From: bieksza@erols.com Subject: [consim-l] English Civil War Mini-Reviews In my solitaire "campaign" going backwards in time, most recently the TARDIS has been parked in the English Civil War zone. So here's brief descriptions of the two games I've been playing, _Cromwell's_Victory_ (S&T #101) and _Winceby_ (GAMEFIX #5). _Cromwell's_Victory_ presents the battle of Marston Moor (July of 1644). The physical components are 100 counters (all combat units and leaders save for the turn marker), a half-size mapsheet, and about 10 pages of rules. The scale is 200 yds./hex and 30 min./turn with counters representing cavalry regiments, infantry brigades, groups of (immobile) artillery pieces, and key leaders. The full battle lasts 12 turns (the 5-turn short game is for masochist Royalist players only); VP's are awarded mostly on the basis of attrition. The turn sequence is identical player turns of rally / artillery fire / movement / combat. Combat uses an odds-based CRT adjusted for terrain. Eliminations occur mostly in the extreme columns -- usually results consist of disruption to attacker, defender, or both. A disrupted unit is flipped to the reverse of the counter with lower combat and movement factors. Until rallied a disrupted unit cannot attack and is eliminated if disrupted again in combat (but not artillery fire). Two other key points are that zones of control have no effect on movement and stacking is one combat unit per hex. Unfortunately the situation discourages *both* sides from acting aggressively. A substantial part of the Roundhead army sets up behind slope hexsides (attacker halved) and most of the Royalist army sets up behind a ditch (attacker halved). Furthermore both sides are encouraged to maintain a solid line of units lest enemy cavalry infiltrate the gaps and gallop off to loot the baggage train (a source of VP's). But one must attack all enemy units in friendly ZOC's and units can't stack to concentrate strength. The Roundheads do have an opportunity to cross and/or outflank the ditch on the western side of the battlefield. OTOH the battle may grind to a halt early because in the last half of the game there is an increasing chance of poor visibility, which makes it harder to rally disrupted units and makes it impossible for infantry to cross the ditch except at a road. _Winceby_ presents the much smaller battle of Winceby in east- central England (October of 1643). The physical components are 100 counters (a substantial fraction of which are informational markers), a small mapsheet (11" x 17"), and 8 pages of rules. The scale is 100-115 yds./hex and 30 min./turn. It is not stated what the combat units represent but I'd guess multiple counters per regiment, plus leader. The game lasts up to 12 turns with the winner determined by a "victory table" -- based on attrition and currently routed units a dice roll range is given for a player to achieve victory; each player can roll once per turn after his opponent's rally phase. The turn sequence is identical player turns of movement / defensive fire / offensive fire / melee / rally, so this is a tactical-level design. Fire combat is of low importance -- a 1-hex range and a 1/6 chance of forcing a morale check for all but a handful of dragoons. Melee is the preferred way to deal out damage. Provided both sides pass morale checks players roll separately on a table cross-referencing number of strength points involved with a die roll that usually has lots of casualty-producing modifiers. However, all units except dragoons have 4 steps and melee rarely inflicts more than 1 step loss. (Cutting retreat routes is the key to increasing the attrition rate.) The main twist is that each regiment must have a command: attack, retreat, etc. The regimental units are constrained in their movement and combat by the current command. Both sides have the opportunity to change commands only at the start of each turn (except for possible counter-charging), and individual leaders may not be able to change their command when needed. For cavalry the key command is charge, which provides bonuses to movement, melee ability, and morale. However, a given regiment can charge for no more than three consecutive turns, after which it must "muster" (retreat out of combat for a turn). The rules note that _Winceby_ uses 3W's Royalists & Roundheads system. Indeed, some of the rules seem better- suited for a much larger mapsheet. Because _Winceby_ is such a small game there's not much to say about play -- both sides must simply beat up on each other. In order to inflict the losses and routs needed to get a decent chance of a win on the victory table both sides have to completely offensive- minded. -------------------------------------------- | Dave Bieksza | bieksza@erols.com | -------------------------------------------- "The Net is vast and limitless." - Motoko Kusanagi, _Ghost in the Shell_