X-Factor and Fusing Game Designs Together

Recently I purchased the "universe" (expansion) book Saga: Age of Alexander as I like the new version of the Saga rules (version 2) – when converted to play on a square grid, of course – but also because I have a number of excess Greek and Thracian 15mm figures painted up. Also, I was curious how Ancients might play out using this game system. (I myself used it for Mesoamerican battles.)

As I started reviewing notes from my own blog on my Saga games I started to remember some of the aspects that I did not enjoy so much. Saga is pretty crunchy. I broke out the rules and reviewed the melee combat process and you can see how crunchy it is. The attacker's dice total is not fixed and can be modified up and down during a melee. The number needed to roll on those dice is also not fixed and can be modified up and down. Some melee's also include re-rolls. When the final roll is made and the hits are counted the opponent is then allowed to roll their defense dice, cancelling out hits. The number of dice rolled is also not fixed, nor is the number to be rolled. (I am unsure whether there are any factions that have a special rule to inflict automatic casualties as opposed to automatic hits, which are savable. If so, that is another area that is variable.) Bottom line, there are a number of calculations to make, albeit pretty quick ones once you get a hang of the rules.

Compare that to something like One-Hour Wargames (OHW), in which almost everything is fixed. The die you roll, plus modifier is fixed to the unit type. Damage is modified (doubled or halved) based upon circumstance, but that is it. That is the other end of crunchiness. (Mushiness?)

So, to reacquaint myself with the Saga rules I recently played a game with gaming buddy Don. He said we should try it again, seeing as I was talking about it. I thought that strange because I had always thought he wasn't very keen on it, despite having bought painted figures for it. (Don is more of a collector than anything, so buying figures for a game is not indicative of him liking the rules, but more about his true hobby.) We set up the scenario and I stumbled through the rules. Hilariously Don kept saying "are you sure this is what we played before?" as he said that all of the elements were not as he remembered. In the end he really did not like the game, so we are unlikely to play it, as is, again.

But that little side trip caused me to ponder about the rules. What exactly do I like about them versus, say, One-Hour Wargames or Tin Soldiers in Action? Ironically, Tabletop Minions had a video today on the subject, "Why you hate a particular game". His assessment is that there is an X-factor, an element that you value so strongly that when something, in this case a set of rules, doesn't contain it you tend to dislike it. So what was it for me?

So, let's take the idea of fusing Saga and One-Hour Wargames together. That is not such a stretch for me as I spent a good part of a week writing three versions of "Saga Lite" and then play testing it. I admit I abandoned it because of a fatal flaw in the game design. (We will get to that.)

First, what do I like about OHW? Simplicity. Ease of conversion to a grid. Quick playing. A long time ago I also said "decisiveness" because the player's decisions have an impact on the outcome. What I mean by that is when you have a game where, every turn, the player can move all units and fight with all units, the decision of whether to move or not has less impact because there is no (or little) impact to the decision of whether or not to fire; there is no tradeoff. Even more so with the decision to fire; there is no negative consequence to firing, so the decision to do so is not very impactful. With OHW it is move or fire. When you are in the threat zone moving comes at the consequence of receiving hits while not being able to inflict any of your own. Because OHW is an attritional combat system, falling behind in the 'race to 15' cannot be taken lightly.

So, what do I like about Saga? For me it is that you have to plan out your turn, and your reaction to your opponent's next turn, as you go along. That plan is heavily influenced by the dice roll, so there is no God-level control of your troops. Not all units will be able to act every turn. On some turns you might not really be able to do anything except recover. But your decisions will have a huge impact; what you do with the options you are given will very much decide whether you stand a chance of winning.

Breaking Down the Game Mechanics

A while back I bought a copy of the book Building Blocked of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Game Mechanisms by Geoffrey Englestein and Isaac Shalev. It was advertised to me on Facebook and I decided to buy it and give it a try. The book is what it says, an encyclopedia of tabletop game mechanics. Using their definitions it helps me understand how a game mechanic differs, how to identify it, and which I prefer.

The classic example is 'IGO-UGO', which they call Fixed Turn Order Activation. A game like Bolt Action – where each unit on a side is given a die that is placed in a bag, and when that side's die is drawn a unit that has not activated may then takes its activation – is called Random Turn Order Activation. But note that the player gets to pick the unit to activate, whereas Tin Soldiers in Action as uses a random order (cards), but the activation token specifies the unit, not the player.

Now, when I consider which X-factors I like I know that I am indifferent to Fixed Turn Order Activation verging towards suspicious of it as this mechanic most often leads to the dreaded 'Alpha Strike' that I dislike so much. OHW has Fixed Turn Order Activation but softens the Alpha Strike by disallowing a unit to move and shoot in a single turn. You can still move and perform close combat though, so it is still present as OHW has the strange mechanic of only the active playing fighting in close combat. If I do pick rules with Fixed Turn Order Activation I prefer that the activations alternate by unit rather than by player, i.e. I activate one unit, then you activate one, and so on until all units have had a chance to activate.

Saga also has Fixed Turn Order Activation. Worse, a player can move and shoot or move and close combat all in the same turn. Saga does blunt this tendency towards the 'Alpha Strike' by penalizing a unit that moves and takes another action (like shooting or close combat), plus it allows numerous options for the player to interrupt the active player's turn or degrade their attacks, so it is not so bad as something like Warhammer 40,000 (the epitome of rules that allow the Alpha Strike).

As I indicated earlier, I attempted to write a Saga Lite ruleset which fused Saga and OHW. The idea was to use a multiple figure, single base as your basic unit, use strength points to track how many 'hit points' a unit can sustain, but have the different unit qualities and equipment of Saga. Most importantly, use the Saga dice and battle boards to challenge the player to plan his turn based on the die roll. I spent a lot of time on the rules, nearly a week writing up three versions and several separate documents. When I tested the game it was naturally very clunky at first, but I got the hang of it. The basic premise was that the modifiers to combat that the battle board provided, plus the quality and equipment, would all translate to attack and defense bonuses. In close combat both sides would roll a D6 in hits against their opponent, modified by your attack bonus and your opponent's defense penalty.

But what hit me as I was playing the test game is that there was no reason not to choose a Hearthguard unit – the highest quality troop in Saga – over a lesser quality unit. In OHW, unit selection is by die roll, and not all units are created equally. (As evidenced by the groans one hears when someone rolls two Skirmishers for their Dark Ages army!) In Saga there is a delicate balancing act between quality and equipment in a unit. The basic rule is one point buys you 4 Hearthguard or 8 Warrior, or 12 Levy. However, the Hearthguard hits harder and stays in combat longer. But if you are so unlucky as to lose a figure, your offensive combat power goes down quickly. The Levy are the opposite. Their offensive combat power per figure is low, so casualties tend to lower it much more slowly. But they are easier to hit.

My Saga Lite had none of that. It had the characteristic of OHW in that combat power did not change as hits were taken, and damage against a Levy was not more or less devastating as the loss to the Hearthguard. So all of the good aspects of the Levy were removed and all of those of the Hearthguard were amplified. Hence there was no reason to take the Levy. Ever.

This got me to thinking: how can I modify the rules so that the hit taken by Hearthguard has wilder swings (higher highs and lower lows) than those taken by the Levy? Also, it wasn't as simple as saying it was +2 hits against Hearthguard and -2 against Levy as the former had heavier armor, so it was harder to hit. But if it was hit, it took a bigger chunk out of the unit.

Think in terms of figures. If the unit has 16 hits and Hearthguard have 4 figures, each Hearthguard figure has 4 hits. Levy have 12 figures for their 16 hits, so each figure has 1 1/3rd hits. A Hearthguard figure is harder to hit, but if it is, it loses 4 hits, etc.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was already a game out there, that I owned (and had for a year or so) but never played, that seemed to handle something like this. It is called Age of Penda for the Dark Ages version and Scottorum Malleus (now Arrowstorm) for the Medieval version. I will be reviewing those rules and presenting a test battle report next post.

Rules Read-Through: About Bonaparte

If you have perused my Wooden Warriors blog then you know that I have been working on 42mm Napoleonic wooden soldiers for some time now. (There are a lot of other projects there too. I get distracted all of the time.)

What I have not really found, however, is a set of Napoleonic rules that work well with figures of this size. (Given the girth of the figures, they are closer to 54mm in feel.) I can only do so many Napoleonic skirmish games before I end up recycling the scenarios. My plan was to use The Sword and the Flame for them, but with 24 figures for each French ligne infantry unit, that is going to take time.

So when I saw a battle report of a group in the Netherlands using 54mm Napoleonics figures I perked up. Especially when I started counting figures in the pictures and it looked  like they were using infantry units of eight figures and cavalry units of four figures. The report said they were using the rules About Bonaparte by Partizan Press and so I set about finding the rules. It turns out that I could only find them available for sale at Caliver Books in the UK (On Military Matters in the US did not have them), so I put them on my wish list and waited until I found a more compelling reason to make a larger purchase before getting them.

I have had a few frustrating bouts with the UK postal system, so I am always hesitant from ordering anything there. Now that Baccus 6mm miniatures are no longer sold in the US (Scale Creep Miniatures is no longer carrying them), if I need to expand any 6mm armies or fill out a unit, I will probably have to bite the bullet and deal with it again.

As it turned out, Cigar Box Battle Store came out with a new mat using a 6" square grid and they promoted it at the same time as promoting a new book called Tin Soldiers in Action (which I will review in a future article) by Partizan Press. This too was only sold at Caliver Books, so I decided to finally place my order and get the two rule books.

About Bonaparte

So here I am, reading the rules, and thinking "why do these rules feel familiar?" About Bonaparte (AB) uses some special dice and I looked at that again. Two faces have an 'I' for infantry, one face has a 'C' for cavalry, one face has an 'A' for artillery, one face has a Flag ... wait a minute! These are Command & Colors: Napoleonics (CCN) dice! The only difference is that the last face on the AB die is blank whereas on the CCN die it is Sabers. Let's see: infantry fire one die for each stand and it has four stands. Sounds like CCN. In fact, as I read through the rules I see Richard Borg's thumbprint all over. Combat is very much like CCN except that it is a bit more complex and has to deal with the vagaries of free movement rather than the regulated movement imposed by a hex grid.

Now AB did not include a set of Command Cards, so it can't all be the same, right? Looking through the rules I see that you collect a certain number of dice for each General, Aide de Camp, and Officer figure you have and then roll them. For each 'I' you roll you can order an infantry unit, for each 'C' you can order a cavalry unit ... wait a minute! This is how Fantasy Flight Games took Richard Borg's Battlelore rules that they bought the rights to and converted them to a cardless command and control system for their rules Battlelore: Battles of Westeros! In those rules you roll the battle dice and it comes up red, blue, green, etc. and this indicates how many red, blue, and green units (the "color" of the original Command & Colors system) are ordered! Okay, so now I am sitting there giggling because this is what I have been trying to do with WW II and Space Fantasy in the past and here they basically converted and merged two sets of rules I already have and made them into a new Napoleonics variant.

Production Quality of the Book

I have a few other Partizan Press books – Tin Soldiers in Action, the one I just bought, being a prime example – and they are all good quality in terms of printing and binding, and seem to be well edited. Not so with AB. As soon as I opened my copy of AB I could see the binding coming apart at the bottom of the book. I already have pages falling out after one reading because the glue in the binding is so cheap. No, this was not printed in China like the Battlefront Flames of War books (Hell's Highway for example) that instantly fell apart; it was printed in Malta by a small printing company.

Editing has also suffered, as you can tell that English is not the first language of the author and the editors did not always catch his grammatical or spelling errors. Nothing too serious, but once or twice I wondered what exactly he meant. That could just as easily be the English tradition of being loose with their rules, but given that the author was pretty detailed in other areas, I don't think it was that.

There are a few layout issues, where section headers start on the bottom of one page and the body is on the next. It looks and feels like the whole book was laid out in Microsoft Word. Organization of the rules is sometimes strange too as the rules of combat are split into two sections, with a section on preparing for a game stuck in the middle.

The graphics are simplistic and often comical looking. When one unit fires at another, it almost looks as if the muskets are flamethrowers in the diagrams. Worse still, many graphics use thin red text in a small font size over a green background. It is often illegible without a magnifying glass or strong lighting.

Okay, that is the "bad" and the "ugly" part out of the way. Let's get to the "good".

Basing and Unit Sizes

Most of the measurements in the rules give both centimeters and inches as options, but in basing it is in millimeters only. There are basing standards for 54mm, 40mm, 25–30mm, and 15–20mm. For 54mm troops infantry is based two figures on a 55mm square stand, cavalry a single figure on a 55mm by 110mm stand, and artillery on a 110mm square stand. Infantry can also be based singly (called half-stands) to represent skirmishers and to remove single figure losses. There is no specification for basing Generals, Officers, and Aides.

There is a provision for using figures already based using another scheme, but it basically says you need to work out how it impacts the rules. Losses are taken to figures, but when two infantry or one cavalry figures are lost, a stand is expected to be removed. Combat in the game is by stand, not by figure, except for artillery.

There is some flexibility in unit sizes in that if you need to represent especially large or small units, they can be anywhere from 2 to 5 stands in size. (Hungarian infantry during the Napoleonic period is specified as having 5 stands, for example.) Artillery always consists of a single stand, but varies the number of figures based on the weight of the artillery.

Troop Types

As indicated above, artillery is classified by weight , having light, medium, and heavy designations. Light artillery can either be foot or horse, while all other weights are foot.

Infantry is has line (standard), skirmish, and irregular troop types.

Cavalry has heavy, medium, light, lancer, and irregular troop types. Heavy cavalry can be further designated as being Armored or not.

For each of those troop types you can further classify them by morale: green or untrained, trained, veteran, and elite or guard.

Commanders are rating only by type and not by morale. They are the CIC, Generals (commanders of corps, wings, or divisions), Officers (commanders of brigades or regiments), and Staff Officers (aides and staff of CICs and Generals).

The rules recommend that you label only the central stand of a unit (which contains the standard bearer) denoting it troop type, morale, initial unit size, and where it fits in the hierarchical structure (i.e. who commands it).

Formations, Groups, and Movement

Unlike CCN, AB uses formations for the units. Infantry can form line, march column, attack column, skirmish order (may be some or all of the unit), and square. Cavalry can form line, march column, and supported line. Artillery is either limbered or deployed.In addition, there are other period-specific and nation-specific formations defined in the rules too.

Groups are essentially a means of controlling your troops better so that fewer commands are required to maneuver. The basics of command and control are that you get one or two dice for each commander in which to give orders each turn. You roll these dice to determine which unit type – infantry, artillery, or cavalry – can be ordered. It takes one order of the appropriate unit type to move each unit or group, so you can see why forming a group is important. You will have very few orders available to you each turn and you still have to roll the appropriate unit type, so you want to reduce your command down to as few groups as possible.

This reminds me of both DBA and Dux Bellorum. In DBA if you break up your formations you will quickly become "PIP starved" and you roll low and cannot move all of your units. In Dux Bellorum groups can only be formed of like types (shieldwall infantry with shieldwall infantry, warriors with warriors, etc.), limiting the number of units that can maneuver together.

Groups in AB have to be of the same unit type (i.e. infantry, cavalry or artillery), within the same command, under the direct command of an Officer, deployed in the same formation, have the same facing, and be within a certain distance of each other. As you can see, once such a group hits combat, it is likely to quickly to quickly lose its group status. But that is okay because there are actions that units can take that don't require orders. Unlike CCN, for example, units do not require orders to fire.

Note that there is a Command Radius for commanders, so units far from their commanders require additional orders to compensate for the extra distance.

All of the traditional rules for movement – formation and facing changes, unit interpenetration, wheeling, oblique, about face, withdrawing, sidestepping, deploying skirmishers, joining groups – are all in there. Be aware that formation changes take a full turn unless Veteran or Guard.

As you might expect from a set of rules designed for 54mm figures, the table sizes are probably expected to be a little deeper than normal. Deployment zones are 16" in from the baselines, infantry in line formation moves 8" per turn, and   musket range is 16". So if you are using a 6' by 4' board, troops on the deployment lines will be in musket range from the beginning and cavalry will be in charge range on Turn 1. No, no 6' x 4' tables for you with these rules!

By my rule of thumb, a "typical" Napoleonic battalion should have a shooting range of approximately the same distance as the frontage of that unit. Given that the units are roughly 8" in frontage, the ranges seem a bit long. It also does not, in my opinion, have the proper ratio of volleys until contact, or two volleys by a unit in line standing and firing at a column charging in. There is no defensive fire available against a charge coming in, same as with CCN. I guess I am too influenced by my days playing Column, Line, and Square.

Support, Firing and Melee

Another Command & Colors concept is that units not in combat can provide support to friendly units that are in combat. Support in AB provides two basic benefits: it increases the number of Flags you can ignore when fired upon, and it increases the number of dice you throw in melee. The downside of support is that if the supported unit still ends up retreating, the support can often go with it.

There are a slew of rules that help you define whether a unit is supported or not, but there is one complexity to all of this: each unit can provide support to only one unit, for one die roll each turn. I am not sure I like this as it does not provide for the strength of mutually supporting units (as was common to use in Battlelore) and makes for a bit of a guessing game ("will I use my support for the fire coming from the line unit or from the guard unit") that seems to add little value for the complexity it adds.

Firing is basically 1 die per stand, but long range fire and moving can both halve the number of dice rolled. There are also modifiers for shooting into the target's flank or rear, their formation, and the terrain they are in, and modifiers for the shooter's morale.

Melee is also basically 1 die per stand with a number of modifiers for the attacker and defender. Unlike firing, both sides roll dice in a melee. One interesting note: the defender has to conform in a melee where the attacker made contact on a corner. I can see this as a way of throwing units out of a group by changing their alignment, even if only by a few degrees (fiddly geometry).

Even if units do not run into impassable terrain, enemy units, or off of the board when retreating from rolling Flags; three flags unignored will destroy a unit and four flags will destroy your supports as well. There are a number of rules in there that double flags so we are not necessarily talking about four dice rolling flags. A cavalry unit attacking an enemy unit in the flank or rear, for example, inflicts four flags per Flag die rolled!

Regarding skirmishers: they are overpowered, no doubt about it. They are +1 die when shooting and -2 dice when being shot at. Are you kidding me?

Army Lists and Periods

AB gives you rules for all of the major powers, including the Ottomans. Each nationality has special rules, including formations that their infantry can use. Russian line fires with one less dice, British with one more, but only at point-blank range; that sort of thing. There is a point system to cost out the troops in all of their variations. There appears to be no army lists, per se, and you are expected to research out who had what troop types and so on.

AB covers more than just the Napoleonics period. There are period rules for the Age of Marlborough, the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War, the American War of Independence, the American Civil War, and the colonial wars. Given that the last encompasses breechloading rifles and gatling guns, I am surprised that they did not include the Franco-Prussian War too, as that is still a very colorful period.

Conclusion

Do I like the idea behind these rules? Of course! I love Richard Borg rules, as anyone reading this blog for a while would know. I think the only Richard Borg design I don't have is Samurai Battles (and that includes owning Abaddon). I think including a variation of the command and control mechanism from Battlelore: Battle of Westeros was also clever, and a great way of getting rid of the card mechanism. After all, I did that back in 2011, so it is natural I would like it.

All that said, I think the rules are a bit over complicated. The reason for that is simple. The author added in the following elements, any of which are sure to drive up complexity compared to CCN:

• Tracking formation by unit,
• Free-form movement rather than controlled by a grid,
• Gave Commanders a meaningful purpose in the command & control mechanic,
• Expanded the number of modifiers to firing and melee,
• Rather than increasing the distance retreated by a thrown Flag it created a whole new system for ignoring, adding and doubling flags, and then creating new combat results based on how many flags remain,
• Expanded the system of providing support, but turned it from a rule to a resource.

The list goes on. These rules could use a little Neil Thomas-style simplification.

As a set of rules, I think they are interesting. But to me, they are a start of where I think they need to be. First would be to cut down the rules and possibly move it back to a grid. Also, Partizan Press needs to take a hard look at their printer and their editor, because they failed them.

The Real Sagas

For those playing Saga, you might be interested in reading real sagas, in order to get inspiration, ideas for scenarios or campaigns, or just because you are curious about how they read. I did a search on Amazon for sagas available on the Kindle, for free.

Told by the Northmen: Stories from the Eddas and Sagas: This is probably something more along the lines you were thinking of. Half of the stories are myth and half of them about the heroic actions of men. The second story (of about 20) is about Thor dressing up as a woman and wandering amongst men. Here is a list of the stories:

• How All Things Began 
• How All-Father Odin Became Wise 
• How the Queen of the Sky Gave Gifts to Man 
• How a Giant Built a Fortress for the Asas 
• The Magic Mead 
• How Loki Made a Wager with the Dwarfs 
• The Apples of Youth 
• How the Fenris Wolf was Chained 
• How the Pride of Thor was Brought Low 
• How Thor's Hammer was Lost and Found 
• The Giant's Daughters 
• The Story of Balder the Beautiful 
• How Hermon Made a Journey to the Underworld 
• How Loki was Punished at Last 
• The Story of the Magic Sword 
• How Sigmund Fought His Last Battle 
• The Story of the Magic Gold 
• How Sigurd Slew the Dragon 
• How Sigurd Won the Hand of Brunhild 
• How the Curse of the Gold is Fulfilled 
• The Boyhood of Frithiof the Bold 
• Frithiof and Ingeborg 
• Frithiof Braves the Storm 
• Balder Forgives 
• How the End of All Things Came About

Beowulf: An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem: Note only is this a translation of a classic epic, it includes discussion, historical information, has a glossary, and a summary of the tale.


The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade): classic Viking saga about famous Vikings. This looks like the first one I will tackle.

The Saga Hoard Volume 1: This is a collection of Icelandic sagas. From the publisher: "The Icelandic Sagas are histories written in prose, describing life and events that took place during the Icelandic Commonweath period, around the 10th and 11th centuries. They are stories of families, adventures, feuding, deal-making, political maneuvers, wars, treasure amassed, great journeys, geneology, tribute given, kings, freemen, history, and myth. They are stories of the Norse and Celtic settlers and their descendants in Iceland during what is sometimes called the Saga Age."

The Story of Burnt Njal from the Icelandic of the Njals Saga: This Icelandic saga may be a little harder to get through, according to reviewers on Amazon. Probably one I will leave for later.

A lot of reading to do! I probably won't get through it all, to be honest, so if anyone reads through any of these, let me know if you found any gaming inspiration.