Green army men. Boys of my generation inevitably ended up with a few bags of the little plastic figures. Those little plastic soldiers fought many battles in our imaginations – rubber bands served as artillery barrages, knocking them asunder. Illegal – but readily available to a young teen boy – firecrackers and bottle rockets wrecked havoc and destruction on their little green ranks.
Now, as adults, some of those boys have graduated to the big leagues of tiny toy soldiers. The make-it-up-as-we-go imaginary battles have turned into books full of rules and statistics. The fireworks and rubber bands have given way to dice and measuring tapes. Instead of dumping a bag of green men across the living room floor and just launching into a game with our buddy, we spend hours assembling and painting the models – only to see our dreams of domination and glory on the battlefields destroyed by a fellow “General” with a better plan, or decimated by the mysterious ways of dice, which have minds and agendas of their own, agendas that don’t include our glory for the day.
Despite our losses, we return weekly or monthly to battlefields in our basements, dens, or at our friendly local game store. Each time we come back with slightly different line-ups for our little armies. Each time we return with different plans of attack. Often, we return with a box full of different dice, because, in our last game, the gods of the dice have set the little cubes to roll only ones and twos in order to inflict calamity and casualties on the little army we have so painstakingly painted and imbued through our imaginations with dreams of glory and success.
This past weekend was just such a weekend. Three of us from our local gaming club, Garrett, Steve and myself, loaded into Garrett’s red SUV and headed north to compete with other gamers for glory and for bragging rights.
The tournament was held in a small gaming store on the outskirts of Lafayette Indiana. The store, in a small strip mall along a major road that led, a mile or so farther down, into Purdue University, was a haven of gaming goodness. The front of the store was festooned and crammed with all manner of miniature soldiers from a variety of games, as well as paints, dice, and other miscellaneous and sundry items we gamers crave.
In the back of the space stood rows of gaming tables. Each table, it’s legs and sides made of wood, stood about waist tall. The flat tables, four foot wide and six foot long, were adorned with mats depicting either city street-scapes, or green fields, or even desert sand, were being decorated with terrain features such as miniature buildings, as well as hills made of styrofoam and coated with flock – small bits of ground up foam or plastic in greenish tones – or with sand painted to resemble ground cover of grassy or desert terrain.
Jim, the tournament organizer and judge for the day, was searching in the trays under the tables as he finished setting up terrain on the last table. “I need another church… I like churches,” he told us as we began unpacking our little armies.
Preliminary trash talking with war gamers is subdued compared to other games. No calling out the other team or other coach for their past antics. Instead, we admire each other’s attempts to paint tiny little details on tiny little soldiers. Many two inch wide bases of four or five tiny soldiers, each standing about 15 millimeters tall, are clustered in neat rows and columns on the trays we used to carry the mass of figures from game table to game table. Each little stand of soldiers is decorated in the motif of the army. Mine was based on the British Eighth Army of Northern Africa and Italy of World War II.
Garrett brought along his American force. It’s dark green paint – what we gamers knew as “Brown-Violet” instead of the common “Olive Drab” that technically didn’t come into use by US forces until after the Second World War ended – stood out on the piece of styrofoam he had sculpted and painted to look like a stone hill. Steve’s German army, with armored half-track transports, as well as Panther and Panzer IV tanks looked pristine, without the weathered effects that many gamers attempted to apply to their vehicles.
The call to action sounded. Jim announced the first round of “red versus blue” pairings. German players against allied-forces players.
My little force of New Zealanders was paired up against a German Tank Company commanded by General Doug. This particular tournament focused on the Late War period. Doug’s force reflected the arrival of dismayed and cautious trained troops as the Veterans in the German Army were slowly winnowed down in the last year of the war. In game-speak, his force was “Reluctant-Trained,” while mine was “Confident Veteran.” Each of those designators gave me a slight edge when rolling the dice. The numbers I’d need to roll in any given situation would be one better – or easier – on the various dice rolls than General Doug would need in the same situation.
However, that extra level of benefit on the dice came at a cost. Doug’s troop’s cost less on the points scale the game system used. I looked at the metal cookie sheet Doug used to move his troops around the room.
“That’s a lot of tanks.” Doug just grinned.A lot of tanks meant a lot of shots coming from those tiny guns on the teeny tanks. I looked again at the tray. “That’s a LOT of tanks.”
Doug would be rolling a lot of dice in this game. Roll enough dice, and those fives and sixes, which usually meant success for one side, and bad things happening to the other side, were bound to occur. My little army would be on the receiving end of those dice rolls.
This game system uses “Missions” and the mission that Jim announced for the first game of the day, Hold The Line, was a defensive battle. I’d have to defend one end of the table. That gave me the decision of which short end of the table to “dig my troops in” for cover on. Doug’s force would be all on the table as the attacking force. My troops would be half on the table, and half off. Beginning on the third turn, I’d have to make a die roll each game round to call one of the units from reserves. I would need to get those reserve units on the board quickly to have a chance to withstand Doug’s onslaught of dice rolling as his tanks moved closer each turn.
In addition to units of normal troops, tanks and vehicles, I had paid the points for one of New Zealand’s notable heroes of the war to join my force. A small plastic stand, about an inch wide, with two little soldiers attached to it, was waiting to help my forces. That stand, representing Lt. Colonel W. B. “Sandy” Thomas of the New Zealand 2nd Infantry division, had a special ability. He had evidently been a sneaky cuss in the real war, escaping from a POW camp in Greece, and returning to fight in the Italian campaign. In this game, he gave me several special rewards for spending 80 points from my army list for him.
The primary reward was the ability to pick up one of those dice that failed in calling for reserves, and legally re-roll it. I’d get an extra chance to roll that five or six each round. Facing General Doug’s tank horde, I’d need the extra help.
Unfortunately for my little force, with the units in reserve still off the table, I had to be very careful of casualties suffered by my little tin soldiers. The New Zealand 2nd Expeditionary Force had, in the real war, suffered a large enough amount of casualties that the commanding general of New Zealand’s force, Bernard “Tiny” Freyberg, instituted policies that would require withdraw of his forces at a certain level of casualties – unless victory appeared to be immanent. The game we play calls this the Thousand Man Limit. Should I be called on to check the morale of my little company of soldiers, I would need to roll a 5 or a 6 instead of the 50 percent chance of sucess they would normally face.
With only two platoons of infantry, one of 6-pounder anti-tank guns, and a small platoon of Sherman tanks, getting another unit onto the battlefield was essential for me. Doug’s tanks were sure to run through the units I had on the board quickly. Fortunately, Sandy Thomas’s representation allowed my re-roll of the critical die needed to get reserves on the board.
Two units of StuG assault guns, which look like Panzer III tanks, but without a turret, moved in quickly on turn one. Their deadly guns are mounted directly to the Panzer III chassis. This means the entire vehicle has to turn to change the aiming point. Accompanying the StuG guns was a unit of Panzer IV H tanks, as well as Doug’s command tanks representing the forces first and second commanders.
My 6-pounder guns quickly whittled through one of the StuG units, taking it off the threat list. But, Doug parked his Panzer IVs in the woods where he could shoot up my dug-in infantry, pin them down, and then assault them.
On my force’s right flank, he had more Panzer IVs as well as a unit of Panther tanks. I only had one gun on the table that had a chance of penetrating the Panther’s tough front armor: a Firefly tank. American supplied equipment, such as the iconic Sherman tank, usually came with an official US name such as M4AI tank. To the US military, that meant the first version of the fourth model of tank. The Brits tossed the clunky naming system, and attached a name of a past US warrior to the tanks. The M4 tank was renamed “Sherman tank”.
In addition to changing the names of such weapons, the British also converted them to suit their needs on the battlefield. After seeing a need for a tank with a larger gun to better punch through the thick front armor of the heavy Tiger and Panther tanks, they made some of the Shermans into “Fireflies” by swapping the smaller 75 and 76mm guns to 17-pounder guns. American guns calibers were given by the diameter of the gun’s muzzle. British guns were named according to the weight of the round they fired. In game terms, the firefly was three numbers higher on the die roll in its punching power. Higher dice numbers for us gamers is bigger punch. Against Doug’s Panther tanks, I’d need that Firefly’s big gun.
The Firefly’s 17-pounder gun punched through one Panther’s armor before the unit of two Sherman’s accompanying it were decimated by the Panther’s return fire. We traded shots for the first two turns, each taking casualties.
In his third turn, Doug shot up the Shermans guarding my right flank. His Panthers had knocked out the Firefly the round before. On my left flank, his Panzers hiding in the woods shot up, then assaulted my now reduced infantry. My troops, after absorbing a couple of casualties, returned the assault. I hoped to drive his tanks off, or kill one in the process. I tossed my dice into the wooden dice box. The colored cubes with white pips tumbled and came to rest. Not enough of the white dots faced upward. My troops were routed and I lost the platoon.
At the beginning of my third turn, I got to roll only one die to get a reserve unit. Sandy Thomas allowed me to reroll a reserve die. This turn, I got only one chance to get a reserve unit. His charm worked as I rolled a five and called in another platoon of Shermans with a Firefly and it’s long 17-pounder main gun. The new tanks finished off what was left of the StuG platoon, and started to work on the remaining Panzers hiding in the woods.
By the end of his fourth turn, Doug had wiped out three of my platoons. With only two out of five active platoons left on the table, I was forced to make a company moral check in the face of the Thousand Man rule.
Eyeing my Sandy Thomas figure secure in the woods behind where my 6-pounder guns had blasted their way through the enemy, I shook the die in my hand and tossed it into the wooden box I use to keep the dice from uncontrolled skittering across the table. The blue die bounced against the box’s far wall. When it came to rest on the black felt lining the box’s bottom, I grinned. Five white pips stood on the cube’s top face. Sandy Thomas had succeeded in keeping his forces fighting.
That gave me a chance to make another roll for reserves. This time with two dice. Both failed. Another re-roll from Sandy Thomas brought me another unit. Staghound armored cars came onto the field and moved to shoot up the half-track transports Doug was using to ferry his infantry into my backfield. They did damage, but not enough to wipe out the unit. In his turn, Doug’s remaining tanks maneuvered and wiped out my second unit of Shermans.
Unfortunately, even with the Staghounds, I wasn’t in the positive for number of active units. Two active units out of six that had hit the field weren’t enough to prevent a check to see if they left the field of battle. If my army survived the Thousand Man Limit effect on their company morale check, I’d get to roll three dice for reserves, with Sandy Thomas giving me a re-roll for a fourth chance. Odds were decent that I’d be able to bring my two remaining platoons onto the table. But, first, I had to make that dreaded thousand-man roll.
Sandy Thomas was faced again with General Freyberg’s dictum of not taking excessive casualties. I tossed the die into my brown wooden box. After the tumbling stopped, three pips on the die stared up at me. This time, Lt. Col. Thomas had called his men off the field, so they’d live to fight another day.
The game ended with a friendly handshake, and we handed in our scorecards. The game went with four victory points for Doug, while my New Zealanders brought me three victory points. A respectable showing despite the loss.
The rest of the tournament was more evenly matched. In my second round against Jeff and his German Armored force, we were playing a scenario with half our units off the table. We fought until time ran out and declared a draw. Each of us losing two units. Sandy Thomas didn’t have to face the die roll to see if his forces withdrew from battle. Jim announced that most of the games had ended in draws. Each table with a draw had three victory points per side. These points would decide the overall rankings at the end of the tournament.
In the final round, I faced off against friend and fellow gaming club member Steve. Again, my New Zealanders were facing a German Armored Company.
As the battle progressed, I worried about Steve’s Panther tanks. I had learned that I had little in the way of guns that could punch through their thick front armor. The worry lasted until he moved them in to assault my infantry. They destroyed two of my infantry stands in shooting, then, as the tanks came in to destroy them in their foxholes, the gods who oversee dice rolling totally deserted my opponent. Only one other stand of my infantry was destroyed. My unit of New Zealand infantry showed their bravery in the face of the intimidating Panthers, and charged in, waving their improvised tank demolition charges – satchels of explosives that the British called “Sticky Bombs.”
My forces managed to hit all three tanks. Steve needed to roll a three or better for each tank to shrug off the explosive charges. Three dice tumbled, snake eyes and a deuce stared back at him. Two tanks destroyed, the third bailed out as its imaginary crew huddled in the bottom of the tank. At the end of the round, the dice gods decided for third tank’s crew, retreat was the better part of valor. One platoon down for Steve, and I was still even, with only half my force on the table. The dice didn’t help Steve’s forces for the rest of the game. I ended up finishing the game unscathed, gaining six victory points to Steve’s one.
The remainder of his forces slogged on, but were unable to break any of my units. Victory went to Sandy Thomas’ brave New Zealanders yet again.
When the dust settled, and the number of victory points were crunched across the tournament, Jim announced the winners. My first opponent, General Doug, took top honors. The rest of the top four spots were all Allied forces. Second place went to General Nick with his American forces.
“In a surprising leap in his last game,” Jim announced, “Troy took second place on the allied side!” Steve’s dice had deserted him, and given me a win when I really needed it. Sandy Thomas’ Kiwis had pulled out a stunning showing in the tournament.
Following the end of tourney announcements, grins and handshakes, we packed away our armies. The figures stored away in their protective trays of foam-rubber, secure in their cases, would rest waiting on the next time we called them forth to test our skills as generals, and our luck against the dice gods.