Action/Reaction in Miniature Wargaming (Part 3)

Playing Pieces

Rifle/Canister Range Stick

For the 54mm game the stick is 27 inches long and is divided into nine 3 inch sections, each representing 150 feet. For smaller scales the player could reduce this further but still needs  

to have 9 equally sized segments. 

For rifles and canister, the numbers indicate the number or lower which the player has to roll to score hits on the target. For infantry, skirmishers, and mounted infantry the player rolls 1 D10 for each piece on the firing line. For canister, the player rolls 9 D10s. 10s are treated as zeros.

Musket Range Stick

Troops, armed with notoriously inaccurate muskets, had to get close to the enemy to effectively engage them. Therefore, their range stick reflects that. The 1 inch segments from 6  - 1 are the effective ranges at 50 feet to 100 yards. Beyond the qoo yards up to 200 yards (the remaining 6 inches), they have to roll 1's to hit anything.

Casualty counters come in all kinds of shapes and designs. I have used Scrabble tiles with numbers written on the back and Sudoku tiles. I decided to make my own casualty counters Start with copyright free clock faces off the internet. Reduce or enlarge them to the size of a wooden poker chip. (The chips shown here came from a game I bought at a yard sale.) 

Print the clock face on label paper. 

Cut out two of the clock faces. 

Place one on the bottom piece of the counter. 

Put the other on a spare top piece, which will be the pattern to center the real top piece. 

Using a push pin (a thumb tack with a big head on it) to work a hole through the center of the clock face on the spare top piece until it comes through the bottom of the poker chip.

Remove the pin and put the spare poker chip on top of a blank chip, making sure the  chips align.

With the two aligned pieces together put the push pin through the original template into the bottom chip to mark the center of what will become the top part of the counter.

Cut a "V" shaped notch in the  chip without the clock face.

Place it on top of the poker chip with the other clock face on it and align the two.

Take a regular thumb tack and push it through the marked center of the top plate into the bottom piece to complete the construction of your new casualty counter.

Understand, some of the counters are not going to perfectly align but they do work, which it what really matters.

Smoke and fog markers. Since I do not have the means to create heavy card board numbered chits to use as markers, I again resorted to the pieces from yardsale games and manipulatives which I purchased at a used book store which also sells second hand school supplies for teachers.

I have used Sudoku tiles, preschool plastic numbers, the backs of Scrabble Junior tiles, and finally settled on miniature poker decks because they are moderate in size, and very visible on the game table. 

It required the acquisition of about four decks of cards from which I extracted all of the cards from Ace through "6." 

From there. I divided the cards evenly into two equally numbered decks. 

I labeled the one "Smoke."

"Fog" became the unlabeled deck.

The numbers indicate the thickness of the smoke and the fog, with the highest number being the densest obstruction and the Ace being the thinnest veil.

The both limit visibility and regular movement, and the extra die used in charges by the number on the card. For instance, the "3" reduces a movement of "9" to "6." When firing, The adjusted range on the rangs stick is reduced by "3."

It the visibility is higher than the allotted movement the piece moves only 1 inch because visibility is zero.

The difference between smoke and fog in the game is that smoke accumulates with each firing and fog dissipates over time. At the beginning of the game the player determines the fog's thickness,  should the scenario call for, by roll 1 D6 for each of the low spots on the field. The resulting number is the thickness of the fog. That is the number the player places on the field. At the beginning of each turn, the player rolls a D6 to determine if the fog thickness reduces by 1.

Everytime a regiment fires smoke accumulates, starting with and Ace. With each firing, it increases by 1 until it maxes out at 6. At the beginning of each turn, the player rolls a die to see if the smoke bank reduces by 1 or not.

The reduction of the fog and smoke indicates thinning out cause by breezes dissipating the smoke and the sun burning the fog off.

Dice

In previous versions of this game I utilized D20s, D12s, D10s, and D6s. Weile supervising the game at FAll-In I realized that having so many varieties of dice on the table complicated and actually slowed play. Consequently, I simplified the the playing system. The actual playing of the dice are detailed in the game  rules.

The dice reflect the uncertainty of reaction and response to combat situations.

The two colors of 6Ds are used in hand-to-hand resolution, reduction in movement for crossing fences, going up and down hills, destroying fences, and determining fog density.

They also determine reaction to artillery fire on targets and reaction to small arms fire on columns.

D10s resolve small arms and artillery fire, officer hits, rallies, stall marker and reaction marker removals, officer replacement, officers being able to see a problem and move to solve it, and reaction to incoming fire.

As a rules of thumb with this game. If there is a question about what can or cannot be done on the field, have a roll off instead of an argument.

Litko produces an excellent range of economical plastic markers like these, for miniature wargaming. Place these on thew field to announce a charge or to indicate that a unit is routed and either running or withdrawing.

Thes home made rout markers represent a unit in panic mode: Retreat, Withdraw, Prone. They are removed when the unit rallies.

These plastic poker chip sized markers came from a yard sale game which I looted for the parts. They are hit markers for officer, skirmishers, and artillery crews. Red: 1 hit. White: 2 hits.  Blue: 3 hits. the 4th hit removes the piece. Red, Whit, and Blue is easy for an American to remember.

These small sized markers, also yard sale salvaged, represent a stalled regiment (red) and a regiment in reaction (blue). They need to be removed by and officer at the beginning of the turn or the unit can only defend itself if attacked and that at a reduced status.

In hand-to-hand the attacker gets an extra die.

When firing, they have to roll a D6 halved to reduce their effectiveness.

Many of these items are available commercially but gamers, as a rule, often craft their own markers. It kind of is a hall mark of the hobby.

Again, thank you for reading this.  I always look forward to cordial, and informative comments and observations.