Morschauser’s ‘Modern’ Period Wargames Rules – Feedback from the first play-test

As will be obvious from the various comments that have been made in response to my blog entry about the first play-test I conducted, I had some problems with the procedure for resolving melees.

Because Joseph Morschauser used what seemed to be a double negative in his original text, I got the results of melees completely back-to-front. His text says:

1) If both dice show the Melee Power Numbers or less: Both Units are removed from the battlefield.

2) If one die shows the Melee Power Number or less and the other does not: The Unit represented by the die which does not show the Melee Power Number or less is removed.

3) If both dice do not show the Melee Power numbers of Units or less: It is a draw, and the dice should be rolled again at once.

The results felt wrong as I adjudicated them during the game, but I persisted with the rules as I thought they were intended to be used. The feedback and comments I received reinforced my feelings that I had got it wrong, and I was contemplating what to do next when Jim Wright kindly emailed me two suggestions.

The first is that the dice scores for firing should be rationalised so that they are easier to remember. Therefore Joseph Morschauser's existing rule that reads as follows ...

For Machine Guns Only: Roll one die for each shot. A 2, 4 or 6 is a hit.

For All Other Weapons: Roll one dies for each shot. A 4 or 6 is a hit.

... should be changed to read ...

For Machine Guns Only: Roll one die for each shot. A 4, 5 or 6 is a hit.

For All Other Weapons: Roll one dies for each shot. A 5 or 6 is a hit.

This makes eminent sense to me and will be incorporated in my revised draft of Joseph Morschauser's rules.

The second revision that Jim suggested was that the Basic Unit Melee Powers should be altered to make the results consistent with the principle of high score = good results and that the wording of the Melee Conduct section of the rules should be re-written to make it simpler and clearer to understand.

In the existing rules the Basic Unit Melee Power of a Rifle Unit is 4 that you have to equal or get less than to win. Jim suggests that it should be 3 that you have to equal or get more than to win. The end result is the same but it is also easier to remember.

Jim's simplified and clearer wording of the Melee Conduct section of the rules reads as follows:

1) If the Attacker's die roll is greater than or equal to its Basic Unit's Melee Power, the Defender is destroyed.

2) If the Defender's die roll is greater than or equal to its Basic Unit's Melee Power, the Attacker is destroyed.

3) If neither Basic Unit is destroyed, roll again until one or both Basic Units in Melee are destroyed.

I think that Jim's suggestions improve the rules without changing them dramatically, and are in keeping with the original spirit in which they were written

I will include these proposed changes in my next draft of the rules, and hopefully I will be able to use them in the next play-test which – work permitting – should take place later this week.