"Testing, Testing..."

In early May, just before my wife and I set off for our 8 week Scandinavian adventure in our motorhome, I was working on two ideas that I thought might enhance Startline. The first was a new, alternate move sequence (rather than the current IGO-UGO), and a new morale system. Both offered interesting and quite fundamental changes to the game, so on my return I was keen to try them out.

Packing up the motorhome can be time consuming.

Do IGO or do UGO?

Startline currently uses a pretty traditional IGO-UGO system - I move and fire all my stuff, then you do the same with yours. Most of you will know the various arguments as to why this can be a problem - the most common being that one player stands there doing nothing (or not much), whilst the other player has all the fun. This has never really been a problem for me, as I am a gamer who enjoys watching the battle unfold, and I am very content to watch my opponent do his (or her) thing. Some banter can always be applied to liven things up - a loud sucking of the teeth combined with a doubtful shake of the head can often tempt your opponent to change their move. If part of a multi-player side, you can also indulge in behind-the-hand whispers about what your opponent is up to, which may cause additional alarm and despondency. 

There is, of course, the very basic argument that IGO-UGO is just plain old-fashioned.

For me, a much more telling critique of IGO-UGO is that it is too predictable and is a poor representation of battlefield events. To put it simply, the actions we are trying to represent are rather more interactive and less orderly than IGO-UGO implies. Thus, some form of alternate activation has become fashionable - one of my units goes, then one of yours, etc., until everyone has 'gone'. A further step in this process is random activation, where which player goes next is decided on a die roll, or picking a counter, or turning a card. Bolt Action is the most well-known WW2 game using this mechanic, where tokens are drawn from a bag. 

I recently came across this video on YouTube which covers this subject, amongst others. The whole video is interesting but the IGO-UGO discussion commences at 6.50.

One of the commenters on the video made a point which chimed in with my own thoughts - that random activation can get just a bit too random. The feeling of creating and executing a plan disappears and one ends up just reacting. Now some may argue this is quite a good representation of WW2 combat at section/platoon/company level. But my own view is that too much random can spoil a game. Hence my aversion to the recent resurgence of the 'special event card' mechanic - for example, the Fate Cards in Valour & Fortitude. The dice make our games quite random enough, IMHO.

So, I went for alternate activation, where Side A picks a unit and fires and moves with it, then Side B, then Side A again, etc. Indirect fire and air strikes are done by both sides in an opening phase of the turn, and after activation is finished both sides check morale.

Run Away!

The morale section in Startline is also currently pretty old school. A die roll, a set of modifiers (perhaps a few too many for modern tastes), and then check the total against a results table. Here, the inspiration for something different came from an online contact with a gamer in the U.S., Tom Dye. He had been thinking about what might be wrong with morale rules in miniature wargaming, and I took away two ideas from his thoughts - first, that more than just 3 morale categories (in my rules, hesitant, regular or determined) might be preferable, and that morale during the course of an action would go up and down, in particular as a result of the leadership qualities and interventions of the unit command, and this should be tracked in a game on a turn-by-turn basis. 

Now, hardly ground breaking you might think, but these ideas helped me see the way to a different morale system. Basically, each unit would start the game with a number between 6 and 12, which would be its Morale Value. Events through the game (mainly casualties) would reduce this, but the Morale Value can also be recovered through a rally rule. There is a still a results table that tells what the Morale Value of a unit means in terms of behaviour in the game - basically either OK, no advance, fall back, or run away. The upsides here were a system that looked a bit more original, and a significant reduction in the number of modifiers during morale tests.

Test Game 1

So, I embarked on a couple of test games to check out if the new rules were viable. I went for just a 4' x 4' table which would enable a quick set up. The terrain was adapted from the 'Cristot' scenario in the Dave Brown 'O'Group rule book. The first game was an attack-defence scenario with a German recce group attempting to seize and hold a Polish village during the 1939 campaign. Forces were of the same points, according to my points system:

German - Force HQ + 2cm AA on half track

Heavy Armoured Car platoon - 3 x Sdkfz231 

Light Armoured Car platoon - 2 x Sdkfz221, 2 x Sdkfz222

Motorcycle Infantry platoon

Truck-mounted Infantry platoon

75mm IG75 section - 2 guns

Polish - Force HQ

Infantry platoon x 2 (each with 37mm Bofors anti-tank gun attached)

TKS platoon - 3 x TKS mg, 1 x TKS 20mm

Tank platoon - 3 x Vickers 47mm, 2 x Vickers mg

Mortar section - 2 x 8cm mortars off-table with MFO on-table

A few photos just to give you an idea:

Set-up. Germans attacking from left.
Half the Polish force started off-table in reserve.

German armoured cars and motorcyle infantry making good progress...

...until the Vickers tanks arrive and things get messy.

The German heavy armoured cars managed to penetrate into the rear of the village.
You can see that their Morale Value is 8.

This first game was a bit confusing as I got used to the new ideas. To be honest, I wasn't convinced things were going to work out with the new rules. For the record, the Germans lost despite their bold advance, as they didn't manage to claim the required 2 objectives in 8 turns.

Test Game 2

For this game I decided that simpler forces and a simpler set up would enable me to concentrate on how the new rules were functioning. So I tweaked the terrain slightly and went for a tank-heavy encounter engagement:

Germans - Force HQ

Medium Tank platoon x 2 - each 5 x Pz38t

Light Tank platoon - 5 x PzIIc

Motorcycle platoon 

Polish - Force HQ

Light Tank platoon x 2 - each 5 x 7tp

Medium Tank platoon - 4 x Renault R-35

Truck-mounted Infantry platoon

Points values between the 2 forces were once again just about equal. Some more photos:

Set-up. Germans to the left once more.

Half-way point. Tanks casualties high on both sides.

Polish infantry retreating from the crossroads area.

In this game the Germans won by claimng one objective, whilst the Poles could claim none. A much more positive game where I could see the wood for the trees, or to put it another way, I could see the new rules working rather better.

So, overall, I'll be sticking with the new rules for future games - but there is a way to go yet. I might end up dumping either or both of them, or more likely adopting them in an amended form. We'll see. Should be a fun process!

To check out the new rules, visit the Startline io group, and look in the Files section. If you're not a member, it takes a couple of minutes to join. Free rules - what's not to like?

'Til next time!