out the mental broom, and lets get some new ideas blowing through the wargames room. We all have to try and expand our horizons if we want to keep the Solo wargaming hobby nice and fresh --- no new ideas, and the horizons are measurably more limited. Getting in a rut will lead to disillusionment so remember the adage ‘a change is as good as a rest’ explore new periods, expand your horizons and add to your knowledge base. The only limits to your imagination are those placed upon it by you (note 13).

Enjoy your Solo gaming!

Note 1: What a great tag-line! Comes thanks to Joshua A. Hockaday of the SoloWarGames Yahoo group Note 2: These are often the same people who moan and groan about how “dull” Solo play really is, or how they really prefer the “electricity” of playing Face-to-Face games, against another live opponent). Note 3: Thanks to Graham Empson for this whole paragraph, and thought Note 4: Thanks to Graham for the idea --- Napoleon the Third supported a coup-attempt in Mexico, that eventually failed. Note 5: Any piano student can tell us this --- they spend 3 or 4 times as much “practice” to master the phrasing an bring out the melody on lyrical pieces like Moonlight Sonata, where they can “fudge” and cover up mistakes on much more complex pieces with lots of rushing around and pounding cords Note 6: Like Russians or French, trying to poach British suzerainty; or how about the Italian Colonial forces that fought against the Ansar and Beja? Note 7: The serialized Tagh Dum Bash campaign has several examples where the snow avalanches are handled like “snowmen” attacking the “column on the trail” --- one round “battles” that inflict wounds, and kill by sweeping some of the column over the edges. It’s a very effective mechanism. General Winter (as the Russians called it) is always a serious opponent on longer campaigns. Note 8: There was an American who did this in the North of India, around 1860 or so --- set himself up as an Indian-style Maharaja. Note 9: At the risk of preaching, Mythic GME (Game Master Emulator) should be a MUST HAVE for any serious Solo player. If we’ve experimented with it and then choose “ignore” it, later, that’s fine. But it adds SO much to the characterization process, and works SO well with such a wide variety of rules (and costs about $7 US at time of writing for an Adobe download from places like DriveThruRPG.com) that we are nuts not to at least give it a serious try. Several long-time Solo players (who haven’t bought a new rule-set in years) are now enthusiastic promoters of Mythic, as a welcome injection to enhance Solo wargaming Note 10: here’s the link http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/index.html for the main page for THW (Two Hour Wargames). I use these a lot for what I refer to as “penny-ante games” --- Solo games that I like to play for relaxation, where I don’t have any axe to grind about any of the participating characters (in other words, I may not “risk” my main characters from the main campaign, in case they get shot!). THW is a LOT of fun, and the ping-pong nature of the die roll activation will intrigue you. They come in period-specific game sets, and are downloadable as an Adobe file (which is great for Solo player who want to cut-and-paste, twiddle, fine-tune, and otherwise mutilate to suit our own tastes). There is a very active web-site that supports all of the variations of the THW rules, at: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/twohourwargames/ Note 11: There were several very interesting “trench” or ravine modular terrain pieces at Historicon 2007, where the box-like structure was “suspended” between two adjacent tables. Some even had removeable bridge elements Note 12: Jeff Baumal of the Colonial Wars Yahoo group had a good idea of using a shower curtain that was mid-blue with lots of puffy clouds as a background --- it certainly improves the pictures of demo tables Note 13: We’ll leave this as last word, complements of Graham Empson

21. Keeping and Maintaining Rosters Chapt 3.0

Issue 0.0 21 Sept 07

Making the Connection

Scientists hypothesize that some predatory animals only “see” changes. The static field is ignored, while the mouse a half a mile away demands full concentration of the faculties. Our interests and memories are likewise keyed to “real people” --- we forget the anonymous crowd who passed by us during the day, even if they did something unusual (like tripping in front of us in the store aisle).

And a similar thing happens when we read about “people” (as opposed to that anonymous “crowd”), for if we say that the whole home team won or lost, it doesn’t have as much impact as saying that Jimmy Brown the team captain lead the team to a triumphal win, featuring an amazing goal by Tim Potts, aided by Davie Corren, who scored against impossible odds. We “relate” to that Jimmy Brown, and want to know more about him --- who his folks are, what’s his connection to the team, has he always been a star, what’s his future going to be like? And to a lesser degree, tell us about the two subordinates, Tim and Davie. Its just human nature.

Simply put, if we want to achieve a more realistic Solo experience, we need to get into it more ourselves, to make the leaders of the conflict feel more “real”, to track their story. And that’s why we keep Rosters of the key players.

What’s in a Name? If we are trying to come up with names for a period like ACW, it isn’t to hard for the North American TV audience to come up with things like Jeb, Zack, and so on, but what happens if we are dealing with a different country? How do we come up with the “right” flavor of name, especially when we may not even speak the language? Then its time to start keeping a list of appropriate names, culled from favorite novels, or from back-issues of National Geographic or similar. This is especially true if the area we are dealing with has several ethnic types in the same locale.

Even with our North West Frontier saga, there are Pathans, as distinct from Punjabi, Gurkhas, or Sikhs, and we cannot mix and match without distorting the realism we are trying to put across. We have to keep lists of the names we run across (and their sources, whether specific novelists, or National Geographic), and mark them as P for Pathan, or S for Sikhs and so on. Moreover, it won’t do to have a Sepoy Sher Khan killed off in Episode 2, only to have him come back as a cook in a later episode in the same campaign! So we need to note that in our lists, too. Lists of appropriate names are something I start collecting LONG before I get into the period, cause they can take a lot of work.

This becomes even more critical as we get further and further away from our comfort zone --- whether that means Chinese, or Apache. Do the research, and document our sources.

Collecting the Biography and Keeping Notes So we want to put together some sort of a uniform report card, that tells us how the various team members in our little Solo epic are doing, and a capsule summary of what they are like. This is what computer wargame programmers call “Emergent Behavior” - -- something discovered as the game goes along. It doesn’t have to be a great 4-page- long resume, just a thumbnail that tells us the key essentials. We should be able to pack these in two-per-page, and still have enough room to record:  Name of Character: And that’s the full name, with rank, like “Lt Sedgewick Landseer Dharma”, even though most of his friends only call him “Dharma” or “Lt Dharma”  Nickname: We can pour a lot into a short nickname, like Jemadar Afzul, “the Magician”.  PC/NPC: We want to circle whether he is a Principal Character (one of the combatants) or a Non-Principal Character (one of the hangers-on, like a muleteer, or a hostage or similar)  Battle/Patrol/Adventure: We want some quick reference to say it’s the Sre Mela campaign  Scene: within the battle, they might participate in the “Skirmish at Flat Rock” (which sounds so much better and more “epic” than just “Scene 4”)  Related Traits: We don’t flesh out ALL the characters, but when we do, for Dharma we get things like Romantic, Ropy, Mood Swings, and Judgmental; we may want to record the card-pulls that developed these traits (like 5S = impulsive). Notice that we try and include some “minor flaws” in our characters --- makes them more believable, and someone we can relate to.  General notes: “Fired Webley at High Crags” is a reminder that our friend Lt Dharma can get angry and do impetuous (and sometimes counterproductive) things  Chaos Ranking: If we are using Mythic GME, then we want to keep track of how Chaotic the scene was, and adjust the Chaos Rank accordingly at the end of the scene

There are probably other things that we COULD track, but we don’t want to write a novel, just keep track of the interesting stuff. If we can’t put it all on a half-page, then we are tracking to much secondary stuff.

Making it Feel Real --- But Remember, Its Just a Game Its not enough to just give Jimmy Brown some irrelevant random traits, either. Doesn’t matter if he’s a bit taller, or has dimples, or reads the news back-to-front in the newspapers. That may all be interesting, but it doesn’t grab us at an emotional level. We need to dig into the traits that will make a military impact. And our modern understanding of human nature means that we “expect” differences in the psychological make-up between the leaders, the NCO’s and the men (at least, for periods that are more than 100 years ago). Any profile we build up has to take into account these differences.

At the same time, we need to emphasize that we are doing this for fun --- it’s just a game. We are creating a “movie-like illusion of reality”, so none of this is intended to reflect on modern military organizations, or on the fine men and women in uniform that serve their country so commendably.

Now, we could create these “characterizations” a couple of ways. Some rule sets have pre-set characters; some allow you to “roll up” a character. We prefer to use a bunch of characteristics, linked to Officer/NCO/ Privates, that are all drawn from a “believable” list, with a card-pull.

Building the Relationships: Behind the scenes, we are also building the relationships, the way that the various characters relate to one another, which are a pretty good indicator of how they are going to react in the future. For example, if Doc Carmichael saves Dharma’s life in one campaign, we better expect that Dharma will move heaven and earth to return the favor if the tables are ever reversed, to the point that Dharma would bend rules in order to be able to get out there and search for his missing buddy. Similarly, if some fellow officer comes off as a cad and a bounder, then Lt Dharma will go through the motions to save the cad, but will probably not be overly aggressive in the process.

And we need to keep track of this as part of the key PC or NPC records, as well. Nothing fancy, just a line or two.

Chronology and Ancestral Trees If we are at all thinking about doing a campaign that will span several years, then we have to get into the problem of family trees, and chronological dates. We may want to extend the family tree and show how our main characters “fit” on that tree. Don’t forget that back in pre-1880’s few kids survived childhood, and it was common for a man to name 2 or 3 of his kids with the same first name, if they didn’t survive childhood. Equally, the mortality rate for women in childbirth was quite high, so many men had 2 or 3 wives, and surviving family might have several half-sisters or half-brothers. This can make for quite a tangled web! Especially when the lines intermarried.

Doin’ It On the Fly, or Pre-Meditated Some people like to get the relationships and the ancestral trees set up before hand. These are usually the kind of Solo gamers who draw whole maps of their world, before they set out any troops. Nothing wrong with that. We prefer to Do it on the Fly, and only bother to extend the family tree (or flesh-out a specific character) when it is absolutely necessary. Either way works, just remember to document what we do.

This is particularly important if we are running more than one campaign simultaneously. For example, I have some characters that are used in both the TDB (Tagh Dum Bash) campaign, as well as the Barampta campaign being run more or less at the same time. So I make sure that the character charts are transferred between campaigns so that Jemadar Afzul doesn’t appear to have gone schitzophrenic on me, cause I accidentally pulled a different profile in each campaign!

For the same reason, while we normally make up a Table of Organization, we don’t usually fill in all the names or details of the men unless we need them as part of the AAR. Then we might fill in pertinent details about the first couple. “Tom McBride, Jerry Heatherdale and 6 other rankers were over-run that night”. That gives the right “ring” without too much detail (that would be forgotten shortly anyway).

How Far is Up? Generally speaking, we don’t keep track of more than about a dozen PC’s and NPC’s in all, on any given campaign --- not that we can’t, but there is a diminishing return if we have to document a lot more. As most of our most satisfying focal-point characters are “near the top” but not “the commander in chief”, we tend to gloss-over a lot of detail on the higher-up muckety mucks. We are more interested in developing an AAR (after action report) from the point of view of 2 or 3 levels down from the Top Dog. That way we aren’t as likely to be taken to task for assigning personality quirks to “real” historical figures.

Here’s to Carruthers We should figure out SOME way to see if any of the deceased won recognition and/or medals. Maybe it can be as simple as a card-pull for each name, and if we have a face card then a J, Q, or K means they were “mentioned in dispatches”, and an Ace means they were recommended for a medal, perhaps for distinguished services.

21. Adding Pics a Better Solo Wargames After Action Report Chapt 5.3

Issue 0.1 21 Sept 07

Make Writing-it-up (While Its Fresh) a Habit

First, write up that AAR (After Action Report) while its fresh. So many people play out the game, THEN realize they had a lot of fun, and try and write it up from memory. Doesn’t work. Even if we try and write it up at the end of the day, a lot of the detail gets lost. We lose the critical distances or angles that compelled us to consider “THAT” attack, as a typical example. There’s all kinds of statistical reports about marketing presentations and college lectures, where if we DON’T write it down then half the detail is lost overnight, and another 28 percent lost after 4 days, and such. Keep it fresh. The same’s true with “getting the shot” with a digital cam --- they are pretty much complementary tasks --- if we do one, we pretty much need to do the other at the same time, so that we have a complete “record”.

As an aside, I usually add a bit of a map for any key battles or encounters, and I’ve been known to do a free-hand sketch or two, but looking into how that’s done is the subject for another chapter.

Ready to Go

Second, keep the old camera right at hand, to take some shots. If we have to go hunt the camera down (cause the wife was shooting the kids), THEN go buy batteries, THEN realize the film is used up (or that we need to download some of the digital pics to make some new space available, or whatever), and its just too much hassle to take the shots, then guess what? We ignore the whole thing as a pain. And later we moan and groan about the “great shot that I should have taken”. I do mean the “old” camera, too. We don’t need 10 megapixel or fancy optics to get decent shots --- a 3 meg camera will do just fine. Keep it handy to the Solo wargames table.

More Light on the Subject

Third, get a LOT of light on the figures; don’t depend on the puny flash that comes with modern all-in- one cameras. I have 100 watt bulbs in a pair of extra goose-neck lamps that can be swung out over the scene (left and right by 45 degrees) that I want to capture. Even better, if we have a small playing surface, take the whole thing outside, and shoot it on a bright sunny day, but under the shade of a tree. Brace it on a small picnic table or similar stand, so it doesn’t shake.

The Sneaky #1 Filter

Fourth, use a number 1 close-up filter. We don’t need to have a camera that is specifically engineered to “take” filters --- I just hold it in front of the lens on the old Nikon Coolpix camera. I bought mine at a garage sale, and it must be a 2 inch diameter, where the end of the lens is no more than ½ inch. Doesn’t matter --- we can tape it in place with a bit of masking tape if we like.

What’s that do, you ask? Well, it lets us get about 18 inches (35 cm) away from the little guys, and still get really great sharp pictures. Usually at that range most cams (digital OR film cams) give fuzzy out-of- focus results. (Technically, it reduces the right in-focus “range” from 1 meter to half a meter). The second advantage of that close up filter is that when we use it, stuff that’s 30 feet or more in the background (like the neighbor’s pool) is generally out of focus, so it doesn’t detract from our carefully composed pic!

Stability

Fifth, use a tripod to hold the camera indoors. Oh sure, we get SOME sort of a shot without the tripod, but the speed tends to go way down in low light, so we get more shake and vibration and that gives us the fuzzies once again. Oh, by the way, most tripods are way too light, so what I usually do is hang the camera bag under the tripod to give it more stability. Or at a minimum, I press down on the tripod with one hand, and gently squeeze the trigger with the other hand. Three megapixel shots that are well braced knock the pants off a 10 meg shot that wobbled, and as a result looks drunk.

The Numbers Game

Sixth, stick some sort of a number in the bottom of the picture, so we can refer to it later. Sure, we can record this other ways, to be certain that THIS shot corresponds to THAT report, but it’s way easier to just mark the date on a 1 x 4 inch piece of cardboard, maybe with one other line. Like “Tagh Dum Bash, 4 July 07” or whatever. When I record bigger battles, I take a number of shots of the specific turn (cause even ONE x 10 megapixel shot won’t give us enough detail to see what unit is attacking what point, especially from an oblique angle, or from above). In this case, I have a number of 2 inch circles with THICK felt marker numbers on them, for 1, 2, 3, and fore N, S, E, W. That way I have a clear understanding of the turn, and which way North is on the wargame table-top.

Get Back

Seven, clean up the background! Doesn’t have to be a home renovation --- just drape a plain bed sheet over the clutter behind the table. We don’t get those fancy wargame magazines, with ugly piles of boxes and guys scratching themselves, so we need to be a little more aware of whats being recorded. The corollary is, use some aquarium gravel or model railway loose grass to cover the worst of the cardboard bases on the figures. 10 minutes spent here will save us an hour trying to fiddle with it afterwards.

More, Please

Eighth, take a whole bunch of shots from different angles. That’s the whole point of having a digital camera --- keep the ones that look great, and ditch the awful shots that reflect off the beer tin. If we take a whole bunch of shots, we can afford to be creative and “shoot” through the break in the tree-line, or include bits of some building in the background, on at least SOME of the shots. I like to take 2 “straight” shots, 2 that are just for fun (the Zulu carrying the water bucket instead of a spear); and another 3 or 4 that are sort of experimental --- maybe from a lower angle, or a higher angle.

A Different Kind of Gaming Software

Ninth, invest some time and some money into one of those Digital Editing programs (and don’t just settle for the “free” version that came with the camera as if it will be good enough). Sure, a decent software program might cost almost as much as an intro point-and-shoot camera, but believe me, it’s worth it! Many stores that specialize in digital cameras give free seminars on how to use the software package, too. Learn how to crop a pic, how to adjust the balance, how to save the pic in a “new” folder (maybe with a different pixel count, so it is ready to stick on a web-site).

Try Some Post-its

Tenth, go do some investigating on how you can post pics to your favorite forum or Yahoo group. Uploading from your computer to the Files section is a breeze --- hit the buttons on the group files section, and give it a whirl. Worst thing that happens is you screw it up and have to erase it and try again. Happens to all of us.

Also, have a look at a free hosting web-site like http://www.imageshack.com/ where you can upload YOUR pics (one at a time) to their hosting service, and then record the URL for that shot in a word document in your computer. They offer a couple of alternate compressions for different bulletin boards, so feel free to try a couple of combinations, just remember to write them down or transfer them to a word document, cause they aren’t listed by YOUR name or email or anything logical like that

So for example, here’s a shot of Piglet de Bourgoine, taken back January 07 or so:

[URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/3925/pigletdebourgoine001zo5.j pg[/IMG][/URL]

Not sure what we need? Just copy ALL the options onto the page, and try it out like this: Lord Roberts Direct Link http://www.mypicshare.com/pri4vw1qpic.html

Lord Roberts Thumbnail: http://www.mypicshare.com/thumbs/20070707/pri4vw1q.jpg

Lord Roberts for Websites:

Lord Roberts Forum Format #1 [URL=http://www.mypicshare.com/pri4vw1qpic.html][IMG]http://www.mypicshare.com/thumbs/20070 707/pri4vw1q.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Lord Roberts Forum Format #2: [url=http://www.mypicshare.com/pri4vw1qpic.html][img=http://www.mypicshare.com/thumbs/2007070 7/pri4vw1q.jpg[/url]

(Notice that the results may vary, depending on whether we post this to a file, or on the main forum page itself).

If we “post” this as part of a message on some web sites, we get a nice little pic pop right up in the body of the text that we are typing. Sometimes we get the link if the reader “clicks” the URL line. Doesn’t work on all sites, but it sure is effective when it does.

And that’s it --- a batch of 10 ways that we can improve our AAR’s by getting the shot.

Good luck with it!

Bob Seur D’Armadilleaux (Psst: Wanna see a close-up of my figures base on stale Oreo cookies?)

22. Thoughts on Setting Up a New Historical Wargames Campaign

There's a lot more to starting a new campaign than just buying a box or two of 1/72 figures, and shaking them out onto the battlefield setup! How can we get the most satisfaction out of our (usually too- limited) time and efforts? In other words, can we campaign "smarter"? Or is it just one of those cases where the enjoyment that you get out of the exercise is directly in proportion to the work you put into it? At the moment, I'm in the middle of pulling together the elements for a new Narrative Solo Wargames Campaign (note 1) that's set in South West England, just after the time of King Arthur, so here's some notes on what's involved so far, and hopefully this will help in YOUR next campaign.

What's the Time Frame? First, we have to set the overall scene, so to speak, and pick an historical period where we can get in a lot of battles. Think of it being sort of like a "mission statement" (but that doesn't mean it has to be too long or too complex). In my case, I wanted to play out a Narrative Solo wargame that had SOME relationship with King Arthur. But the more I read, the more I decided that it would be better if it were written up in that chaotic period of (vaguely) around 500-600 AD in England (in other words, just AFTER the originally-chosen period -- - so it pays to be a bit flexible in our planning). That's the dawn of what the public generally thinks of as the Anglo-Saxon Wars, back at the very beginnings of the battle practice that evolved over a period of time into using a shieldwall --- not very much maneuvering (no trying to circle round a flank, let's say) and a good deal more of line-em-up and then shoving and bashing. Fun stuff for the Rugger or Football fan! And for those not familiar with the period, the latest thinking is that there were lots of regular (or "endemic") fierce little battles that might seem to have had more in common with LA Latino gang turf-wars, carried out for street-cred and honor, and whatever trophies or booty could be carried away. Once honor had been established, the two gangs might just scatter, or wander off to go brag about how great they did. Ballads, bragging and tagging all around! And that's exactly what we want to explore.

As an aside, there probably never was any one single "real" King Arthur (note 2). But I can think of lots of good reasons why various warlords "borrowed" (or were loaned) his name or mantle of leadership during that period, and that all becomes grist for the mill. We can also explore some of the other "real" names for the period, like Ambrosius Aurelianus, that some would suggest as the phenotype for King Arthur. And I'm guessing that, if a somewhat accurate history of the time is so muddled and confused even NOW, then it was probably just as confusing or more so for the common man-on-the-ground back in 500 AD, too.

What's the Latest (Best Researched) History? And that's a good lead-in for our next topic, because our Second need, is that we have to find the current "best thinking" about what was happening at this time, so that our wargames campaign is founded on that latest perception of "reality". (This is especially true for Historical Miniature campaigns, although it's maybe less important for games set in alternate universes or sci-fi worlds). Now, we can do a Google search for things like "Dark Age England" and often find references to some of the latest historical info posted there. Or we can dig around in our own library (but just remember that some of the latest stuff MAY have been published in the last 10 years, so we may not find it in our old Osprey primers, that we bought some thirty years ago --- who, me?). In fact there are a number of "old stalwart" texts that have fallen into disrepute, so beware. We can use that as our excuse to look into buying some new books on the period (especially if we live in that luxury where our pockets are deep, and our time is relatively unlimited). And even if we aren't rich as Krossus, as long as we have enough time to invest, there are often some great buys that become available on eBay (books that are only a couple of years old). Or . . .

In the case of King Arthur, there is a particularly good Yahoo group called "AfterRome" (note 3) that is chock-full of excellent up-to-the- minute high-quality documentary-level stuff in their files --- what did military conflict in Post Roman Briton look like? How did they fight? Who was fighting whom? What are the key theories about the time? Was it a case of a moving line of the linked-Saxon-conquest, or more like a series of individual back-and-forth knock-out battles? What WERE the differences between the Saxon battle line and the Sub- Roman British line? Who were the "real" heroes and kings of the times? (The authentic names that aren't always on everyone's lips.) Just because we don't have a lot to work with in early Dark Ages Briton, doesn't mean we shouldn't find the best analysis to incorporate as the basis of our next wargames-campaign foundation. The more we read from these high-quality reports, the more we get out of our next wargame.

Find That "New Improved" Rule Set Third, we need to review what we are going to use as a rule set. We COULD use our "usual" old standby, but sometimes a new rule set (even if we just read it and try it out a couple of times) will open our eyes to new insights into the period for us wargamers. Investing time to learn the mechanics of a new rule set makes good sense. In this particular case, there is an excellent new set of rules called "Fyrd" (written by Guy Halsall), available "free" to download from the "AfterRome" Yahoo group's files section. It was specifically written to cover shieldwall-like fighting during the period of 400 to 1100 AD. Usable with any of the usual figure scales, and no re-basing of our existing figures required (which is a really nice bonus).

Now, I have to admit I will probably still use Mythic Game Master Emulator (Mythic GME for short) to COMPLEMENT the Fyrd rules but that's to meet the needs of the Solo Narrative Wargame requirements. Think in terms of 10 percent card-pulls to set the scene, 10 percent Mythic (the spice that makes the meal taste better) and once the battle lines are drawn, then its 80 percent Fyrd, to resolve the conflict. It's great to have an authoritative (flexible) rule set like Fyrd to build on, and even better --- it's free (note 4).

Some more good news for Solo players --- Fyrd has some integral rules for moving not-in-control units! It can even be played Solo "as is". One minor warning, though: These rules are COMPREHENSIVE, which is to say, they are over 100 pages long, so make sure you have enough paper and a fresh ink cartridge in your printer before you start, or you will probably run out of supplies, and the air will truly be blue (who me?). You may not use ALL of the rules (like those for mist and reduced visibility), but it's nice to know they are there (and that they are very well thought out, and explained in clear English, to boot).

As an aside for all you non-Solo players, I have to admit that Solo gamers are a nasty crowd. They get handed some bright new shiny rule sets, and they read them thoroughly cover to cover, and question the rules author about the "intent" here, and the "reasoning" there. Then almost before the rule author has turned his back, they tear out great chunks of "his" rules and try and just crudely splice them into their own current house rules (and usually end up with a Frankenstein monster of a home-grown Solo rule set, as a result --- a thing that only that particular Borg-Soloist could ever love). Soloists were probably the kinds of kids that dissected their new toys when their parents weren't looking, just to see how they worked. They couldn't be trusted alone with small pets. They can't wait to get their hands on a new rule set, so they can "assimilate" what they consider are the best parts.

Find a Vantage Point to Tell the Tale Forth, we need to find some fresh "angle" from which to write up the campaign. Examples from the past have included creating various diaries from both sides, or counterfeiting newspaper clippings, or faking Official Returns written by one of the imaginary military commanders and so on. Lone Warrior has had some excellent sketches included as part of their campaign histories (note 5). Without a good story line, a campaign is just a series of unrelated (not so interesting) battles. As an aside, I find that it helps to have a handful of significant "main players" identified, (especially with Solo campaigns) who appear periodically throughout the tale. We tend to be more interested in THEIR story line, and how the wars affected them, than in the unfolding of the history of the battles themselves (which can be kind of dry stuff).

Having wrestled with this newly proposed Arthurian tale for a while, I wanted to feature one man, who ties the whole multi-level set of stories all together. Maybe he's a monk who grew up and fought in some of those battles, and then wrote something about them? Think in terms of Sean Connery in Umberto Echo's "The Name of the Rose" or Ellis Peter's novels and BBC movies about "Brother Cadfael", but I wanted more of an earlier (and perhaps less technologically sophisticated) version, set in a period where any kind of non- conformity among the Brothers was frowned on severely (and THAT explains why our monk writes about his doubts in some sort of a code).

Weaving Our Fiction Into the Facts Fifth, we need to weave our story into current Historical understanding, and make our story believable, or invoke what writers call "the Willing Suspension of Disbelief". Now, there are only a limited number of historically authentic manuscripts that go back to that time (or even manuscripts that might write about that time from a perspective of up to 400 years later) so how could I make the new manuscript seem "real"? I decided that the Monk's writing would be an unofficial document (so it was never intended to be written as official history), that seemed more like the accidental ramblings (written in code) of an old monk who has some doubts about some parts of his life. That way it's vague enough to explore the actual battles he participated in (and that he wrote about), as well as a bit about his life in some monastery (where he does his writing). And we can even use "fast-forward" to show how his writings are being deciphered and evaluated in modern times. In the world of modern academia, where one man's translation from the manuscript comes out as "Striving for Purity and Personal Redemption" but another scholar might translate the same ideograms as "Grail Wars" because HE knows that THAT title will be contentious enough to sell lots of books and possibly gain him more recognition, and maybe even "tenure" at a college or university.

A good part of setting up this "secondary" storyline, is researching and identifying some of the rather more thorny issues (or at least, issues that reflect a "change" from what we were taught in school, in my case some 30 years back). As an example, Archeologist Dr Ken Dark suggests that there was some sort of a "British social revolution" of a militant Christian lower class against a British pagan elite, and he says that archeology shows that the Briton pagan temples seemed to fall into disuse at about the time we want to explore (note 6). Talk about some great stuff to explore for a secondary theme in a Narrative Wargame!

Working Up the Various Lists Sixth, if we are running a Solo Narrative campaign, then we have to pull together our various lists of 6th Century (post-Arthurian) things --- places, times, battles (proper names for the period) and so on. For those who have never been exposed to this concept, we inject variability and unpredictability into our Solo gaming by "selecting" from a list of appropriate choices (by card pull) to build up a scene. So we start by breaking down some required element of our wargame play (lets say we need to describe a church from this period) into the various components (the spire or tower, the windows, the floor, the crypt, and so on as taken from several different period-specific churches) and we can then reconstruct a "new" church which is a kaleidoscopic combination drawn by random card-pulls from these lists. The advantage is that all the elements are "right", although the combination is always "new". This is a rather simple analogy, and we'll get into more about the process as part of the notes as the Narrative Wargame unfolds.

Something Borrowed, Something New And for our Seventh thought, these Solo Narrative Wargames act a bit like a Lab, where we can try out a handful of various new mechanisms and revise them as needed. While staying with what works gives us solid grounding, and makes sure that the whole exercise doesn't bog down, at the same time our trying out something new keeps the whole Solo experience fresh and alive. And THAT's one of the big secrets of avoiding premature burn-out in any hobby.

So hopefully this whets your appetite to go find your OWN campaign. And meanwhile, I'm well into the first couple of episodes of "The Gnostic Runes".

Bob Seur D'Armadilleaux

Notes: Note 1: Narrative Solo Wargames tend to put the cart before the horse. We "create" the scene using card-files and Mythic as a Narrative enabler, and only THEN do we fight out any resulting battles. Once they are done, then we go back and finish off the "episode" for that particular battle, or set of scenes. Note 2 At least, in the tradition of the Post-Roman tradition as exemplified by the Jack White series starting with Skystone, or the Bernard Cornwell trilogy Note 3: You can find the AfterRome Yahoo group here: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/AfterRome/ and it comes highly recommended (well, by Seur D'Armadilleaux, at least) Note 4: Sorry, that should read "Fyrd is free for those who are members of the AfterRome Yahoo group. Hey, membership ALWAYS seems to have its privileges. Mythic GME (Game Master Emulator) is a subject unto itself, but the short version is, it's the best $7 that I've spent in the last year or two, available as a download form DriveThruRPG.com There is quite a complete write-up available and that's posted in the SoloWarGames Yahoo group, here: http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/AEX6R40nIIMicb0QUiKC_oqf- SZyr39R4TvYE7hHVdjDLJQb_vKTabjTTlCPme4uGwAUscJ6SSyhPJKeemLmAFtZJ2IZk1a UHWy1/Mythic%20Solo%20Wargaming%20Files/Mythic%20for%20Solo% 20Wargames%20Lone%20Warrior%20submission.doc It's kinda long, and uses Colonial Warfare as the comparative model, but hopefully it will show how Mythic adds to Solo Narrative Wargame play. I'd be remiss not to say that Mythic also has an active Yahoo group, and this can be found at: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Mythic_Role_Playing/ Again, if you are principally an historical wargamer, don't get put off by that Role Playing part of the title. Mythic adds a LOT to wargaming play, under the "right" circumstances. Note 5: Lone Warrior is the quarterly magazine that's put out by the Solo Wargamer's Association, and it is available on the web at Magweb.com (if you subscribe to their service) and Magweb does have some free samples of articles to look at. Notice that Magweb (purposely) tend to be about 2 issues or so behind the currently available mag (to encourage subscriptions of course). Lone Warrior is a bargain at a mere $25 for a year's subscription for North America subscriptions, and slightly higher at $30 overseas. Get it now, before the subscription price has a chance to go up! Checks or appropriate money orders to: Solo Wargamers Association, 1707 Ridge Rd, Leavenworth KS 66048 USA. Paypal is also taken at lonewarrior@... and make sure you include a mailing address for your subscription. Note 6: See http://www.wansdyke21.org.uk/wansdyke/wanart/dark.htm which is very interesting, and quite readable

22. Maintaining a High Level of Activity

Or, How to Master a New Wargames Period in Fast Time Issue 0.2 12 Dec 07

Sometimes it’s interesting to review how we can best “learn” a new wargaming period --- the actual process that we go through to pick up a different area of interest. Once we have “chosen” some new passion (note 1) then how do we optimize the learning process and focus our efforts to become proficient in the period, within the least amount of time? It’s not enough to simply “learn” some new rule set by rote, if we don’t understand the specifics behind how that new army waged its war. And for many of us, its been a long time since we consciously went back to school, especially with the intent of “learning” a completely new subject (note 2).

The Process of Learning The whole “process of learning” has changed dramatically because of research done over the last 30 or 40 years, although as wargamers, we probably collectively don’t really place enough emphasis on “How to Learn” (who thinks they have the extra time for such luxuries?). And yet if we are faced with the daunting task of spending hundreds of hours of study (over a year, perhaps) to learn a new period, then maybe we should devote a bit of time to develop an efficient study plan. There are some great recent study-guides that are published for “how to learn” college courses, and these are well worth hunting out, the next time we are at our favorite used bookstore. They are usually a quick read, and are worth their weight in gold, for the amount of study-time that they save.

For example, they encourage us to make up our own expanded index on the topics from any text that we read, so we can quickly go back and find an important reference. The process of jotting down notes also helps to “fix” the ideas in our long-term memory. If we start out with hand-written notes, jotted down while reading the book, then modern study methods also encourage us to go back and “speed-read” a chapter, within a week of our first going (laboriously) through the text. And again after about 4 to 6 weeks for a third pass. Those extra readings help to organize our thoughts, and they definitely make more of the really important stuff “stick”. Always make a note of the last time we reviewed that source. Small sticky labels can be bought that will peel off the book or magazine, so we don’t deface the inside covers.

Memory Pegs A lot of learning involves something we refer to as Memory Pegs (note 3). It’s always surprising to find that we can learn some stuff better by reading, or by seeing, or by doing something. The brain seems to store poetry in a different way than normal verbal speech, and a different way from songs, as well (note 4). Any good pianist will tell you they have some Mechanical Memory --- pieces that the fingers “know” without conscious thought. The pianist can carry on quite complex conversations, while at the same time playing something note-perfect from mechanical memory (note 5). Emotionally charged memories may be different again, and often there is some sort of minor “trigger” (could even be a specific smell, like lavender, or burned toast) that brings back or unleashes emotional memories. Sometimes we can use these in a positive way, to reinforce something we need to memorize.

Graham adds, the reinforcement obtained from re-reading is really about adding pathways within our mind rather like generating multiple cross indexes to a single database it gives us multiple access paths in the future to trigger memory recovery in the future. When he was studying corporate law in the 1970’s the senior lecturer encouraged developing a system of mnemonics (like SNAFU --- “Situation Normal, All Fouled Up”). He would create them for paragraphs first, then take them and create further ones for whole chapters. It must have worked cause Graham scored 84%. All he says he did in the exam was write the top level mnemonic on the question paper and then the mind cascaded the expanded meanings onto the page.

In John Harris’s books Hannibal Lecter uses a sort of Memory Palace, where each imaginary room is constructed to help foster a specific memory. That’s a great way to remember key personalities that dominate the landscape of a new period we are trying to learn. Who were the 6 main heroes, the 6 losers or villains of the times? Who were the 6 up-and-coming geniuses, where were “nipped in the bud” and died before they won acclaim?

The point is, the more detail (the more different memory-pegs) that we can associate with a memory, the stronger we tend to remember it. Sometimes a marching song and the related lyrics from a period may help to serve as a whole ladder made up of memory pegs.

The Central Resources Page Card files and loose-leaf books are pretty well replaced with computer files and folders of related info. It does help to think about disaster planning --- what happens if your PC goes down or gets a virus. Might be wise to invest in a back-up drive (or burn a copy onto DVD-R or CD-R media).

One of the modern ideas is to create a sort of Master Index or Central Resources page, where we jot down where we can find what information and that lists the high-lights of what info is in what text books that I’ve read. This is a big sucker, and usually when it grows too big, it really has to be kept as a computer file (or we are walking around with a phone-book). I like to include references for interesting web-sites, as well (note 6). For example, my buddy Perry once questioned my use of the use of the term “Barampta”, and without a master index, this would have been a real chore to track back to one of John Master’s books.

The Master Index/Central Resources page is really useful for keeping track of second-reference material, where we find reference to something from more than one original source. In the case of controversial items we can even go back and check the reference that the book uses as THEIR source for the quote or idea (note 7). Doesn’t matter whether we are quoting from a well-written novel or a university text, or some re-enactor who posts a good article on line --- make it a habit to credit your sources. If nothing else, a short “thanks to Master X” shows your appreciation for the time, and encourages those who help you to continue to do so.

Aside from that Master Index, it helps to keep a Bibliography list of novels we have (or have read). If we try and jot down the dates of the books in brackets, that helps to differentiate from other books we WANT to read (and I put those in double brackets as well). A list of non-fiction reference books that we own can be kept on the same page, to start, until it grows too big and cumbersome. This is intended as a short 2 or 3 page list that we can fold up and take with us to the used book store or convention flea- market. Otherwise it’s too easy to end up with duplicates!

Old Uncle Phineas Another way to tie data to a memory peg is to relate it to our own genealogy. Maybe we had a relative that was affected by more recent events. And if we can’t quite find someone from our known family tree, then looking for unusual names that MIGHT relate to us, can sometimes do the trick. For example, there are several Dickie family members on my Mum’s side, and several references to them in ACW texts. I can’t prove that it’s the same tree, but it could be a distant relation, and that makes their diaries more interesting.

Nothing says we can’t “adopt ourselves out” to become far-distant relatives of other familiar names that occur in historical texts. As long as we do it tongue in cheek, for the purpose of remembering it better, there’s no harm in the whimsical adoption.

Compare and Contrast Another memory trick that helps wargamers is to compare and contrast the new period with one that we are familiar with. So if we are interested in researching the ACW, it helps to compare and contrast it to the British Colonial period, as an example. The intent is to use this as a memory tool --- what’s the difference in weapons, how did that affect the tactics, how well trained were the recruits, what differences would we expect between the ACW 3-year veteran versus the 20-year Colonial recruit, and so on. Again, the purpose of this is to provide a known structure, as a pattern for us to pick up the new period faster.

As an aside, sometimes its surprising how much a Roman Legion has in common with a Colonial Brigade. There is a lot of similarity in the distances marched, the weight of their packs, the uniformity of clothing, and so on. This all helps when we are trying to pick up the tactics used, as well. Depending on the two institutions, the comparison may well break down at some points, but then even the Contrast of the two serves as a memory-aide.

Good Bones Its interesting how a couple of seminal books seem to "paint" a whole period for you. It often seems like a small handful of books condense the core experience and make it approachable. Not that other books don't add to the experience, but that 5 or 6 define it. If we’re lucky, then we have a buddy who is well- versed in the period, who can recommend those key books (note 8). And if we don’t know any experts personally, then if we’re lucky there might be a web-group that we can query to get their collective recommendations. Ads for books-for-sale often have quite revealing notes --- who are considered the important authors, and who are the new theorists (note 9). Artists often talk about defining their painting by getting the “bones” of a subject down first, and once they have good bones, then its much easier to cover the skeleton and flesh it out. The same is true when studying a new period --- reading the essential books (and more than once, if required to make it stick) is the pre-cursor to understanding the period.

A different application the Good Bones theory, comes from applying it to the fiction that we read --- 3 or 4 books (or perhaps one series) often tend to define the ideal for the period that we are trying to recreate in our wargaming. This is especially important when we are data-mining a set of sources for Narrative wargame lists (note 10).

While libraries rarely have what we are looking for in specialized military history books, we can often find them on line with either eBay or Amazon.com (either new or used).

Maintaining a High Level of Activity We all complain that there is never enough time, and yet there CAN be, if we are strict about how we allocate the available time. No reason why we can’t allocate 20 hours a week (that’s less than 3 hours per day) if the need is felt strongly enough. Get up an hour earlier or go to bed an hour later (but make that a really productive hour). Scavenge the little slivers of time --- 15 minutes before meals, or 5 minutes during TV commercials, to concentrated on small tasks. Find stuff we can take with us, waiting for the Doctor, the Dentist, the Accountant, or other mythological “on-time” people.

And by all means, try and maintain a high level of activity! By that we mean shift gears when we get tired, don’t just stop the learning process and snooze. Read a novel in the period, watch a related TV Program (Battlefield Detectives on the History Channel as an example). Find a web-group on Yahoo that is interested in the period. Other peripheral influences include educational DVD's, magazines, maybe looking for period prints for the wargames room, Osprey or coffee-table books for the pics and reproductions.

No one says that we have to “just” do miniature wargames, either. Maybe a part of the plan to keep high energy levels might include using a computer or a stand-alone gaming consol with some appropriate game from that period. No one will think we’ve “sold out” of miniature wargames, if we complement our gaming using a Xbox 360.

Have a look at eBay offerings in general, as another way of keeping our interest peaked. Look into prints, old diaries, old photos, coffee-table books, even medals, bronze statues and similar collectables. Nothing says we can’t gawk, even if they are outside of our pocket book. There was a wonderful old British Mark V 1890’s Heliograph on eBay around November 07 that had me riveted to the auction. While I couldn’t justify the $250 dollars to bid on it, the pics were great, and they spurred me into another line of research.

Specific Wargames With Specific Rules Its nice if there happens to be a wargames group around in our area that play the period (and even better if they use the rules we like), but that's not really essential. We may decide on what we think is the "right" one of a handful of rule sets, but we learn more about period-specific tactics even if we play what we think of as a second-rate rule set. Just plan on getting the maximum benefit from the experience. Optimize our play to include reserves, cavalry in the right role, guns or other artillery sighted on the best lines of fire, and infantry tactics that suit the general period.

Find a Mentor It really helps to find someone who has had a long-term interest in the new period, who won’t mind answering the odd question or two (and some of my questions are really odd). And perhaps even more important, finding someone who can help keep you on track, when you come to funny puzzles that need clarification (like accurate roster or makeup for the regiments at specific battles), so we don't go off the rails, or end up with a skewed view of the whole enterprise, due to some misperception or an incorrect interpretation.

Figure out the key questions that we need to answer. As we tick them off (having found some reasonable reference) then we end up with a core of questions that we may have to pose to our friendly Mentor.

Make it a point to write a short note to thank people who have influenced your thinking. So few lurkers in web-groups do this, that you immediately stand out from the crowd. For example, I read a lot of back- articles on one web-group, and wrote to thank the 3 who had offered the most insight, asking one specifically for permission to quote them, and two of them wrote back to say thanks, and don’t hesitate to pose questions direct, if I felt like it.

Seeing the Carrot It really helps if we can “see” where we are going, and a good way of promoting this is to paint up a color stand for the period that we are interested in, and display it prominently where we can gawk at it. Whether that’s on top of our computer monitor at work, or beside the TV controls at home, or just on a shelf that we look at frequently, those 4 to 6 figures done up to the nines will work wonders at keeping our interest peaked. Sort of a case of keeping the carrot out where the Donkey can see the rewards to come, for a good job done! We may have several hundred figures going through various stages of painting, but it is these brave 4 that will encourage us to push ahead and get the job done.

Specialize in a Narrow Field Try becoming a specialist in a narrow field, and sharing your knowledge or explaining it to other people. A couple of questions on a web-group sent me off researching Heliography, Elephant-drawn ordinance and harnesses, and Mule-wrangling. In a couple of hours on the web, I’d become a fairly knowledgeable expert on each of the topics, and could post a detailed 1 page reply one each. The information became a part of some of my Narrative Wargames as well, so the research did double duty.

Take a Week-Long Holiday “On The House” So there we have it, a couple of ways to save a ton of time on picking up a new wargaming period. And if we follow these ideas, then over the course of a couple of months we could end up doing 150 hours of learning in “only” 100 hours of time --- and that’s like taking a whole week of vacation “free”, on the house!

Notes Note 1: Or as some might say, “once we have been bitten by the bug”, which is an interesting topic in itself, as in “What makes us susceptible to appeal of THAT period?” Note 2: To some degree, just learning a new protagonist within the same field is relatively easy. If we have always played the Carthaginians against Imperial Rome, then shifting over to play the Spanish armies of the same period isn’t that much work, compared to moving to the medieval Burgundians as an example. Note 3: Specialists in education call these mnemonics, things like “I before E, except after C” as an example. Another type is like “KISS” for Keep it Simple Stupid. They are short tricks that help us remember longer theorems. Note 4: Songs are usually stored in the opposite side of the brain from speech, so that we are able to hum a tune, or even sing it under our breath, while following a conversation perfectly at the same time. We can “make up” a list of things to do, and sing it, as a form of “background” reminder! It’s the ultimate example of the brain doing multi-tasking. Note 5: Its particularly interesting to see a pianist regurgitate something from mechanical memory --- they play a couple of bars, stumble, start over from the beginning at a faster speed, go a couple of bars further, and so on. The point is, that memory seems to have many ways of getting at the same material, and requires that we approach it (without forcing it) again and again. Can’t remember a childhood friend’s name? Think of all the other related stuff --- played baseball together, who else was there, where did he live, and somehow the synapses that make up memory will “rebuild” the missing bridge to the name. Note 6: Just remember that many of these websites are amateur productions that are NOT permanent, so we need to take extra measures for preserving key information from such sites. Note 7: Perry’s idea --- many references often come back to one sun source, where it might be better if we had multiple examples from various prime sources to prove a point Note 8: Nothing says that we can’t revise an entry, or update one --- those core books are still the “bones” that we build our wargaming upon. Note 9: Sometimes these new theorists choose to take some rather exotic positions, that may be appropriate to get a lot of books sold, but not necessarily very solid from a history perspective. For example, some theorize that Lee had a heart attack just before Gettysburg --- no way to prove it, of course. Note 10: Narrative wargames are stories that connect a series of campaign wargames together, where the quality of the after action report is quite important. The different “scenes” are chosen from lists of 13 items at a time, drawn from our favorite sources. So a list of Improvised Defenses might have details of 13 doors, 13 walls, 13 courtyards, and so on, drawn with a card pull. Each time we go through that list, we get a slightly different picture of the Improvised Defense, and no two are exactly alike.

23. Some Thoughts on Better Design for Solo Play Issue 0.1 20 July 07

Overview A lot of great rule sets and board games could become that much better, and possibly sell a good number more copies, with just a little extra thought on designing them for long-term Solo players. Respected sources (note James Dunnigan) suggest that over 60 percent of boardgames get played solo, for one reason or another. But there is a difference between “being ABLE to play it solo”, and “making it an enjoyable Solo game, that is worth trying it out again”.

Designers tend to get a bit of tunnel vision, and may fail to step back and appreciate that not all games are F2F (face-to-face) encounters by a long shot. By adding just a few little goodies they can expand their potential marketplace quite considerably. For example, how do most of us learn the rules? We try out little Solo efforts, of course, until the rules become familiar enough to take on a live opponent. So why not cater for making that effort a more enjoyable experience with a kind of Solo Tutorial (note: Thanks to Graham Empson for the idea).

Here’s some suggestions on how to step-up the Solo game enjoyment level.

Extra Blank Counters Lets consider a simple Red versus Blue army scenario (trying to keep these comments as generic as possible). Lets further assume that the Red side is fairly fixed in make-up, and if there is any variability in the game, we assign that to the Blue side. A soloist will tend to operate the Red counters, but would LIKE to have more uncertainty about the Blue counters --- so we deploy them upside down so we can’t see them. If we can add 20 percent more Blue-side “blank” counters so we can’t tell the exact location of every unit that “uncertainty” adds a lot to the solo experience.

The idea of blank markers is great, but sometimes a little problematic when a game has data on both sides of the markers, making it difficult to lay out a “hidden” mix, so designer's need to allow for that. The solution is simple --- have a tin with lots of “?” markers (to designate the “unseen” potential-enemy) and lay these out instead. On the reverse side is either “nothing”, “A” for Artillery, “I” for Infantry, “C” for Cavalry, and so on. Then we just pick out an appropriate marker from the box and we have a “spotted” enemy that is randomly set out. It does of course depend on what formation level (regiment, brigade, corps) the game is formatted, but not beyond the capability of a good designer to resolve (note Thanks to Graham Empson for the idea).

Scouting and Skirmish Elements If we have some optional rules for “hidden” Blue-counter deployment for Solo gaming, we could then choose to boost the role of Scouting and or Skirmishing elements, to cause them to trigger identifying (or blocking the ID) of the Blue forces. So unopposed, a Scout or Skirmisher might see “X” distance (arbitrarily 1 hex in rough ground or 3 hexes in clear ground as a typical example), but an opposing Blue Scout/Skirmisher cuts that distance down (cause both scout/skirmish elements are more concerned with the immediate threat to their front, rather than peering at the obscure threat 5 moves away).

The Scouting/Skirmish role would be optional, so that Soloists can adopt them, and F2F players can chose to ignore them if they prefer.

Pockets of Uncertainty Rather than have a just a group of “fixed” terrain features, we should consider using a number of “pockets of uncertainty” that need to be investigated before we know exactly what they are. Best point for these is at natural “choke points”. As a start, we’d like to see 3 to 5 such “pockets” (something that fits in a 2 inch circle on the map) per 1 square foot of map (corresponding to 1 wargame table). The idea is that once these are scouted, then we dice for (or draw a card for) the terrain feature in question. It could be a hard-point, a rough-ground, a soft-cover-feature, a ruins or a blank card. The ratio is up to the designer, but we’d suggest that there be extra blanks to let the Solo player customize to their liking.

Terrain uncertainty gives us visions of artillery trying to maneuver through boggy ground they didn't know was boggy - horses tire-out very quickly if you do that. Years ago we made up similar uncertainty- hexes out of white card and placed them between opposing armies so that when Blue or Red arrived there, a quick dice role decided what was underneath --- handy for uncertainty with respect to a bridge for example --- is it sound, can it take the weight, or is somebody about to light off the explosives (note Thanks to Graham Empson for this example).

A different approach to Pockets of Uncertainty is to allow for an “obscure mass” of unknown alliance to move through part of the terrain. Is it friend or foe? (Can’t tell unless scouts catch up to it). Is it a serious threat, or just ragtails? (Can’t tell unless we get REAL close --- shooting range). Is it Hostile, or will it run away (Again, can’t tell until we get REAL close, and then it “may” bolt before we can tell).

Extended Maps For Solo play, it would be wonderful to have extended maps. Nothing fancy, just plain sheets that can be photocopied as needed and extend the terrain. Ideally we want to have something we can transfer to a table top (or ping-pong table), so we could use 8 ½ x 11 inch (or standard rulebook page size) maps. Again, ideally a solo player likes to see some area that would give him the ability to transfer the equivalent of 3 x 4 “battlefields” to the maps, or from the maps back to the battlefield. Soloists are notorious about jotting notes and new names and extra features on these maps, so make it easy to photocopy them. Some soloists are nuts enough to buy a game “just” to get their hands on a suitable map.

Extended maps are preferable to Alternate maps, for most Solo wargamers. They are generally more interested in the campaign capability, the possibility of ebb and flow, than simply refighting with similar forces in a “new” battle.

Different Game, Different Viewpoint Playing most Solo games is “different” from playing F2F (face to face). Not better; not worse; just “different”. A solo player isn’t so much a “competitor” as an involved observer/judge. And that means we need to add something else to compensate for not having that F2F opponent who thinks out-of-the- box. One of the ways we do this is by adding uncertainty, and we covered a bit of that in an earlier comment. Another nice touch is to add some elements that rarely get modeled in most games. Things like a representational supply-train element, couriers, scouting encounters, medics, messages from headquarters, and similar. None of these have to be central to the game, nor should the outcome hang on any of these elements. At the same time, they add a lot to the kind of “experience” that a solo player is looking for --- getting caught up in the web of how things work.

Lesser Allies Assuming we have a game where there are lesser allies involved, that’s a great place to boost the Solo play element. Some of the best games have a central “core” Red army (which the Soloist controls) along with an undetermined Lesser Allies army (that has been requested and is on the way, but not fully documented). The enemy Blue army is deployed face-down with counters, along with their “random- drawn” allies (again we don’t know the composition or the unit strength until scouts do their thing). The Soloist operating the Red army may “think” he is going to attack, until he sees the real allied forces on both sides, and realizes he is going to be on the defensive!

Simple First-Pass Characterization Most face-to-face gamers don’t see the need for characterization. But when we are playing Solo games, we need the emotional strings that keep us interested (maybe over weeks or months of playing a solo game in little slivers of available time) in “whatever happened to Cpl Schmitt?” And that’s where a bit of Characterization helps. We don’t need anything TOO fancy, but even adding simple names, or creating a Table of Org with space left for the Soloist to insert the names is a big step forward.

More of the Good Stuff One thing that Solo gamers really like is the historical notes. Solo gamers tend to try and work out historical tactics that fit the period and the battle, too. They set up the position at a key point, and then walk around it and think about it, often for days and nights at a time. Because Soloists do their thing in many small slivers of time, they may have the board set up for a week or more, looking at the options. This might drive an F2F opponent to commit illegal acts, but a Soloist is nothing, if not patient. So any extra effort along these lines is certainly appreciated --- a case of “more of the good stuff, please”.

Taking a Chance Most F2F gamers don’t WANT a lot of “chance” characterization in their games, but Soloists relish the change in scene. Does the Blue general get a +1 or a –1? A Soloist wants to know, where an F2F player howls in protest about it not being “fair”. Is that chicane (bridge, narrows, rapids, gap in the asteroids) navigable or not? A Soloist will thank you for simple alternate rules to cover the eventuality, where F2F will skim right over that rule.

As an aside, most Solo players will prefer these cards are tied to a deck of standard cards, rather than having a “special” deck drawn up --- when they wear, get lost, whatever they are difficult (impossible) to replace. By contrast, its easy to modify an entry for a standard deck of cards (not so the “special” deck); a damaged standard card can easily be replaced (not so with the “special” deck); the “odds” of specific things happening can be changed by adding extra cards to a standard deck of cards (harder with the “special” deck). And nobody pockets the 3 of Hearts (not like they do when they get some neato card they drew from the “special” deck --- y’know, like “Dando goes berserk, no enemy nor sheep within 20 paces is safe!”)

Encourage After Action Reports AAR’s are the Soloist’s dream. They LOVE to write them up and share them with friends and post them on websites. Anything that a game designer does that makes writing an entertaining AAR easier, is a great use of design time. That little bit of extra time with names and places pays big dividends. The blanks “orders” pads, with appropriate places for the names of the players, the characters, the dates and where the game was played, become a permanent part of the log that Solo players slave over. Appropriate letter head (like “Star Fleet Officer’s Log, 3019” or whatever) adds a LOT to the Soloist’s enjoyment. And these things get noticed and commented on by other Solo players who might be looking for a new addition to their collection.

Summary Take any one of these improvements, and they will pay dividends. But if we take the whole lot under advisement, we can bring the Solo play to a whole new level, with relatively little outlay in design time or production cost. The increase in sales to a larger part of the Soloist community (including many who are prepared to buy the game and “convert” it to better suit their period) will probably more-than-justify the efforts.

Bob Seur D’Armadilleaux Friend of Crippled Toy Soldiers, Smile on face, Recycling lead pot hidden behind him!

Notes

Thanks to some great input from Graham Empson and … on this effort.

“If we seem to see far, it is only because we stand on the shoulders of the giants that have gone before us”

24. Twelve Best Kept Secrets Toward Keeping Solo “Fresh” 18 June 07Issue 0.1

Evolve, Instead of Doing the Same Old Thing How do we keep Solo gaming fresh? We asked a couple of people with 25-plus years in the hobby, and this is really a collection of their good ideas. We’ll start with a list, so we can stick it in the Movie section of our TV Times and ponder on it (while watching reruns of Robin Hood with the Goode Wife in front of the Boob Tube), and then maybe we can have it suitably framed, for a place of honor over the fireplace in our paneled wargames dungeon. (What? You haven’t had the fireplace built yet??)

The Secrets of Longevity Look into a Modular approach to building and collecting our Solo adversaries (armies, figures, whatever) Don’t neglect the “other” parts of the hobby (history for the period, tactics, painting, fiction) Try a complete change in our “favorite” period, even if it’s “just” to add a handful of large skirmish figures Add a different layer of command to our battle (whether that’s up or down; generalissimo or waterboy) Upgrade one of our parallel hobbies (time for a new Integrated Receiver or Short Wave Radio maybe?) Upgrade the “worst” stand that we own, and do this in an integrated or programmed fashion Improve the background scenery, roads and buildings, and table lighting --- the “ambience” Add some humor (like the Zulu with the water bucket; or the legend of Seur D’Armadilleaux) Improve how we write up the story behind the battle; make it more exciting --- Dear Diary Go Digital with a close-up camera & add the detailed little pics to our storyline, or go retro with sketches Teach others about things that worked out well --- share the passion, and give at least some of it away free Try our hand at illustrations and sketches, as well as adding maps to our After Action Reports

Revisit Our Mix of Figures with a Modular Approach It’s a common mistake. People get into one period or one game system, and they get all excited about the new experience, and before we know it, they have 2 of everything, but only in that one narrow range. We get caught in the trap of bigger is better, and so more should be magnificent. Unchecked, we tend to cram 80 figures into a little space more suited towards 20 figures, just because we want to use ALL our painted treasures. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. The same holds true for books or rule sets. We all know a couple of people who have every book, brand new, never-been-opened, sitting there on their shelf.

Instead, we suggest the use of a more modular approach to our Wargames interests and figures. If we really like Alexandrian pike armies, reuse the same pike modules to build up several related armies. And we really should try and build up at least some of those variations that are purposely “less effective”. In addition to a killer army (like Alexander Macedonean) maybe we add units to convert it into an Alexander-Successor army, or a Ptolemaic Egyptian pike army, or a Pyrrhic army as an example. Much better if we start off with a little thought about how we might be able to cover 2 or 3 “different” armies (or even different periods) by using a core group of figures, and some complementary extra stands that we shift in and out, depending on the period.

Why would we go search out something LESS effective? Because then we can tailor our composition to match the capabilities of the people we’re playing with (or in solo terms, the less-effective opponents we want to play against). Think of this as a Frontier Roman Fortress that is thinly manned, and meant to keep the local raiders at bay. Why have 3 legions tied up for what amounts to police work? Convertible armies are definitely more fun, and that way you spread the interest over more territory. As another approach to the same theme, paint up a half dozen stands to add a different option to our “usual” army. This works particularly well with some armies like Medieval Italian City States. And even if you can’t think of options for your Medieval Swiss Pike army, you can find an army that had tons of Swiss Pike in them (like the medieval French army), and that achieves the same effect. Broaden your horizons.

RPG’s and Figure Mix This idea of mix-n-match is by NO means limited to “just” historical gaming. Lets suppose we like some specific Role Playing Games (RPG’s) such as the Gaslight period (1920’s) and have a nice collection. Why not branch out and add a couple of figures from horror flicks, or from an Indiana Jones style? The point is that we can add a “taste” of parallel universes, without detracting from the main themes that hold our attention, and are near and dear to our hearts. A 10 per cent dilution won’t cause a catastrophic souring of our favorite tipple.

Rules-Light Another example, we can paint up a whole bunch of dark-skinned Nubian allies to create an earlier “light” Ancient Egyptian army, the one the Egyptian army used to put down all the desert bandits who were so abundant anywhere around Egypt. As a Solo wargamer, we should also look for armies with irregular troop options, which don’t react quite as predictably as our regular troops would. Simon Dowell taught me this a long time ago --- scrotty rag-tag armies may not win as often, but they are infinitely more enjoyable to play with, and that goes double when we are playing with Solo games. We may not “win” as often with a scrotty army, but we learn a lot, and have a lot more fun in the process, and isn’t that what its all about? The Solo games we’ve played using scrappy little frontier Sertorian vs Pompeian armies from the Spanish Wars (at the time of Caesar) have been among the most exciting we’ve played. And Arthurian vs Saxons have a similar warm spot in our wargames memories for the same reason --- no Roman cohort steamrollers here, but just a bunch of grubby farmer-wanna-be’s, fighting off what they see as some upstart invading bandits.

Alternatively, we can get a lot of that irregular feeling, by using a Rules “booster pack”. (Eh?). By that we mean, if we still use our favorite rule set, but add a set of complementary rules like Mythic GME (Game Master Emulator), THAT alone may cause our normal solo games to take on a less-predictable, more-Chaotic air, and produce a lot more action for the time we spend gaming. Well worth looking into!

As a third variation on a theme, I keep one box filled with “common” light and skirmish troops, suitable for a wide range of scenarios. That lets us pack a lot of light troops into the bonus options, (typical of more of the garrison or frontier armies). Role Playing Gamers might consider these as Non Playing Characters, so the bell-hop, the gas-meter reader, the telegram delivery guy --- figures who don’t affect the main outcome of the game, but who add a lot of local color.

The common theme in all of these ideas, is that we re-use a lot of what we already have, and just substitute in a couple of stands to “make it fresh”.

Think of Solo as a 4-legged Stool Are we a true quadraped soloist? Or just a Solo kind of kangaroo? (Find it hard to keep your balance?)

Don’t neglect the “other” parts of the hobby, even if we are not very proficient at some of them. Solo Wargaming is like a 4-legged stool, where First we need to know a little about the history of our Army (I keep a loose-leaf binder on each of my armies). Doesn’t require that we get a history degree, just that we have read the Coles Notes version, and have a reasonable feel for the time. Even if our “period” is a fictional setting, or a future-wars setting, there are ALWAYS sources that we haven’t read yet.

Second we need to understand the historical tactics these armies used (for historical miniatures, have a look in WRG’s books like “Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome” as a start). Again, we don’t need to go back to primary sources, but we want to get the right “flavor” for the period we are gaming. The same is true for RPG games, in that we will get more out of playing-in-period, rather than always adopting Napoleonic tactics (mass the big guns in one group, and pound everything else away).

Third, we should have some pretty good references on the uniforms (like suitable-to-the-period “Osprey” historical books for painting). Have a look on the internet, especially at some of the armies on eBay, or at some of the Osprey Men at Arms painted-up 54mm figures that are periodically offered. Fanaticus.com is a great DBA based source for info on painting the most popular armies. We don’t need slavish museum quality detail here; to quote my buddy Craig Thomas from model trains, we just want a “5-foot-away overall look” that gives the flavor of the times. One source I use for a lot of buildings, uniforms, and background on my North West Frontier battles, is simply back-issues of the National Geographic. Afghanistan wars today look a lot like those of the 19th century (unfortunately) bar the modern weapons. And for those of us who like Star Trek, a lot of their names and races (Bajaur, Gul Dukot, and so on) are directly lifted from the 1850’s North West Frontier of India.

And Fourth, I like to have a moderate collection of historical fiction from that period as an interest- reinforcement, too (umm --- Alfred Dugan is one of my favorite all-time broad-topic historical authors, and his books are still available on eBay). In fact, the historical-fiction section of my library is now probably 4 or 5 times larger than the military reference section. I hasten to add that most of my historical fiction books were bought from flea markets and second-hand stores over the years. Fortunately we live in a big-old-rambling house that sports a library room (one of the main reasons we bought the place!).

While we are talking about reading --- learn to read with critical intent. That’s right, there is quite a big difference between “just” reading for pleasure (no note-taking, and at whatever speed we want) and reading some book and taking notes on snippets that we can use in our solo games (as part of our lists, or maybe part of a future scenario). We should be jotting down “source” notes, too --- we need to be able to refer to some master index, and see that Jezail patterns are shown in the XXX book on page 45, or whatever. For our most popular books, we should keep a copy of the scrap-notes for that book tucked in the back. When we re-read them at a later date, we can just “add” to our body of cross- referenced information.

(What’s that? Oh, Lady D’Armadilleaux begs to differ with respect to the value I place on my fiction library. She says they are only good for shredding into mouse-nests. Note to self: buy more mouse- traps on the weekend. And a bouquet of flowers, worth roughly the price of another box of plastic Esci figures. Which see, while we are out buying flowers.)

Dabble in Something New Try a change in the period that we play. If we are always playing 400 BC to 400 AD, we are missing huge chunks of interesting Ancient wargaming stimulation, both from early times like the Biblical armies (light, nimble, and fast) as well as through to the later Horse-armies (410 through 1000AD) and especially up through to Renaissance armies (the Starship troopers of the Ancient scene). Not sure if you’d like a specific period? The local club holds a DBA Doubles tournament quarterly, where the various armies are fixed, and the players just dice for sides. This is a great way to come out and “try” a different army or a different period. The same idea holds true for little local conventions --- find some game that looks interesting and outside of our standard fare, and sit in and ask questions. We get more from 2 hours in a demo game, than from days of “just” reading over the rulesets.

The same holds true for RPG players --- If we always go to 1920’s quest in the Jungle, we are going to miss some great fun that could be had by shifting the period to the 1820’s and searching around in Colonial Mysore in India. Look afield. If nothing else, we may be able to “import” some fresh ideas into our favorite game or our favorite period. We can learn from the most varied of sources. We once sat down and talked to a guy painting up Dungeons and Dragons little guys, when there was nothing else at a little con that seemed to be of interest. That was over 25 years back, but the ideas he shared are STILL key parts to my painting techniques, even today.

OK, this is the right time to spill the beans --- the dreaded dark secret that LOTS of respected long- time solo wargamers hide away in boxes in their basement. Y’see, I actually have 4 different Solo campaigns going on at the moment. Now I used to play one period to the point of burn-out, then put it away and pull out another. These days, I try and do it more systematically, changing among the 4 periods every 4 to 5 weeks (trying to suspend play at a logical “node” so that its easier to pick up where I left off). That way I never “hit the wall”, cause the walls get changed every 6 weeks (that, or else the metaphors get so darned confusing that I no longer have a clue where I am or where I was going with any of this. It helps to take the Solo gaming experience seriously, but not take yourself too seriously).

Satisfaction isn’t a function of army size --- try out your interest in a different army or period by painting up a Little Tiddler. Find a DBA army pack (or try one of those great new 1/72 Russian plastic kits) and turn it into an intro-level or skirmish-type collection. We usually try to bulk it out with extra command stand figures, or flags stuck on pike figures. We don’t need 300 figures to get the flavor of the new army or new period. Heck, if we’ve never played Gaslight 1920’s, we should put the wargame figures aside for a week, and go play a Solo Gaslight game with a handful of figures!

Add a Different Layer, and Maybe a Different Figure Scale If most of our Solo gaming has been 15mm set-piece battles, using Saga rules, DBA, Armati or similar then maybe its time that we try a different “layer”, by going to 25mm Skirmish-level, or going to 10mm Grand-tactical, or to 6mm Battalion-size. And nothing says we have to use the same old rules or the same old size of figures, either. We use Armati Intro with 15mm figures for most of our “serious” historical solo games (like the Burgundian Invasion of Italy), but we also like to run some parallel “skirmish” games with just a handful of 1/72 figures (like a scouting party, that runs into Italian advance elements, or a siege in the Towers at Arches Tombeys). These are short 1 or 2 hour parallel- games that have their own simplified rules, often using Solo card-lists and Mythic to get more of an RPG feel. They don’t seriously affect the outcome of the main campaign, but they add a lot of color and spice to the story lines.

OK so on the odd occasion we’ve even gone back to our old Gladiator rule set, and had one-on-one skirmish with 1/32 figures, mounted on Hex bases. And we still have our 1/32 WWII rules from MIGS (the long-running local “Military Interests and Games Society”) that we haul out and fondle every once in a while. These are quite adaptable to Colonial periods, although they need a set of larger Colonial figures (Standing firing, kneeling firing, and prone) for each combatant fielded. (Umn, OK so I admit that sometimes I use WWII figs to stand in for the Colonials too. Gee, you guys are really tough inquisitors. But I’m gonna find the “right” figs at Cold Wars this year. Honest).

Going the other way, we have a whole slew of smaller figures (both 6mm and 10mm) that we use for Battalion or Grand Tactical level moves. So we might use these on the Map Game that precedes the actual confronting of the enemy. Those 6mm little guys on small pieces of picture-matt thick cardboard can get stuck right on to the pieces that make up the modular map system. They are a lot more satisfying to look at than a bunch of pins, and they survive the cork-board getting put on the top shelf, when we switch periods.

As an aside, the smaller the scale of the figures, the more we get to appreciate where Mythic GME fits in, because we may have trouble “seeing” whether we have a flank attack in 6mm scale, but we can pose the question to Mythic’s Fate Chart (“Does that guy have a flank attack on this guy?”) and come up with a suitable (but still randomized) response.

Parallel Hobbies Maybe its time to upgrade one of our “parallel” hobbies. After about a dozen years using the same old Sony tube Stereo that I bought at a garage sale, I finally broke down and upgraded the integrated amplifier to a new-for-me, (used) Harmon Kardon. Now I can’t wait to get down there into the painting dungeon, just to go through all my CD collection anew. And if I want to listen to that HK box, I have nothing better to do with idle hands, than pick up that verdampt paint brush and do another 40 or so little guys, while I am treating my ears to some of the best (OK, so we made a mistake and promised Lone Warrior some Colonial sketches, and we’ve been working on those, and listening to great music, too). Sometimes (from an inspirational point of view) a “free” $200 is better spent on the parallel hobby, rather than “just” buying another bunch of army figures. (That was my excuse for a new digital cam, and a couple of years back, I used the same excuse to buy a decent short-wave radio - -- one day the Goode Wife is going to catch on …).

As an aside, nothing adds a new dimension like music that fits the period (when available). My little colonial guys won’t march out of barracks without suitable Sousa marches on pipes and drums. And I have a tape I bought from Cold Wars with earlier (kinda weedy) fife and drum that goes perfectly with the Burgundian and Italian medieval armies. And for Napoleonics, in my humble opinion its hard to beat the martial horse charges in Von Suppe’s Light Cavalry overture (echoes of the charge of the Light Brigade; old von S musta been a wargamer at heart) or the immortal Rosini’s William Tell Overture (the Lone Ranger theme music). OK OK, it may seem jingoistic, but the music just about makes you stand at attention and salute your little guys, marching off for Plastic King and Esci Country and that’s alright by me. (What’s that? Oh, Lady D’Aramdilleaux is threatening to sell that CD at the next garage sale. Says the new stereo is too loud and rattles her china cabinet. It’ll never happen.)

If Star Wars is more our bent, then maybe we find some appropriate Holst (The Planets) or sound tracks from futuristic movies that we like. Adapt these ideas to work with YOUR solo gaming passions.

Time to Upgrade Raggedy Andy Fess up: We all have some figures that look like they were dragged through the hedge by the neighbors 6-year old. Or ingested and ex-gested by the family dawg. Its upgrade time: we usually upgrade a couple of stands of any army that we play with, within the week after we finish the game. This time there is a local “doubles” tournament coming up (fixed armies, and participants just change the opponents and the tables), so we painted up some fancier command stands for any of the 8 or so armies that we were likely to have to command. Nothing too dramatic, but every General has a bugler and a flag-man, and the stands are flocked. More than most of my Solo troops get.

One of the secrets here, is to build-in the upgrade process. I play one bound of Solo, then I take the worst 5% of my troops (usually one stand from each side) and rework them. In my case, that usually means taking “fresh” little guys, and painting up a replacement stand that then goes on the table in the exact spot (that’s cause I use a LOT of similar stands, that get called up with event-cards; and I admit, there are more little guys down in the painting dungeon, standing around in their brown-coat underwear, than I will ever get to paint this lifetime! Umn, don’t tell Lady D’A that I said that, will you?) Once the replacement “fresh” stand goes on the table, I touch up the new “reserves” for future re-deployment. New eyeballs, black-lining, remounted with maybe a new flag-bearer, and they look quite smashing. Remember, it’s the journey, not the rush to get to the finish line. Who cares if we need to take a week out, to do a bit of fancy painting, before the next couple of hours for the next bound of solo gaming? I once worked for a business perfectionist; at first I did it “right” cause that’s what Gunther wanted; eventually I did it “right” cause that’s what I wanted. (Never did like Gunther much; respected him a lot, though).

Improve the Backdrop Do more with scenery. Not just trees or rocks, but stuff to go onto those boring 2-Dimensional patches of rough ground or woods. And stuff to go on the back of the table, where we are unlikely to ever have troops marching around (think about a wooden mountain chain, or a thin 2” deep forest, or maybe a veneer of a town wall for Medieval periods).

Keeping the interest fresh with a modular approach extends to the buildings as well as the army itself. Now, I mount buildings (or building ruins) on sub-assemblies, like mini-dioramas, that can be stuck on out-of-the-way rough ground or steep hills. As an aside, I like to have 2 or 3 smaller buildings with interesting more complex rooflines, rather than one large building. I also try and find buildings that fit a longer narrow footprint (like 3 by 8 inches) rather than buildings with a more square-ish (6 by 6 inch) footprint. This gives more compression from front to back on a module, to fit the buildings on the terrain pieces. I scour the model railway shops and model railway flea-markets for old buildings that I can kit-bash or cannibalize. OK I admit, I even paint 2 faces of the model with ONE paint scheme, and the opposite 2 faces with a different (complementary) paint scheme. One way, they are Italian towns, the opposite way, they are Burgundian walled communities.

Some of these parts add extra interest to the diorama, and help to tie in multiple buildings with a common theme (like lots of outbuildings on a module). HO scale has lots of premium metal castings, often offered as kits, many of which will really improve the look of our mini-dioramas. Things like town wells, groups of wooden barrels and crates, or horse-and-buggy types that we don’t normally see. We can revive flagging interest, by simply swapping a couple of different building or diorama sub- modules with the same army’s terrain, so that the change mimics our Roman campaigns marching through Gaul all the way to Galilee.

My buddy Mike came up with a simply brilliant discovery --- plastic grass and trees in various heights at the local Dollar store. 20 dollars later, and a pair of scissors, and the jungle terrain is quite fantastic. I’ve since seen the same scenery at a number of conventions, and the tables all looked amazing. Humoresque Add some humor to our Solo efforts. As an example, we got bored painting up 60 Burgundian Skirmishers. So now we have one Burgundian cross-bow stand with one guy wearing white with blue polka-dots, and his mate wearing the reverse (blue with white polka-dots). Anyone familiar with the period knows that Burgundians wore a jupon (their equivalent of a T-shirt) which was white, with thin vertical blue stripes. And there is a related story, of course. Seems like these two scoundrels took their allotted uniform money, and fed the tailor a sob-story about not having quite enough to pay for the usual Burgundian Jupon of white and blue. After they duped the tailor, then they took the “savings” and bought drinks in the local tavern. Little did they know the serving wench was the tailor’s daughter, who overheard them boasting and then tattled on them. The last laugh was on the pair of drunken scoundrels, because when the besotted pair turned up hung-over “on parade” next morning, there they were with their new “polka-dot” duds. Now, most visiting firemen (or the rare opponents at Armati tournaments) don’t even “see” the polka- dots (or any of the Rogue Stands) until about ¾ of the way through the game. We usually know when, cause they all-of-a-sudden break down into gales of laughter, and then out comes the story. One of my Sword and Flame stands of Mahdi Answars had a fantasy figure of a rabbit wielding a wicked falx. Named him Ah-RAH-bit, so help me. Stuck Ah-RAH-bit into the third rank, he blended in so well that many casual viewers never saw him. Ah-RAH-bit became a sort of in-joke, that only friends-of-the- family knew about. While my tournament days are behind me, I still like to include some humorous stands in my Solo games. Another “Vote of Thanks” to Simon McDowell, who has a very dry sense of humor. He introduced me to the Command-Stand Quirk, with his beautifully detailed Napoleonic command stand with the General’s “actress” friend, complete with her coach and umbrella. Or how about his Aurelian Roman General, with this balding accountant side-kick, in turn trailing a mule laden with the money-bags. I adapted his theme with “Madame Fleurie and the Good Tyme Girles Academie and Dancing School”, one of the camp followers behind my Medieval Burgundian army. Has a Zebra instead of a horse, she does. Nothing too risqué or requiring PG13 warnings by the way, just tastefully (and obviously) less than Puritanical. Another example of humor is the development of the Avitar I use for wargames bulletin boards --- “Seur D’Armadilleaux”. It grew out of the Burgundian Invasion of Italy solo campaign, where I wanted a knight that would be “me” (hence the Burgundian “Seur” instead of Sir, following the lead of the author, Jack Whyte). At the same time, I had a buddy threaten me in jest (I hope) on an email board, with the fact that he is an enormous collector of firearms (or that he HAS an enormous collection). To which I replied that I was gonna be like the Armadillo and go dig a hole to hide in, and ever since then I adopted a conciliatory Flashman-like pose --- all bluster and run for the hills. Since then, I’ve signed all my postings with things like “Seur D’Armadilleaux, Defender of the Cookie Jar, Leader of Wounded Teddy Bears, Fearless in the Retreat” and similar ilk. I don’t know if the readers get as much of a kick out of reading this as I do thinking them up, but that’s their problem, I guess. At least one buddy has followed suit, by signing his emails to me as “von Gluttenburg”, and adding a post-script line like: “High brow cusser, knee jerk reactor, back-handed complimenter”. It adds a lot to the fun.So now Seur D’Armadilleaux as town crier brings you “the latest up-to-the-minute-news, as it happened less than a fortnight ago, about Charles le Cochons, the Last Duke of Burgundy (Piglet to his friends, but not to his face), and the Grand Adventure of the Invasion of Italy”. (Umn . . .They never seem to get there). Then there is the tale of Emma the Burgundian War Elephant . . . Ah, but I digress. Perhaps another time. Upgrade your Story Line We get lost in the wonders of writing up a story on a PC, and then we go back and look at the hand- written soft-cover note books that we used way back when --- how I wish I’d had these modern PC tools! They make it so much easier to write up the story behind the battle, or to go back and edit and tweak some parts, so that there is better cohesion to the whole sad (but gripping) tale --- such as the development of “Piglet de Bourgoine”, or the “Italians upgrade the Burgundian Terror Threat”. Of course, the corollary is that we spend a LOT more time over this verdampt keyboard, at the expense of moving little guys around on the wargames boards, but we don’t begrudge the shift in focus. Now the report on a solo “bound” may well take up 20 passes, with a little polish and extra spice added over some 30 days, but the end result is a lot more entertaining. And I admit, I use the same kind of approach when writing an article intended for submission to Saga or to the Lone Warrior (hint hint --- everyone should try it at least once). I write the skeleton as a one- pager, or even as a list of related topics, then go back and haul it out and add some more stuff, whenever the muse hits (read, whenever the weather gets so cold that its uncomfortable down in the painting dungeon, one of the few disadvantages of living in a century-old house, aka Castle D’Armadilleaux). So each of my little Solo adventures gets polished with love until they are finally ready to be posted on line, sprinkled with whatever passes as heart-felt wit (or failing that, some really bad puns), and this becomes almost an end unto itself. As each episode gets put to bed, I print up a copy for my loose-leaf binder file on that particular campaign. As an aside, I try to keep the story-line separate from the notes. That way we can choose to just read the epic tale itself, or go hunt and peck for the little details showing why something happened. Go Digital Go Digital (naw, I don’t mean adding scrambler radios to yer pikemen, but buy and master using a digital camera). Digital cams have really tumbled in price, and we can pick up a goodie complete with a Macro mode lens setting for well under the $200 dollar mark. Maybe half that, if we buy a good used or a name-brand refurbished model. We don’t need 40-gazillion mega-pixel either; something like 3 or 4 mega-pixel will do the job quite nicely, if all we want is to amaze our friends and send bragging rights over the internet. Or add some zip to our on-line posts. One caution: make SURE we have all the camera instruction manuals, and try to get the seller to show you a typical download from the cam to the computer, so you are SURE that you have all the cables and the software that you need. Also, ask the seller how he manipulates the pics (like red-eye reduction, or how he trims the pics to size, or how he re-sizes them. Its not critical that you remember ALL that stuff, but you need to know you have all the bits, and the seller’s phone number, if he wouldn’t mind coaching you, when you (inevitably) run into something you “forgot” how to overcome. Wonderful tools; big learning curve. This is the theme of another rant-unt-rave so I won’t exhaust the topic here. But start your “research” into prices and features now, in anticipation of said opus coming shortly. Oh, and sorry, but your old film camera has almost “no” residual value --- even if it’s a Nikon. (But don’t throw it out quite yet, cause we have some thoughts on using the old cam, too). Share with a Friend One of the most satisfying things we can do, that reinforces our Solo hobby is to share the best parts with our buddies. Doesn’t much matter if that means on-line as part of a web-group, or as a submission to some willing magazine (Saga and Lone Warrior have both run a couple of my rantings, bless em). Nothing movates me to go and do another couple of episodes of a long-run campaign like Tagh Dum Bash (currently more than 20 episodes, and not finished by a long shot), than posting something on line, and receiving the occasional “Wow, so that’s how its done --- I can use that!” Doesn’t have to be thousands of long fan-letters, just the knowledge that at least a couple of people are interested. Current practice seems to be that we can post something on a website, and modify it a little (or add some pics or some extra commentary) and re-present it in a different forum (like the quarterly Saga newsletter). While we may have the time to haunt 6 to 10 web-sites, and still have time to scan a couple of magazines there seems to be a completely different readership with very little overlap. Collect the Maps and Start a Pics File Solo wargames allows us to take the time to do things “right”. One of those “right” things is to do up a really good After Action Report, complete with accurate and detailed maps of the main parts of the campaign. Doesn’t have to take hours of our time --- usually a couple of quick squares and wiggles, with the occasional measurement between critical elements is most often enough. These can be improved into pen-and-ink maps whenever we have the time. As an aside, I usually keep everything from any one campaign in its own little binder. Even the scraps of paper that have the casualty figures, or the specific cards or dice rolls in the case of Solo-List card- draws or Mythic GME percentile numbers. I get the sheet protectors from Walmart, and stuff the bits into a sheet at the end of each of the episodes that I do. Over the years, these now follow a bit more of a formula, so I can go back and review at my leisure. I still have campaign write-ups from the late 70’s that I like to go and read, once every couple of years. One of the more satisfying recent exercises was the time spent doing up some sketches for a couple of magazine submissions. The first was some black-and-white sketches for Lone Warrior (a magazine that has fantastic solo content, and lots of pen-and-ink sketches as opposed to using digital pictures). I dug out my old Magnajector (it’s a kids toy that lets us “project” and image of something like a comic book up on the wall), and a dozen old lithographs of Punjabi Frontier Force Colonial soldiers. By copying one of a dozen figures from each of 6 scenes, we came up with some illustrations for Lone Warrior that were “new”. These are done on large sketch-pads, about 12 x 18 inches in size. First we copy the specific figures with a pencil, then we can adjust the size of other figures by moving the Magnajector machine forward or back, and refocusing it. That lets us take an element like an officer figure from the background on one print (for example) and put him into the foreground on our pencil-drawing. Then we can pencil in the details like belts and turban wraps, and finally, we ink the whole thing in. Then we can get them photo-reduced at the local business-printing shop. While the first pull (with the figures around 4 inches tall) isn’t all that impressive, the photo-reduced end result is really an eye opener! There are a couple of different versions of the Magnajector that are still in production (so-called Art Tracers, meant to help beginning artists get the “right” ratios on their work). Have a look through a store that specializes in art supplies, and they usually have a couple of models available. I set mine up on the edge of the wargame table, where I can aim it at the front of the beer-fridge. Then I can stick the paper up on the fridge with brown masking tape Next project is to do up some portraits of the significant players (like the Colonel and the Sgt Major). I’ll let you know how that turns out!\ Summary One last thought --- go with the flow, and ebb around the rocks in the stream. By that I mean, if we Feel like wargaming, great. If we don’t feel like wargaming, then have a look at one of the many related pursuits (like polishing that article, or writing up a diary, or doing some sketches). So there you have it. A dozen or more ways to add the Zest back into your Solo Wargaming (again). Thanks to the many long-term-solo-players who willingly shared so much of their time and their hard-won experience with us.

28. The Solo Gamers Mythic GME

Revolution

Narrative Solo Wargame Campaigns Like Tagh Dum Bash --- “Preliminary”

Issue 0.2 24 Aug 07

Several people have asked for more details on how a campaign like TDB (Tagh Dum Bash) has been put together, and asked for more about the underlying mechanics. So this is an attempt to give a better general overview. First, TDB is a form of a Narrative Solo Campaign, where the Narrative drives the action. Which is to say, the Campaign Diary is sort of the central touch-stone, where we start an episode, then go to the various card lists and rule sets that “dictate” the battlefield, resolve the combat stuff, and finally, we come back to the Narrative or Campaign Diary to wrap the episode up. At a guess, its around 10% Mythic, 25% card lists for the scenic details, 50% our favorite rules and miniature wargames, and 15% After Action Reports. The more comfortable you get with the system, the more that 50% wargames number rises.

Using something like this as a “Side Bar Game” can enhance a “typical” Miniature Wargames AAR (After Action Report) dramatically, for example by following the exploits of a small reconnaissance force throughout the campaign, viewing it from the perspective of, lets say, the Captain of that reconnaissance force, and perhaps commenting on how the various key decisions he makes affects him, his subordinates, and his troopers. We can delve into how his character traits affect his decisions, what he decides to put into his reports (and what he leaves out!) and so on (note 1). There’s tons of opportunity for exploring more “characterization”, as well as exploring period- specific command and control issues --- all in a neat microcosm that only has a small (or negligible) impact on the main army, but sets free the imagination. Yes this definitely has very interesting possibilities (note 2)

There are several components to this campaign  A main rule set (in this case we are using The Sword and the Flame)  A Narrative-enabling rule set (in this case we are using Mythic GME (note 3)  Card-driven lists  Game Aids, two decks of cards (including Jokers), 1 set percentile dice (so, 2 x D10 being 0 through 9), and 2 x D6 (plain dice) and around 6 x 1D20 or 20-sided dice, needed to play TSATF  Some sort of record keeping, (either a computer file or a notebook or both) Also includes any campaign maps, sketches, photos of the figures or similar  Suitable miniatures and a small table area, about 2 x 3 feet for 15mm or 18mm figures  A more recent addition is keeping a separate list of military “truisms” or moral dilemmas, that I might like to explore. Many of these become opening statements for some of the episodes.

This is sort of a modern version of a much older style of a Narrative wargame (as laid out by Don Featherstone, some 35 years ago --- ooo but I feel old when I see that). It reminds me a lot of the early Narrative games that were available when mainframe computers first became popular, back in the early 70’s (note 4). There’s a bit more information on the various “parts” mentioned above in the following paragraphs.

Component Parts: The main rule set is usually the one you “bring with you” that you know and love. Doesn’t much matter if that is TSATF or Armati, or Warhammer Ancient Battles, or something like Two Hour Wargames (their Chain Reaction 2.0 or Montjoie! both look like a good place to start).

Ah, here comes the Mythic plug by the fervently converted! (For those of you who know and love Mythic, skip down a couple of paragraphs to “Card Driven Lists”). Mythic Game Master Emulation (or “Mythic GME” for short) does a couple of things. First, it “enables” that Narrative framework. Second, it injects some uncertainty/variability (what it refers to as Altered or Modified scenes as an example). Third, it has a pretty little “Yes/No” chart, with a capability of “extreme yes” or “extreme no” variations (note 5). Forth, it has a nice little F-A-S (Function-Action- Subject) chart that is accessed with 3 rolls on percentile dice, that “suggests” an undercurrent to any new proposed scenes --- so something like 47.38.73 would translate out as Moving Away from the story-line (or as they call it, the Thread), Inform, and Opulence --- One translation of this that pops to mind is that “the Fine Dress (Opulence) of the man we are talking to tells us (Inform) that he is no longer very interested in pursuing the original quest” (note 6).

So what’s that Chaos Stuff? (or, A Mild Defense of Entropy) As we get into battle, things start to go outta control and off-the-rails, and that is tracked with the Chaos factor. Think of it this way --- any unit or division that ISN’T engaged starts at a neutral Chaos factor of 5 (on a scale of 1-9). But as you get into battle (or arguably, if you took more than ONE bow fire hit that turn), then the Chaos factor goes up by 1 point (it never changes by more than 1 point per turn). As the Chaos factor rises, the odds change more drastically. That’s really not so hard to track --- I keep track of Hits, Fatigue, and Disorder for each independent command right now, as it is. I do the Chaos with piles of nickels and pennies. I’ve also graduated to tracking about 6 key figures for skirmish (or 6 key divisions) per side, to see how their independent reactions affect the game. Works great! The thing with Chaos, is that it will affect the probability on the Fate Chart. In other words, as the Chaos gets higher and higher, the odds of those Germans going swanning off after fleeing Roman Cavalry gets higher and higher. Neato!

And conversely, if a unit stands and rests for a turn, the Chaos factor comes down a notch (very logical stuff, and easy to keep track of, too). In theory, a unit in reserve gets even better (goes lower) on the Chaos score --- and that sounds logical, too, don’t it? Now, if that was ALL that “Mythic” provided, it would be worth the $7.00 US asking price, but darned if they don’t give you MORE --- and all for the price of a pocket book, or maybe the cost of one cinema pass on Cheapo Movie Tuesdays (note 7).

Mythic is simply the one of the hottest new Miniature Wargame rule sets around (whether used for Solo or as part of a face-to-face game). There is also quite an active (and supportive and helpful) Mythic User group on the Yahoo web at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Mythic_Role_Playing/ and a nice bunch of people (also assorted elves, trolls, orcs and I don't know what all, but they seem to all live in peace and harmony, which is just as well, cause there have been a lot of wargaming immigrants to the Mythic elf-dom in the last couple of months). Joking aside, Mythic GME is a SUPERB Solo Wargaming tool that really complements TSATF.

Card-Driven Lists Seur D’Armadilleaux’s Card-driven lists are lists of “Similar Things” (such as Scenes to be Developed) or similar topics (such as “Improvised Defense Building Detail) that are collected out of novels or books or articles taken from the National Geographic magazine that “fit” the period in question (note 8). So there are 13 or so choices under each column heading of Utility, Doors, Floors, Ceilings, Windows, Interior Detail, Exterior, Symbolism, Aura, Holy Man, Colors, Outdoors, Things, Animals, and Patterns, for 15 different detail selections. Each time we happen across a building where we need to use it for Improvised Defense, it is ALWAYS fresh, and NEVER the same thing twice. At the same time, because ANY of the choices on that list are applicable, we never end up with some anomaly that “just doesn’t fit” or jars on our nerves. (Well, almost never --- we have been known to move up or down one entry, if it really sticks in our craw).

Items are "chosen" from any of the lists by pulling a playing card from a deck. They add flavor, scenery detail, things found, and so on. I currently (selectively) use some stuff from about 17 or so different files for the Tagh Dum Bash serial. Now that may sound overwhelming at first, but we usually only need 1 file in depth, and maybe a quick peck at 2 or 3 others for some variations or “spice”. So we needed the Improvised Defense, and we may take a peck from the “Sounds and Smells” table, and maybe from a different table to get “Enemies” and “Scenes”. Not so scary. But the real great idea is that YOU can steal the layout of these tables, and import them into your own period and game. Its easy to export these over to some other time frame, whether that period is close to the Colonial North West Frontier (maybe like the Wars of the Mahdi in the Sudan) or we can wander a bit further afield, such as into a “Blade-Runner Cyber-Punk” period, or perhaps we prefer to go back in time, into a Medieval (Robin Hood) period as an alternate. There’s even a neato variation for the “Magnficent Seven” and a related campaign (note 9).

The mechanics (cards, dice) and record keeping are pretty straight forward, so we’ll ignore that and go directly to how we knit this together into a story line.

Putting It All Together

We usually start with some vague idea for a scene in our heads (note 10). Now I have to admit that I have a couple of other vague secondary plot-lines that I keep in the back of my head. Some of these are purposely "held back", so that I have a surprise plot twist or “kicker” in reserve. For example in the “Barampta” serial campaign, one of the secondary stories is a series of flash-back scenes where there is a Court Marshal that has Lt Dharma up on charges (but we won’t know the “why” and the “what for”, or the outcome of the trial until much later in the campaign). Another example of tension because of a half- exposed story comes in the Tagh Dum Bash serial, where there is a wonderful hospital scene in which the Reporter realizes that the story has really been about the experiences of the Vet's FATHER (and not the Vet himself, cause the Vet wouldn't have even been born at the time of Tagh Dum Bash, but there's a perfectly good explanation for that ...). So the Reporter gets miffed and calls the Vet a faker. With explosive results.

Facing some Conundrum Now, one of the more recent "improved" concepts that I try and use, is to highlight a command decision or a moral dilemma that one of the key players (usually the Hero) has to face --- like at the escarpment, some people will have to be left behind ("volunteered") so that the majority can try and escape. Exploring this kind of military decision or moral dilemma or truism, adds a lot of drama to the storyline.

Raw Mechanics --- How to Duplicate the Process First, I roll the 3 x D100 to see if there are any doubles (for modified scenes or altered scenes) for the Mythic Narrative-enabling rule set. Don't forget these values are related and tracked to the current Chaos factor for the character in question (or for the whole army, using the Commander or Colonel’s Chaos value). If we should roll a double percentile, AND the number 4 of 44 happens to be below the Chaos factor (OF THE KEY PLAYER, in this case Dharma) of lets say 5, then we may end up with an altered or modified scene. Why key it to Dharma? Cause he’s the central figure in the story at the moment (as long as he doesn’t buy the farm!).

Next, I use the card files to build the scene. This adds a LOT to the ambience, and that's what drags 'em in is the "unique" flavor of that scene. One of the things that makes this so addictive, is that I cut and paste lots of little snippets from favorite movies, historical fiction, and even National Geographic articles of the area. This is the kind of detail that’s hard to collect (or just “make up” on a whim), from anywhere else. (Pause for my Oreos ...). There’s no magic “weight” or number of card-pulls that comes to mind --- I just wing it. If I feel inspired with 7 pulls, lets get going. If I’m lethargic (down a half an Oreo), then I just keep plugging away at various lists, to see what other inspiration might be hidden there, waiting for me to plumb. Funny thing is, these lists are so PERSONAL, and yet they seem to have such a UNIVERSAL appeal. Only thing I can chalk it up to, is when YOU get excited over the content, that enthusiasm must shine through to get OTHER people interested. (Either that, or they’re after my Oreo’s again --- Back! Back!)

Then I do any discoveries (warbands), encounters (NPC’s like monks), ambushes, battles, or pillow- fights (usually with the "master" rule set, in this case, TSATF). And resolve the battle. So far (touch wood) I haven’t had to “cheat” and resurrect poor Dharma! But its been awful close in some episodes!

That's when I start to cast around for the "High point", or the suspense pivot, as the break-off between scenes. This usually parallels a natural pause in the action between battle scenes. That’s one of the keys to keeping interest going, even after 15 or 20 episodes. Most of my episodes run around 2-3 pages of text (less if there is a quick battle, more if the thing is wandering a bit without triggering an ambush), and a bit of an After Action report (half page), and notes (I try and keep that to 1 page if possible). The footnotes are a funny thing --- some people love em, some people hate em. At least when they are at the end, we can pick and choose whatever we want to explore further (or just use them as fish-wrappers).

Tagh Dum Bash follows the general path of a real expedition, which happened in 1891, lead by a real guy by the name of Colonel Jimmie Stewart (no relation to me; rats) to support the local Political Officer (Sir Francis Younghusband) from the aggressive territorial ambitions of the Russians. It was written up (in a very brief form!) by Robert Maxwell as The Memoirs of Gen Sir James Stewart, and published as “Jimmie Stewart, Frontiersman”, from Pentland Press, 1992 (note 11).

Polishing the Apple Don’t get discouraged if the first attempts we try aren’t much more than a couple of awkward sentences combining various dice throws! My earliest efforts weren't anywhere NEAR as polished as the current efforts might suggest! I think that's where the re-write and re-polish process really shows, cause I usually try and stay 2 or 3 episodes ahead of the published one, and then go back and final polish before the current one gets shipped out the email space-hatch. Maybe I should SHOW people how rough they look in earlier versions!

All the polishing sessions are intended as just that --- polish. No changes to the battles or to the outcomes of anything. Oh, I admit that occasionally I might go back and add some "foreboding" warning of things to come 2 episodes away, but just a taste, a minor flavor.

Lets see, at time of writing this (late Aug 07) there are 19 episodes written on Tagh Dum Bash, and another 15 on a different colonial campaign ("Barampta") that runs on a different Yahoo group. Not to mention a couple of tentative efforts that started this whole thing off, so after the equivalent of 40 episodes, there’s been a lot of learning curve behind the bows.

Hope this helps encourage people who want to do their OWN versions --- cause one thing is for sure: I’m ADDICTED to my own stuff, here, gang! The process really works, and it becomes impossible to put down.

Bob Seur D’Armadilleaux A Wegend in his Own Wined

Note 1: And nothing says we can’t do something similar for other reconnaissance forces, perhaps for the opposition! This is a great way to contrast and compare the freedom of thinking for either side, becoming a mirror held up to the two different societies that spawned the military structures Note 2: Thank you Graham, couldn’t have said it better meself. Note 3: Mythic is a game system that has several different versions but the one we are specifically interested in to start is the Mythic Game Master Emulator or GME, about 60 pages long, available as an Adobe download from DriveThruRPG.com) Note 4: Computer companies like DEC had some written adventure stories that you could access, more like a narrative maze that you worked your way through. Note 5: Mythic considers anything in the bottom 15% of the range to be an “extreme yes” (and the top 15% of the range would be an “extreme no”). Suppose we “ask” the Mythic Fate Chart (that’s what they call their yes-no matrix) “Is there any enemy in the wood?”, and we hypothesize that the odds are 50-50. If we get anything from a 16 through 50 that’s a yes; 50 through 85 means a no; less than 15 means extreme yes, not only is there somebody, but there’s a WHOLE LOT of somebodies. Extreme NO might mean not only that there is NO body in the wood, but that its filled with poisonous snakes, and impassable. Note 6: There’s a whole lot more on Mythic at SoloWarGames under Seur D’Armadilleaux’s non-card- file notes. Note 7: Mythic Game Master Emulator (called Mythic GME for short) is available a number of places, but I bought mine through DriveThruRPG.com because they took Paypal. It was only $7 US at the time of writing this note (Aug 07). Note 8: The lists are under their own separate section in the files at SoloWarGames Yahoo group. Look them up under Seur D’Armadilleaux’s Card Files Note 9: Aconite 13, JJ, is working on a campaign based on the movie, The Magnificent Seven Note 10: As an example, the next bit I'm working on at press time, for a different NWF scenario (Barampta on the Sre Mela) has Dharma and his gang on the run, pursued by a motley crew of about 40 Waziri men, 30 women with knives and 20 kids. They come to an escarpment which buys them temporary respite, but they can't stay there, or they will get surrounded. Its only a matter of time until the enemy in pursuit will find another way up and Dharma’s crew will be over-run. Note 11: Its funny to do a google search for Tagh Dum Bash, and find that the Google Bots have plugged in this Narrative wargames campaign!

29. Using Mythic for Solo Miniature Historical Wargames

15 May 07 Issue 0.1

This is an overview about a nifty new “sub-rule set” called “Mythic, Game Master Emulator” written by Tom Pigeon, and published by “Word Mill Publishing”, that will work with almost any other Wargames Rules (and THAT’s a neat trick). We broke the article into an explanation of the basics of “Mythic GME” rules (and how it integrates into typical big-name Historical Miniature Wargames rules), as well as lots of examples explaining typical Mythic applications. “Mythic” is simply one of the hottest new Solo Wargames products around. And to get off to a flying start, we are going to join Lt Preston-Phelps on the North West Frontier, using Mythic and “Sword and Flame” to smoke out the Pathans.

Preston-Phelps’ Patrol For a Colonial example of a Mythic encounter we are going to use a scene-based approach with “Sword and the Flame” to resolve combat and fire, and “Mythic Game Master Emulator” rules to introduce Chance and Variation. The general scene description is a patrol encounter in a side-valley (we WERE using plain TSATF rules, 25mm figures and a deck of cards for the hidden Pathans, but it takes up a whole ping- pong table). Also, we decided to drop down a scale size for the figures, and use 1/72. As a small variation, all distances mentioned are in centimeters except for the Firing ranges, which will continue to be in inches. This gives more of a ”Zombat” (for Zombie-combat) shoot-em-up feel, because we upped the effective range on the rifle fire. With Mythic, we don’t need as much playing space, or as detailed a level of scenery deployed as we did with the more traditional card-action-control generator. A nice advantage.

Most seasoned tournament historical miniature wargamers assume they are commanding a well-oiled machine that has had years of practice and shows unswerving obedience in every link. This also applies to other historically-based miniature rule sets like DBx, Armati, Warhammer Ancient Battles, Johnny Reb, and probably a dozen other similar rules. Its not unusual for top players who use these kinds of rules to spend hundreds of hours going over the rules, trying to adopt period-specific tactics, and optimizing their army lists. Its a monster investment of their time and efforts, and any change to their basic rule set is often an earth-shaking, catastrophic event --- involving rebasing, months of learning new rules, and disruption.

Most tournament wargame rule sets encourage us to take that viewpoint of our armies as professionally- trained organizations, although they really were, after all, a collection of individuals. Trouble is, a lot of these games (especially when reduced to Solo versions) get kinda stale, if we simply try to optimize the play on each side. Without the zest (and uncertainty) of facing a real live opponent, it becomes more of an accounting exercise in probabilities, rather than a successful effort to have fun, right? Sound a bit familiar?

So what we REALLY want is to spice up our (Solo) Life, right? Not a whole lot, mind you, just add a bit of dash. Oh, OK lets go wild and say 10 to 15 percent “dash”, and be done with it. But hold on, I don’t know about YOU, but I don’t want to give up ANY of the key bits (Battle Resolution, Fatigue, Disorder and so on) of my favorite rules, right? I mean, a whole lot of my loyalty to using MY rule set, is that even when I’m playing “Solo”, I’m honing my over-the-table, face-to-face skills. And then there’s that problem of possibly screwing up the “Play Balance”, too --- too much “dash” makes the whole historical thing a red-hot chile, goin’ off everywhere, and completely unpalatable.

Before we get into the Mythic example we should talk about the separate lists we use to inject some secondary detail. These “generic” lists have been accumulated over several years and any new thoughts added to the appropriate list, until we have 52 entries for each topic (corresponding to a deck of cards) under each of the following headings: “Good for Brits”, “Bad for Brits”, “Supply and Weather”, “General Info”, “Places to develop”, “Objects found”, “Deus ex Machina”, “Battle Types”, and “Possible Enemies”. (This is one of 10 lists that we use, but a good exemplar). The only heading that might need explaining is that “Deus ex Machina” (comes from the Greeks --- sort of like a “Saving Grace” or “Here come the Marines”), which is a list of events or discoveries that will “save” an otherwise hopeless situation, and let the adventurers escape (not to be employed until we are down to only 25% effectives left, and all looks lost!). Nothing says you have to fill ALL the lists up before you play --- add an item at a time as you go along, if you like, until the 52 slots are filled. And if you don’t like a particular “card- pull” you can always modify it on the fly (cut again, or take the next higher item).

So the ideal “new additional spicer-upper” would be some kind of a (inexpensive) program, or compatible optional rules, that would work with OUR favorite rule set. (Or, lets make that “sets”, cause most of us seem to have 2 to 3 other sets, for the various interests, or historical periods that we like). Hm. That’s beginning to sound like a tall order --- importing rule sections from other rule sets usually just screws thing up, right? And I really don’t want to spend tons of hours in mastering something new, or trying to cut-and-paste into MY favorite Armati rules. (Or worse, big Groan, trying to modify more than ONE of my favorite rule sets --- I’d rather go read a book or watch Gladiator for the umpteenth time, thank you).

OK lets switch gears for a minute --- here’s another personal bugaboo on my list of peeves that I’d like to solve at the same time. Y’know how sometimes we just come up with situations that don’t seem to be (adequately) covered by “OUR” rule set? Such as, “If a unit wheels at the edge of the board, and the tail end of a unit momentarily goes “off table”, should that REALLY prohibit or modify the move?” I understand the tournament logic of prohibiting this, but if I’m just playing Solo, that doesn’t make much sense, and may completely taint what I’d done over the previous dozen or more nights of Solo moves. Or here’s another example --- when two opposing light-cavalry bow-guys go galloping past each other going opposite directions, shouldn’t the probability of a hit be reduced? (But OUR rule set doesn’t cover this sort of logical thing, does it?)

Ta-Da! Here’s the answer you’ve been looking for (even if you didn’t KNOW you were looking for it, Buddy). And the Answer is called “Mythic Game Master Emulator”. This slim 55-page down-loadable book is probably the best bang-for-the-buck that you’ll ever invest in. There are TWO-and-a-HALF “Neato” systems in this book, all of which shoulda been called “The Perfect Answer to a Solo Wargamer’s Prayers”.

Back to the NWF: So for this particular patrol, from “Places” we pull “Abandoned wagon with a broken wheel”, and from Objects we get “Local map with notes in Pushtu”, and the card pulled for Supply reads “Ran out of Firewood”, and the General Info card gives us “found a bit of a cave”. The British 1/72 plastic figures are put on a 2 foot by 3 foot section of table, with bits of scenery loosely strewn about, and the commentary starts:

Lt Richard Preston-Phelps and his troop were assigned to scout an adjoining mountain valley. Sgt Ezra Jones is the NCO, with 18 able-bodied privates. As the column enters the mountain valley, Lt Preston- Phelps orders two scouts (Privates Allen and Boscombe) to precede the troop by 10 cm, and has the remainder go into three lines in open order. In the mid-distance, they can see an abandoned wagon with a broken wheel (pulled from “Places” by cards), and Boscombe doubles-back, bringing something he found in the wagon, waving it over his head as he trots in. It’s a washed-out old map, on some sort of linen, with markings about the local area in Pushtu. (We query Mythic: Does Lt Preston-Phelps read Pushtu? “Very Unlikely”, and Mythic dice come back “No”). It’s all gobble-de-gook to Lt Preston- Phelps but he figures if nothing else, they can use the wagon for firewood, cause they ran out of fuel for afternoon Tiffen. Private Allen is now making a hell of a racket over near the wall of the valley, yelling something about his finding a bit of a cave. The wall amplifies his shouts, while distorting them at the same time. Sgt Jones yells at him to pipe down, and sends Lance Corporal Stevens at the run to put a rag in his mouth --- that blabbermouth must have been heard for a mile in all directions!

We ask Mythic, “Was Private Allen heard by the Pathans?” with a 75% probability (they have “ears” everywhere), and we get an answering roll on the percentile dice of: 70, right on the nose! He WAS heard!

The first of the Mythic 2 ½ “Neato things” is what they call a “Fate Chart” that we used in the above (at first glance, its a glorified Yes/No random response generator, but it also includes a great little “Chaos” modification-factor and that allows an "Extremely Yes", "Extremely No" accelerator).

Example of the use of a Fate Chart Lets say we are using hidden movement for those pesky Early Germans that the Romans have been hunting. So I ask the Fate Chart, "is there a Warband hiding in that rough ground?" Then I estimate that the odds are “very likely”, say 85% or so. Then I roll the percentage die, and lets say I roll 15% (very low, equivalent to an “Extreme Yes”). That means not only is there a warband, there are TWO of the suckers! A very high percentile number (like a 95% or an “Extreme No”) might mean, there are not only NO warbands, but the whole area is teaming with rattlesnakes! (Nice touch that. Hate snakes).

An alternate interpretation of an “Exceptional no” would mean not only does your own force or unit fail to see any enemy unit, but those units which may still be hidden within that feature are so well hidden and undetectable that your forces may not truly know if that feature is unoccupied until a unit from you own army is within charge distance of the enemy army, or it chooses to attack.

Example 2 of using a Fate Chart Lets say we have some oddball occurrence that isn’t normally encountered in the rules. Suppose a Heavy Cavalry unit, with a Light Infantry in support, has the opportunity of doing a break-off from Combat. Does the Light Infantry get to go along for the ride “free”? (And for the full cavalry break-off distance?) Or will it have to test for Friends Bursting Through? Or will it just get blown away? Hm, none of this is covered in MY favorite rule set (course it only happens once in a blue moon). So we pose the question to the Fate Chart: “Do the Light Infantry continue to be attached and support the cavalry?” And because it’s a rather vague thing, we suppose the answer is really 50-50. If we get yes or no, that’s easy to live with, but an Extreme No, suggests they are blown away. And an Extreme Yes, suggests the Light Infantry tag along with the cavalry, with no extra test required. Is that Neato or what?

Back to Preston-Phelps (At this point we go back to Sword and Flame, and have a look at “movement cards”, and a black card is pulled, meaning a Pathan move. We ask Mythic, “Is there an Afghan lashkar (warband) within charge reach?” (cause otherwise they won’t fire or expose themselves) and figure the answer is probably a bit low, say 35% but we roll a 23 --- Yes, there is! We then ask Mythic “will they charge?” with a probability of about 85%, and they roll 51 --- Yes they will! Although the normal sequence for TSATF has Movement before Fire, where there is an ambush like this it seems more logical that this would be reversed, so first come the Jezails. Five Afghan flintlocks open up at a medium range, and the results are that all of them miss! The Brits then pull a firing card, and five 1866-patern Sniders give back their distinctive bark, but only one hit, and one of the Pathan riflemen spins around and back, gravely wounded. (Take That!) Next Lt P-P lets loose with his Webley, but as luck would have it, the shot goes wide. With the firing over, the Pathans rise up, ready to charge, and from the Brits “Fix Bayonets!” First movement card, and its Red for the Brits

Lt P-P knows he doesn’t have a lot of time, and yells out “Form Square!” All but the two men over at the cave form square. Those two men at the cave (Lance Corporal Stevens and Private Allen) hunker down and get their backs up against the wall. They aren’t firing and calling attention to themselves! Black movement card, and the Pathans charge the corner of the square. We check with Mythic to see “Do they make it?” figuring 85% sure they can make the distance, and we roll 60 --- yes they do. They hover 1 cm away from the Brit square, needing only to pass their (TSATF) close-into-combat roll. They roll a 2 and charge home, brandishing their Khyber knives and keening as they come!

(At this point, action switches 100% to the miniature table-top, as the hand-to-hand is covered by Sword and the Flame rules . . .)

Example 3 of using a Fate Chart Lets look at a larger, Miniature Wargames set-up. Suppose we have a German Heavy Cavalry, and it beats up on the Roman cavalry, who rout off the board. Now my favorite rules say, the Germans are still in good order, and can wheel about right away, and start threatening the Roman back-of-the-line. But we all know THAT wasn’t likely to have happened --- those Germans would have been in high blood-lust, and they’d either go whooping after the fleeing Roman cavalry, or if they managed to clear their heads, they would have gone for the Roman baggage camp. They’d done their duty for the day, and it was time to pursue THEIR hobby (scalps or booty, or women, whichever seemed more attractive). Hm. So we ask the fate chart, “Do the German Cavalry pursue the Romans?” and get a nice little Yes (to the edge of the table), Extremely No (off after the baggage camp), Extremely yes (loot, loot, loot!) or just plain “No” (and its back to threatening the back of the Roman Main Battle Line). Nice, simple, and it doesn’t negatively impact the rest of my favorite rule set. I like that!

Meanwhile,in some NWF valley, the Pathans come over the hill like a disturbed-nest- of-bees, and roll for stragglers on their charge move (One look at the hedgehog of the British square and ---- Whoa, six stragglers!) the rest of the Pathans charge home, on a frontage 6 Pathans wide, against the corner of the square! No quarter asked, no quarter given! Bayonets versus Khyber knives! A Brit goes down wounded, a Pathan staggers out of the fray, the fighting spirit all gone. The edge of the square starts to crumble, and Lt Preston-Phelps finds himself at the center of the fray, trading blows with the Pathan head-man himself! The square barely holds, but in this case, “barely” is quite enough, as the Pathans get pushed back, one at a time. The final count is 4 Pathan dead, 1 wounded, 7 pushed back, and one guy still at it, hacking away at the bayonets. Private Owens parries his Khyber knife and then just YELLS at him. Eyes like saucers, the Pathan wakes up, looks around, realizes he is the only man left, and with a high keening wale, he scrabbles over the bodies of his comrades and runs. The Brits are so tired of all the fighting and killing that they just let him go. No one has a fresh round chambered and ready to fire, anyway. In the center of the square, 4 wounded Brits are being bandaged, although no one was killed, so it could have been a lot worse. The remains of the Pathan Lashkar (warband), with 14 men, half equipped with Jezails, fades off into the middle-distance, using all available cover. Although his men came through the fight in decent order, Lt P-P knows he cannot sustain another such “victory”.

{That’s the end of what Mythic call “Scene 1”. We figure the last scene was pretty chaotic, so the Chaos level that started at a 5 goes up by one to a 6. Next, we decide that Scene 2, following the Mythic genre, occurs at the mouth of the cave. We start by pulling an Object card to see if any useful object (from our own lists) might be in clear view --- and we pull “A leather Backpack”. Now, this is a good time to try out how we use Mythic to modify the scene. So we go to the Random Event mode, and first roll a 57 for the event focus table (Player Character Negative), followed by a roll a 74 for Action (“Divide”), and a 99 (a double! More about that later!) for Subject (“Anger”). The first interpretation that pops into mind is that some of the men want to search the cave, while others want to search the wagon, and still others want to cut their losses and bug-out back to the column. But Lt P-P insists on keeping the men all together, and he isn’t sure if they should stay in the valley and complete the assignment, or take the map they found, and go back to the column. The men grumble in anger.}

So what’s that Chaos Stuff? As we get into battle, things start to go outta control and off-the-rails, and that is tracked with the Chaos factor. Think of it this way --- any unit or division that ISN’T engaged starts at a neutral Chaos factor of 5 (on a scale of 1-9). But as you get into battle (or arguably, if you took more than ONE bow fire hit that turn), then the Chaos factor goes up by 1 point (it never changes by more than 1 point per turn). As the Chaos factor rises, the odds change more drastically. That’s really not so hard to track --- I keep track of Hits, Fatigue, and Disorder for each independent command right now, as it is. I do the Chaos with piles of nickels and pennies. I’ve also graduated to tracking about 6 key figures for skirmish (or 6 key divisions) per side, to see how their independent reactions affect the game. Works great! The thing with Chaos, is that it will affect the probability on the Fate Chart. In other words, as the Chaos gets higher and higher, the odds of those Germans going swanning off after fleeing Roman Cavalry gets higher and higher. Neato!

And conversely, if a unit stands and rests for a turn, the Chaos factor comes down a notch (very logical stuff, and easy to keep track of, too). In theory, a unit in reserve gets even better (goes lower) on the Chaos score --- and that sounds logical, too, don’t it? Now, if that was ALL that “Mythic” provided, it would be worth the $7.00 US asking price, but darned if they don’t give you MORE --- and all for the price of a pocket book, or maybe the cost of a cinema pass on Cheapo Movie Tuesdays.

Back to the NWF, and Lt P-P decides to procrastinate and have another look at the wagon with the broken wheel, to see if there is anything else worth finding. We figure the odds of finding anything else of interest are low, say 25%, and roll 06 --- an exceptional Yes! We slip out of Mythic and go back to our prepared list of Objects, and cut the card deck for a 4 of diamonds, which corresponds to an “old British Shako crest”. The exceptional yes suggests this is important, so “the British Unit was one that was previously lost on patrol, and no one ever knew what happened to them, until now”. (dum Dum dum Dum dum Dum . . .)

That changes things, and Lt P-P decides they may as well spend a few minutes searching around the mouth of the cave. Back they all go to the mouth of the cave, were we pose the question “Anything else to see, in or around the pack?” figuring a 60% chance of finding something, and role: 91 An exceptional no, meaning the bottom of the leather backpack has been ripped at the seams, and anything else is long since gone. We pose a second question, “Is the cave large enough to explore deeper?”, figuring that this is a pretty solid bet, with 75% chance of it being true, and we roll 53 (Yes, we CAN explore deeper). That’s the end of Scene 2, pretty tame, so the Chaos factor goes down by one.

Mythic’s Random Event Generator, Compatible with Most Historical Rules The Second Neato Mythic system is a nice little "Random Event” (scene-seeding generator) that gives you a random event in a 3-part format: First Part is an event "Focus" (in other words, Who or What is going to be affected); Second part is a chart of "Actions"; and the Third Part is a chart of "Subjects". (Pretty logical, so far, right?) So with our doing a bit of a cross-reference after rolling the percentile die three times, the whole thing goes together as the "Focus" undertakes (or undergoes) the "Action" relative to the "Subject".

Example One for the Random Event Generator --- a "Playing Character" undertakes to "Expose" the "Danger". Now, don’t get scared off by the odd-for-historical-rules-types, RPG (Roll-Playing-Game) choice of wording. Hang in there --- its worth your time. I promise, no Dungeons or Dragons stuff!

See, its up to YOU to figure out how to apply this in an historical Wargame context. Lets go back to our example and reword it a bit --- “Someone” goes and “Scouts out” a “Dangerous Area”. Hey, that’s not so foreign, after all! There are still some woods and hills for those nasty Germans to hide behind, so someone has to go poke inna woods. If there is only one logical candidate for the job, then make THAT one go poke around in the scrub, and see if there are rattlers or just warbands, hiding there. If there are TWO possible scouts, then just roll for which one is meant. No unplumbed hiding holes? Well maybe our Scout has to go to where a road goes off the table, and see if there are enemy reinforcements coming down the road --- YOU decide what makes sense. (And that’s another nice touch --- You get to put the whole thing into a context YOU approve, to make it meaningful).

Course, sending a scout off down the road is a change in that unit’s orders, and just one example of how Mythic can introduce a fresh slant (and a bit of non-outcome-of-battle-critical Chaos) to the scene. Great stuff for the Solo Wargamer.

Scene 3 in that NWF valley, finds Lt P-P deciding to leave most of the men at the mouth of the cave under command of Sgt Jones, and take 4 privates and Lance Corporal Stevens to look deeper into the cave. As this is a new scene, we invoke the Random Event mode again, and first roll for Event Focus (31 means introduce a new NPC), then Action (60 = abuse) and for Subject (70 = extravagance). Surprise! Inside the cave, we find an officer of the missing patrol, but he’s incoherent and now babbling in fear. In spite of his elegant attire, he’s obviously been starving for some time, all skin-and-bones, and his hair has gone white as a ghost.

Do we stay, or do we probe deeper into the cave? We rephrase the question before we pose it to Mythic for an answer: “Is there anything else that looks important to the mission?” with a neutral probability at this point of only 50-50%, and we roll way low with an 04 (exceptional yes --- not only is there something more of value, but once we squirm forward on our bellies 10 feet or so into the rabbit hole, there is an extensive cavern discernable just a few more paces beyond). Dum-DUM-dum-DUM-dum- DUM

Example 2 of Random Event Generator Here's another (rather different) example of a Random Event for historical miniatures, where we roll a 39 (that means "Moving toward a Thread" in Mythic terms), followed by 46 = "develop" and 65 = "intrigue". Hm, so what that means is "in order to defeat the current army" we have to "Develop" some "Intrigue" --- well if I were a Byzantine, that would suggest that I cut a deal with the enemy #2-IC, to support him, overthrow the guy leading the army, and thus "win" the war. A bit bizarre, and a bit of a leap of faith, but quite possible in Solo Campaigning terms.

Example 3 of Random Event Generator Sometimes the Random Event Generator gets triggered by throwing doubles when we put a question to the Fate Chart. Works more or less the same way. Lets suppose we roll and get the following: 73, 99, 63, which gives us "PC Positive, Oppress, Power" (Now don't freak, that's just Mythic-speak again --- PC just means Player Character, or one of the commanders that we are keeping track of --- we just roll a dice to see who was meant). So, That might get translated into "The Commander of the Right Wing Oppresses (with his) Power. Could be he tries for a coup d'etat, or that he abuses his power (maybe he's really oppressive in his State that he controls for a Campaign?). Or maybe he just throws 3 units against the enemy’s 1 unit. In any case, that's another "new" Campaign direction that we never saw coming.

Back to the Valley --- When last we checked in on Lt Preston Phelps, he had just survived a ravaging skirmish with some Waziri Afghans, examined a disabled wagon, found a map and an old Shako badge, and been called over to the mouth of a cave, at the base of the Nullah (ravine) they were sent to explore. Inside, they found a ripped knapsack and an officer of the missing patrol, who was babbling incoherently, white as a ghost! But there’s more . . .

Lt P-P sends Lance Corporal Stevens ahead on his belly into the cave, holding a candle taper. The remaining 4 privates wriggle on ahead. Meanwhile, Lt P-P has a look at the knapsack, to see if its repairable (Mythic? --- Probability is about 75%, and we roll a 99, exceptional No) so the pack is crumbling, and not worth the effort. Corporal Stevens is wriggling along on his belly, and heightened senses prevail (we go to the new Mythic experimental Sounds and Smells table, and roll a 3, 06, and 03, which with Medium Chaos gives us Something at the Edge, Clouds, the Hammer cock). Stevens is sure he’s heard a pistol being cocked, but he isn’t sure if it came from Lt P-P behind, or from somewhere in front of him!

Doubles? Oh yeah --- when you throw a Doublein Mythic (like the 99 above) we have another spiffy random generator element goes to work. If the Unit number (9) is odd, then we chose the second-most-likely of 2 or 3 “action plans” (like, do we send the LI into the woods which is most likely, or a warband which is the second choice). If the doubled-up number is even (like 2 from a 22 role) then we go into a scene “interrupt” mode --- something else has happened (probably off table?) that affects the whole outcome of the game, and we have to resolve this first. Could be enemy sighted coming towards the table, could be a civil war at the enemy’s capital, that sort of thing. We roll another Mythic Focus-Action-Subject set to get a clue as to what happened. That’s another (uncounted) neato! (PS, there’s a full article on how this is used coming up).

Example 4 of Random Event Generator (AKA the “dud”) Sometimes, in spite of all the brilliance, the Random Event Generator produces something that is just plain incomprehensible. Not often, just sometimes. So when we get something like: “Non-Player- Character”, “Careless” “Stalemate”, no matter how we massage the sucker, it still comes out as “A lesser NCO is Careless resulting in a Stalemate. What’s that mean? I dunno. Oh, sure, we can probably work away at it for an hour and come up with some odd-ball fit, but if the fit doesn’t “pop” to mind, forget about it and move on. Life’s too short, and Solo time is shorter still, right?

Back on the NWF, we go to the new Mythic experimental Terrain Generator, to see if we can get any more detail on the cave ahead of Lance Corporal Stevens (and on the new Terrain Generator, and then we roll a 77, then 38 and 23 --- An Ambiguous area, Razes, Outpost --- oooh! Another double! Take the second most obvious line!). The candle taper that Stevens was holding brushes the floor, and loose gunpowder on the floor flashes over, and there is a lot of smoke and flame that envelopes the cavern ahead of him! Stevens beats a hasty retreat to the mouth of the cave, where he gasps for breath. When he finally catches his breath and his eyes stop itching, Stevens glances at Lt P-P to see if his pistol is cocked (Mythic? Odds are 50-50%, and the answer is 82, No). So something clicked in the cavern, but what? They decide to wait for a couple of minutes, to try and let the air in the cave clear out.

A quarter hour passes, with no sounds from the cave, and Lt P-P sends Stevens back in with another lit taper. This time Stevens has his bayonet out, just in case. He again gets close to the cavern at the end of the short low tunnel, and his heart is hammering at his rib cage. Back to the experimental Mythic Sounds and Smells table (Mythic? 35, 35, 32--- so a Significant Objective, Frightens, Crossroads). There is some sort of large Idol ahead, dominating the cavern. (Mythic? Anything else alive in there? Probability is 50- 50 and we roll 35 --- a yes. Nothing else SEEMS to be moving around, as Stevens pokes his head further into the open area, but Stevens isn’t letting his guard down. Something’s alive in there … (Whew! Gotta take a break! Getting too exciting for this ol’ codger!)

Half an Extra is Better than None The Mythic Half-extra? Oh, that’s another Neato factor, that isn’t quite enough to rate a “whole” Neato- worth. And that’s because Mythic is more “scene-based”, rather than “whole-table-top” based, and in SOME cases, you may be able to seriously reduce the size of your playing field, without impacting on the game. Draw a map, number the rock-piles, and say, “I’m gonna go poke my Spatha (or Pike, or Spear) in THAT one --- are there any warbands?” If the answer is Yes (or extremely Yes) just take a 3 foot square piece of terrain, plop down the rock pile, and orient the good guys to face the snakes. You don’t NEED to go marching around the whole 9 foot by 6 foot board, to get the same effect as a Mythic “scene”.

Example 1 of Half-a-neato

In the above example, the British Colonial Troops pour into the valley through the narrow defile, and the first thing they see centered between the walls of a medium canyon, is an old broken-down wagon. That’s the scene we “set”, so there is no need to lay out the rest of the table; all we need is about 3 feet square (in 25 mm or 1/72 scale). Roll them bones to see if the % dice are going to alter the scene (not this time) and away we go. Back to using our traditional rules (Sword and Flame in this case).

OK! Now that we have our Nerve back, off to the NWF again! (We go to a prepared list of 52 possible enemies, and draw by card to get the possible enemy lurking in the shadows …) “Halt! Stand there or I’ll nail yer!” yells Lance Corporal Stevens as he then launches himself forward, and topples a man in white and yellow rags, who is reeling as if he is drunk. The other Privates come squirting out of the tunnel entrance, and in less than a minute, the native stranger is overpowered. Lt P-P makes his leisurely appearance, and sizes up both the large Idol, and their red-eyed prisioner. “My God”, he drawls in his upper class accent, “what HAVE we here? Unless I miss my bet, that statue is “Kali”, and that means the man has to be a Thugee!”

(Check it with Wikepedia --- they have a picture dated 1863 with practicing Thugees). Immediately the other three privates draw their bayonets, and probe the edges of the cavern to see if there are other entrances or exits. Meanwhile we go back to the new Mythic experimental Terrain Generator and see what comes up --- 11, 26, 36 --- Another moderate obstacle, protects, moat. Hmmm) There is some sort of pool behind the statue of Kali, and it might be navigable. What to do, what to do? On the one hand, Lt P-P wants to look good; on the other, he has no intentions of stirring up a hive of nut-ball Thugees that might come pouring out of that water-trap.

Alternate Interpretation of that Half-Extra Neato How many times have we “promised” ourselves we’d get better at using our Wonderkin troops (insert name of your choice here) around the Rotten Rocky Terrain (insert terrain of our choice here)? We don’t need the WHOLE army to practice this (um, I guess that really means “to play out a Solo Skirmish scenario”). All we need is a handful of OUR guys that we’d usually task to do the clearing-the-scrub job, and another smaller handful of enemy guys that are meant to impede our progress. (So the attackers add up to 150 points of troops, and the Snake-skin defenders get 70 points of troops). So we lay down OUR guys and umn, where are the bad guys? (And we pose that to the Fate Table). OK, so who goes first? (And we can pose that as a 50-50% question to the Fate Table).

Ta-Da! Get your feet wet, and play with your favorite rule set, on a relatively postage-stamp-size of a mini-table! And playing on a smaller table means that I play more often, cause there’s less set-up and tear-down time, and I even might get away with leaving the little guys on a 3 x 3 foot mini-diorama, and shove it under the bed.

Advanced Solo Applications for Mythic Solo Wargamers are a sad bunch --- they look into questions that never seem to bother the average face- to-face wargamer. Things like “Did my change of orders get through to the right man? Is he going to understand, or is he going to “re-interpret” them according to his warped personality (a personality that the Solo wargamers, as often as not, have miss-rolled up for their key commanders). These are just a few of the questions that beg answers from the Mythic Fate Chart, and that can easily be worked into an orders phase with any rule set. You’re going to be pleasantly surprised at how versatile (and dramatic) the Mythic GME (Game Master Emulator) can be when applied as random occurrences at critical Command and Control points, things that are not commonly addressed in most rule sets.

Spotted Dog

My Mythic-buddy Robert came up with some ground-breaking ideas on Spotting. His contention is that if a unit has been spotted then it STILL has to be accurately identified. (Good point). Once again we can consult the fate table to see if our own army's unit can identify what type of unit has been spotted. Yes, means the unit is identified according to basic unit types for our game (in the case of a medieval miniatures game cavalry, infantry, or artillery). No, means the unit(s) have been spotted but not identified, in which case they are treated as the most powerful possible type of unit available for that 'automated' enemy army, until one of our units is within charge range of the “automated” enemy, at which point another identification attempt roll is made.

”Exceptional Yes”, means not only has that unit been identified but classified as well, for example Mounted Knights, Longbows, or Heavy Bombard or whateverm at which point the miniature(s) for that unit or troop type may be placed upon the table. ”Exceptional No”, means not only are we unable to identify the unit, but as a result of exceptional use of terrain cover (providing camouflage), that unit will remain completely unidentifiable until IT chooses to attack either with melee, or a missile weapon depending upon the type of game you are playing. We can then ask Mythic if any spotted unit(s) or troops choose to attack according to the initiative turn system for our preferred rules system.

Splicing

This is a great example of splicing a new concept (in this case Identification) onto our “favorite” rules, using Mythic. The main historical miniatures rules framework is already there --- what remains to be done is for you to work the Mythic system into the base rule set, which really is not all that difficult. Now we can “borrow” ideas from other rule sets, or from the great names of the past (Setting up a Wargames Campaign, from Tony Bath, or Programmed Wargame Scenarios) and drop them into our current rules, using Mythic as the splice that lets it happen. While most tournament players might shy away from these things, most Solo gamers that I know relish digging deeper. (“Fellow Solo Armadilleauxs Unite ...”)

On the NWF, Lt Preston-Phelps decides he now has enough to justify his returning to the column, with the map, the Shako crest, the white-haired officer, and now the Thugee prisoner. He can safely dump this on Captain Haggarty’s plate back at base-camp for follow-up. Besides, at this rate, he’ll be back to the column in time for Tiffen!

Variable Sighting Distances

One idea that my buddy Dale came up with is variable sighting distances, using Mythic. I use a “normal, fixed” sighting distance of 16 inches (for 1/72 or 15mm figures), but Dale suggests this doesn’t take into account the undulations in the ground, so he suggests that we use a question to Mythic to simulate variable sight distance (which I intend to try). In theory, we could apply this to Variable Effective Long Range Fire distances, too. (Tried it! Really like it! Outside of the “normal” range, a hit goes onto Mules, or non-military personnel accompanying the column! Great idea!)

Significant, Yes (But Don’t Over-expect Something Earth-Shattering ) OK, time for the big red-letter lawyer’s labels: Mythic Game Master Emulator is NOT a tactical “AI” system; it won't help you you’re your units or divisions in the best or the optimum manner; it doesn't “roll up” or even optimize the enemy’s fighting skills; it won't optimize the positioning or even the timing of your cavalry set up, nor focus an attack, or set off a flank sweep; it doesn't help "choose" the best army from a list of available units. Hey, it doesn’t even make you play any wiser, nor teach you to learn a rule set or system that you don’t already know. And like any other rule set, if you set out to defeat it (asking weird questions with double-negatives) it will bite you back.

Having said all that, it is the best $7 US that I've spent in decades, and its given me 100’s of hours of fun so far, and promises lots more to come. And it certainly produces that 10% more sizzle that we talked about at the beginning of this article. What more can you ask, for the price of a good pocket book? Most of the Ol’ Solo Fogies will have no problem assimilating Mythic into their styles of play. And its up to YOU as to how much spice is “enough”.

There is a very creative and enthusiastic Yahoo group with lots of bright ideas on applying alternate rules, using Mythic as the gene-splice between YOUR favorite rules, and their suggested alternates and updates. Well worth looking into (in fact, some times I think that us Solo historical miniature wargamers are threatening to take over the group for our own nefarious purposes! Today, “yahoo/Mythic”, tomorrow we Solo the World!)

Give it a spin --- the URL for the Mythic group is: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Mythic_Role_Playing

Mythic Game Master Emulator is available from a number of sources, but I bought mine using Paypal, from DrivethruRPG.com as an Adobe 7.0 Download. It is available as a hard copy from these folks as well (although I imagine extra shipping charges apply).

Next up (working on it . . . hold yer Armadilleaux back . . .) Campaign applications using Mythic.

Bob The Mythic-al Seur D’Armadilleaux A legend in his own mind-ind-ind-nd … (Gee, its Hollow in here! ere! re! …)