Tag Archives: james dunnigan

[October 4, 1969] New kid in town (Strategy and Tactic's wargame, Crete)

photo of a man with glasses and curly, long, brown hair, and a beard and mustache
by Gideon Marcus

For the last decade or so, the term "wargame" has been virtually synonymous with Avalon Hill.  That Maryland game company has come out with one or two new titles every year in this exciting genre (along with a handful of other, more general releases).  But now, there's a new player in town.

Strategy & Tactics was, up to last month, one of many wargame fanzines.  Most such 'zines are devoted to supporting Play-by-Mail games of Diplomacy, but S&T has been more catholic in its coverage, reviewing many games and providing articles of general interest to wargame-lovers.  The magazine even included the occasional wargame, mostly rules for miniatures wargames (a related but different beast from board wargames).


Volume 1, Issue 7 of S&T including rules for the miniatures wargame of modern soldiering, Patrol


Janice and me playing Patrol with toy soldiers

With the latest issue, Volume 3, Issue 2 (#18 total), there is a new editor at the helm: Jim Dunnigan.  Dunnigan's name may be familiar to you as the fellow who developed 1914 and Jutland for Avalon Hill… and also a self-published game on last year's takeover of Columbia University.  He has elected to apply his wargame-creation talents toward designing a brand new board wargame for S&TCrete.


Cover of the latest issue of S&T


Table of contents of the latest issue of S&T

This fascinating game is a full-fledged simulation, incorporating a number of neat innovations.  It is also a Do-It-Yourself-er: the map and counters (and rules) are just printed in the magazine, which means you either need to cut them out and affix them to pasteboard, or make your own copies from scratch.  Since I have access to a Xerox machine, I was able to have the best of both worlds, photocopying the pieces and playboard, the former on colored construction paper, and the latter tinted with colored pencils.

Lorelei provided the box cover art!

So how does it play?  Read on!

Vital Statistics

Crete is a two-player simulation of the German airborne invasion of the island of the same name in May 1941.  If you remember your history, the Nazis had pushed the Greeks and Commonwealth allies off the mainland the month before.  The subsequent assault on Crete represented the Goering's last parachutist assault on a target, and it was a very near thing.

Rather than portray the entire island, Crete instead has three separate mapboards, each representing the area around each of the airfields critical to German success in the invasion.  Until an airfield is captured, no reinforcements can arrive to aid the Luftwaffe airborne troops.


Three maps (one complete, two partial)

This game seats two players and takes about two hours to finish. The German player has to land 13 battalions of paratroopers to take on the 43 weaker British, Australian, New Zealander and Greek battalions. If the Germans dislodge the Allies from an airfield, they can unload a brigade of mountain troops each turn from the captured runways greatly enhancing the German forces. The German player also has seven invincible airplane units with infinite movement which add a bit of strength to attacks, improving the odds.

The goal of the game: points are scored for the destruction of each unit (one per strength point) and 5 points are awarded for the occupation of airfields, 10 for occupying the city of Suda Bay, at the end of the game. Whoever has more points wins—the bigger the margin, the bigger the victory.

The Rules

Those familiar with Avalon Hill games will recognize most of the concepts—and some of the stock language for beginners.  For instance, "unlike chess and checkers, you may move all of your units in a turn," and, "henceforth, all hexagons shall be called 'squares.'" The rules are very simple. Germans deploy, move and fight. British move and fight. Repeat for ten turns.


Drake (Trini's brother), playing the Germans, contemplating his first move

Each counter has a combat strength and movement rate. British unit strength values range from 1 to 6, 4s being the majority.  They are slow–average movement rate of 4.  The German mountain troops have a strength of 6, as do most of the paratroops, and 4 of the battalions have a whopping strength of 8!  The mountain troops move 6 and the paratroopers move 5, so the Germans have a mobility edge, as well.

Terrain effects are minimal: defense doubled in rough terrain or towns, roads triple movement. Travel between the boards is possible at specific road exit points at the map edges.

There are several novel aspects which make this game interesting.  The Germans employ a kind of hidden set-up, choosing on which board(s) to drop 7-13 paratroop battalions.  Leaving some paratroop units in reserve means the Allied forces never know where or when the next German troops will appear out of the sky.  This essentially freezes the defenders in place until all of the parachutists land.


Example of a secret setup allocation (and the victory point balance at the end of that game)

The airborne units may scatter upon landing, and they can't move or fight on the first turn unless they land on some hapless British unit.  Woe be to the Fallschirmjäger who drifts out into the sea and drowns… (this eventuality is not explicitly covered in the rules, which are not as rigorously laid out as Avalon Hill's, but it makes sense, and it's how we play).

There are two odds-based Combat Result Tables—one for "limited assault" and one for "all out attack", the attacker choosing which one is preferred (and it is an important choice).  There is no "defender/attacker retreats" option, as one finds in most other games.  Instead, a common combat result is "counter-attack"—the defender may retreat or choose to fight back…but you get to choose which stack you counter-attack.  In practice, that means a 3-1 on first attack can turn into a 1-1 or even 2-1 in the counter attack. Fights can seesaw back and forth for quite some time in an exciting fashion.

Gameplay

The game quickly becomes a pitched battle for one or more airfields. If the Germans can't secure one within a few turns, it's all over.  The Allied units are pathetic compared to the Germans, which they need to spend most of their time picking strategic defense points, only attacking on the rare occasion that they can pounce on an isolated German unit (which usually happens during the initial drop phase). The Germans need to be daring in their drop, landing amidst the Allied formations to cause a maximum of confusion.

Generally, only two of the boards will see action at any one time.  The Germans simply don't have the forces to hit all three at once.  Once the battle is won on two of the boards, it's a lost cause for the third, most likely.


Me, ebullient after a local victory

After Action Report

This game provided a surprisingly fun afternoon of play.  There are lots of decisions to make, and it can be a real nail-biter.  Not only does the game present an interesting puzzle, it is one of the shortest wargames out there.  The shortest Avalon Hill game, Afrika Korps, still takes a few hours to get through.  On the other hand, after a few games, the optimum Allied strategy presents itself, even with the Germans having several options for attack strategies.  Still, the game is good for several plays, is a great introduction to the hobby…and it's worth every penny you spend on it (i.e. virtually nothing).

Dunnigan has promised that each bimonthly issue of S&T will contain a brand new wargame (or two!) so this column promises to get a lot busier soon.  That's what I call a good problem to have!

(This report brought to you by the proud members of the Galactic Journey Wargaming Society!)






[May 12, 1969] The Students are Revolting (the wargame Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker)


by Gideon Marcus

My crowd can't decide what to take this semester, but we've narrowed it down to the administration building and the library.

~Judy Carne on Laugh-In

Last Spring, students and Afro-Americans formed an uneasy alliance at Columbia University, taking over multiple buildings in pursuit of several disparate aims.  Black students and denizens of the neighborhoods surrounding the campus fought against the school annexing public spaces (specifically, the building of the new Columbia gymnasium in Morningside Park).  Other students rallied against Columbia's doing research for the defense department—essentially an inside raid against the Vietnam War.

After assembling to protest, radicals managed to seize five campus buildings, where they squatted for nearly a week before New York's finest, the boys in blue, dismantled the makeshift furniture barricades one by one and dragged the occupiers to the paddy wagons.

This did not end the struggle—thousands of students boycotted classes in May, and Columbia President Kirk resigned in June after giving in to pressure not to press charges against the protesters.  Hundreds of students due to graduate that month held their own, unofficial commencement on Low Plaza, in front of the Low Library—scene of clashes in the early stages of the occupation.

Last June, the Columbia Sentinel published a game delightfully titled, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!, inspired by a phrase uttered more than once throughout the event, sometimes in official channels.  One of the game's authors is Jim Dunnigan, who wargamers will recognize as the fellow who wrote Jutland for the wargame company, Avalon Hill.  The other is "Jerry Avorn", a name that is unfamiliar to me.

The game is simple.  There is a map that represents Columbia's campus.  There are eleven tracks representing eleven communities associated with the school.  There are two players: the administration (whose power points are called Level of Administrative Will or LAWs) and the protestors (theirs are called Ratio of Activism Determinants or RADs).  Each turn, first the protestors get RADs to place on a track.  If there are any LAWs there from last turn, they can choose to clash.  A succesful confrontation moves the Position Unit Counter (PUC) one space toward the winner's side.  Each space has a point value, and at the end of the game (after twelve turns), the value of the points under the PUCs is totaled—whomever has more wins the game.

The number of LAWs afforded the administration goes up every turn; the radicals get fewer as time goes on.  In addition, each turn, a player draws a card from the provided deck, usually increasing the LAWs or RADs provided that turn.  There are more cards favoring the administration than otherwise.

Each turn, either side may attempt a board-wide clash rather than fighting for individual tracks.  At that point, the titular "Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker!" is exclaimed, and the pieces of both sides totaled.  This is a strategic move…or a Hail Mary pass.

Interestingly, the odds of victory in a clash go up as a side gets superiority…up til 4-1.  At 5-1, the attacker has a 1 in 6 chance of losing all LAWs/RADs engaged!  Presumably, this represents a bad-press atrocity that hurts the cause.

Janice and I got a copy of this game from a friend on the East Coast.  Even though things are calm at Columbia University (may they remain so!) the memory of last year's events are fresh enough that it still feels timely.  So we headed out for our favorite local diner and set up the game to play.

For our first bout, I took the radicals.  I was quickly crushed, both by bad luck and a lack of understanding how to play.  We switched sides, and had much more of a game of it.  Indeed, Janice played almost optimally.

There really is only one strategy for the radicals—it's the administration's game to lose—and it still depends a lot on luck.  At the start of the game, the point total favors the protestors by three points.  And the PUC only moves down the track in the event of a clash.  So it is in the radical player's interest to plunk down unassailable (for the moment) forces in a few key buildings.  Let the LAW(s) come to them.

Now, this war of attrition still favors the administration, but if the radical player is lucky (as Janice was), favorable cards early in the game can allow a declaration or two of "Up Against the Wall…", moving PUCs and decimating (perhaps eliminating) administration presence.  The university still has the advantage, but it might come down to a couple of risky 2:1 attacks on the last turn—each has a 1 in 6 chance of backfiring.

As for the administration player, strategy is simple: build up a juggernaut at key places and strike when you hit 3:1.  Simple as that.  All you need is to shift two points to get the lead.

In the end, Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker is more of a logic puzzle than a game.  Once you've solved it, replay value is low.  Janice suggested a variant where PUCs move each turn, regardless of whether there is a clash or not, so long as a player ends one's turn with the only piece(s) on the track.  This gives more incentive to spread out one's pieces rather than squatting.

Maybe.  I think I've had it.  But I enjoyed the process, and as an educational tool, I think it's pretty nifty.  If you can get your hands on it, give it a spin…if only for the chance to utter those five immortal words…

By the way, friends of ours published an even better article on the game in CrimethInc, and we strongly recommend finding a copy—it even comes with a spruced up version of the game!






</small
'