Pushing some more toy soldiers about on the tabletop

After the recent play-test of my card-driven unit activation system, and in the light of some of the suggestions and comments I received, I decided to re-fight the scenario using modified versions of the system.

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First play-test: Twin pack approach

• I allocated both sides (Red and Black) appropriately coloured playing cards with values 2, 3, and 4 from two packs of playing cards.
• I sorted the cards into a Red pile and a Black pile, added a Joker to each pile, and then shuffled the piles separately.
• I placed the piles of playing cards face down and used a D6 to determine which side turned over a playing card first.
• Each side then alternated turning over the top playing card of their pile and activated the number of units indicated by the value of the card
• This continued until a Joker was turned over, at which point both piles of playing cards were re-shuffled.

Red 'won' the dice throw and turned their top card over first. The sequence of playing cards turned over was as follows:

• Red 3, Black 4, Red 4, Black 2, Red 3, Black 3, Red 4, Black 2, Joker

The situation of both side's Units at the point when the first Joker was turned over.

• Red 4, Black 3, Red 4, Black 2, Red 3, Black 2, Red 2, Black 3, Red 2, Black 3, Red 4, Black 4, Joker

The situation of both side's Units at the point when the second Joker was turned over.

At this point I decided to end the battle.

In some ways this was a more satisfactory way in which to use the card-driven unit activation system BUT I felt that it was just a bit too predictable for use in a solo context. I knew that whatever Red did, Black would have the opportunity to counter it because they would turn over the next playing card and be able to activate some units. I can see this working well in a conventional face-to-face wargame as a means of making the traditional IGOUGO system a bit unpredictable, but I think that it does not work as well in a solo wargame.

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Second play-test: The asymmetric card value approach

• I allocated Red appropriately-coloured playing cards with values 2, 3, and 4 from two packs of playing cards and Black appropriately-coloured playing cards with values 1, 2, and 3 from two packs of playing cards.
• I sorted the cards into a single pile, added two Jokers to the pile, and then shuffled the pile.
• I placed the pile of playing cards face down and turned over the top playing card of the pile; the side whose playing card was turned over activated the number of units indicated by the value of the card.
• This continued until a Joker was turned over, at which point the pile of playing cards was re-shuffled.

The sequence of playing cards turned over was as follows:

• Black 1, Joker
• Red 2, Black 2, Black 2, Red 3, Black 3, Red 3, Joker

The situation of both side's Units at the point when the second Joker was turned over.

• Black 3, Black 2, Red 2, Red 4, Black 2, Black 3, Black 1, Red 4, Red 3, Red 2

At this point all of the Morschauserland Units had been wiped out and the battle ended.

The situation at the point when the battle ended.

I felt that this worked far better than the previous variant as it had an increased level of unpredictability due to the possibility that the sides could get a 'string' or 'run' of cards. I want to have this sort of unpredictability in my solo wargames, but I suspect that it might not be something that would work as well in a conventional face-to-face wargame. I felt that the use of asymmetric playing card values also worked well, and created problems for the 'weaker' side that the use of balanced playing card values did not generate.

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Conclusions After these two additional play-tests I feel that the card-driven unit activation system produces the sort of unpredictable wargames that I want to fight. It may not be perfect, but it is simple. It also has a flexibility that enables it to be tailored to meet the specific needs of a scenario. There are no conventional 'turns', and the absence of IGOUGO unit activation in the second of today's play-tests made the wargame feel as if it seamlessly flowed along.

I want to mount some further play-tests of the asymmetric variant of the card-driven unit activation system ... but already I feel that this is a simple and useful mechanism that I will probably incorporate into any future wargame rules that I design.