Haywire Rules - A Discussion

 Hey everyone. I know it has been a long time since my last blog post. Honestly it is because I have been pretty consistent in getting face-to-face games lately, plus some computer games, plus wrapping up my work (as I am retired now).

Haywire

In this post I want to discuss the solo mechanics in the rule Haywire, which are free and in beta. This is not a review of the rules themselves as I have not fully read the rules, nor played them, but I have learned enough about them from this video play through to discuss some of the solo/cooperative game mechanics. (By the way, the video is hilarious as the author is trying to explain the basics of the game, but you can tell he gets a bit invested in the scenario and his luck is both fantastically good and bad.) This discussion is largely based on the video, but in some cases I followed up by finding a specific rule in the PDF.

How is the Scenario Determined?

Haywire divides the board up into 12" (30cm) squares. For each of those squares you will have one threat token representing possible enemy forces (PEF), with a minimum of ten tokens. So a 3' square board would have ten threat tokens, a 4' square board would have 16, and so on. The author, in the video, used red plastic silhouettes of soldiers for the threat tokens, which was very effective in quickly identifying where the threats were located, when it came time to interact with them.

What the rules do not specify is what the board looks like, i.e. the terrain. I have noticed this in a number of scenarios lately where the scenario authors are specifying deployment zones, objective locations, and such, but only a basic description of the terrain and layout. Is this good? Is it because players skip over scenarios that use terrain setups they don't have?

Haywire is the same in that it does not specify the terrain at all. You are free to setup the table however you wish. It simply states that the board should have "enough terrain and scatter to block LOS" (line of sight).

How is the Mission Determined?

One thing that most rules lack are good missions, included with the rules. Haywire comes with 23 (to start with, as this is still beta).

There are a number of card decks that you use in Haywire and one of them is the Operations deck. (The rules include separate images of the cards so you can print them out.) Fortunately, they also include a separate PDF listing out the 23 missions so you don't need to print out the deck. The author has stated that this is one area that will continue to expand as he thinks up more mission types.

Let's start by discussing a couple of example missions.

Every "operation" (mission) contains an objective and setup instructions. As you can see with this mission the opposing forces include a surface-to-air missile launcher and the team is sent to destroy it. The setup instructions tell you to place three objective tokens in the open, some additional parameters to the mission (no support), and how to destroy the objective.

This mission, which was the one played in the video, calls for finding and eliminating the enemy leader.

How are the Opposing Forces Selected?

There are three "factions" defined in Haywire: (Western) Task Force, (Russian) Spetsnaz, and Insurgent. Interestingly, the first two are player factions, so no US versus Russia missions are defined in these rules.

Haywire bills itself as using classes, which are essentially profiles that you use for figures. The player factions have classes for Demolition, Automatic Rifleman, Marksman, Medic, Assault, and Team Leader. We will look at their profiles later. The Insurgent faction has the profiles Fighter, Gunner, Sniper, Rocketeer, True Believer (complete with bomb vest), Advisor, Executioner, and Cell Leader.

The next step is to create the Threat deck. Included in the game are two 1 Enemy, four 2 Enemies, four 3 Enemies, one 3 Enemies, 1 Leader, four Nothing, and four Civilian cards. You remove the one 3 Enemies, 1 Leader card and shuffle the rest. You then draw one card for every threat token, less one (for the card you have set aside). Those cards, plus the 3 Enemies, 1 Leader card, become the threat deck.

Whenever a threat token is then spotted by a player's figure, a card is drawn from the deck to determine what figures replace the threat token. If the card is one of the "enemy" cards, for each enemy figure you roll one D20 and look on the following table to determine what profile to use for that figure.

How are the Opposing Forces' Movement Determined?

There are five types of movement: threat tokens before the alarm is raised; threat tokens after the alarm is raised; enemy figures before the alarm is raised; enemy figures after the alarm is raised; and civilians.

Threat Token Before the Alarm is Raised

After the players take their movement the threat tokens are moved. If the alarm has not been raised a scatter die (the die on the left in the image below) and a D6 are rolled for each token. The token is moved D6 inches in the direction indicated by the scatter die.

Although random movement may seem rather nonsensical – guards don't walk in a different direction every turn, at differing speeds – it is better to view it as the player's perception of where they think the threat, which is out of line of sight, is really located. At least that is how I justify the mechanic.

If the threat token wanders into the line of sight of the player's figures, the threat deck is immediately consulted to see what the actually threat is, rolling on the Insurgent table to determine exactly which figure(s) to put on the board. Remember, it may consist of one or more enemies, a civilian, or nothing. If they are enemy, they first test to see if they detect the player's figure(s) by rolling a D20. If they do they may immediately act. (Note that player figures on overwatch may act first.)

Threat Token After the Alarm is Raised

Once an unsuppressed weapon is fired or one of the player's figures are spotted (not just in line of sight) the alarm is raised on the whole board. Once that happens each threat token moves 6" directly towards the sound of gunfire. As above, when the threat token comes within line of sight of a player's figure a card from the threat deck is drawn and any figures are rolled for and placed on the board.

Enemy Figures Before the Alarm is Raised

It is possible for a figure to be placed, but it not have been alerted to the player's figure's presence (it missed its spotting roll) and for the alarm to not have been raised. In those rare circumstances the procedure is actually undefined.

As you can see in the image above, each Insurgent card has a short program to determine how it acts. The first question is: "Is there an enemy in LOS?" Because the figure failed the spotting roll the answer is "No". It then tells you what you should do in relation to the "last seen enemy or where the last gunshot was heard". But neither of those apply.

Thus, the question pops up as to what the figure does the following turns. Should we use the rule on page 11 that says "Once a model is alerted, he stops moving randomly on the board" to mean that, because he is not alerted, he continues moving randomly (D6 inches in random direction)? My first inclination, before I found that reference, was that they would continue on in the direction they were facing until they hit the boundary of the area they were patrolling/guarding/defending and then at that point roll for a new direction. I would think that once a figure is revealed its movement might be more normalized.

Granted, this situation only arises when you are not spotted, but I could see where, if an enemy is walking away from you, and they failed to spot you, you might let them continue on. But if their movement is random every turn, you really can't take the chance and are almost forced to attack them. (In the video gameplay referenced above the author would always have multiple people on overwatch and they would pop anyone as soon as they were alerted.)

Enemy Figures After the Alarm is Raised

As shown in the image above, each figure "class" has its own program on how to act when the alarm has been raised. The first basic question is whether the enemy in in line of sight or not. If they are then it is generally whether the figure is in cover or not. (One exception is the True Believer card, which always moves towards the closest enemy, detonating his "S-Vest" when within range.) The second basic question is whether the figure is in cover or not.

Although simple, simple is good. There is enough of a foundation there if you want to add more factors to the program.

Summary

There are a number of other elements that I could go on about, but you should check it out on your own. It is free after all. Then there is the unintentionally hilarious video by the author. Boy his luck is just plain bad at times!

Review of Adjutant Introuvable and Test Game

Adjutant Introuvable by Nic Birt is billed as an "Auto Strategy System for Miniature Wargames". 

Adjustant Introuvable (AI) aims to provide a strategy (the overall plan) to the absent opponent when engaging in solo wargames. AI attempts to maintain a reactive and dynamic plan throughout the battle through some general tactical guidance.

Strategy is fairly generic across historical military periods and therefore this system is appropriate for most ages from ancient to modern. However, the tactics have changed … and for this reason the tactical level of AI is provided in simple generic terms that will require interpretation to suite (sic) particular armies.

So now we understand what the rules are trying to accomplish, let's review what I think a good programmed opponent provide. Generally speaking, it must answer these four questions:

• Which side gets to act next?
• Which unit gets to act next?
• Which actions will the acting unit take?
• How will the acting unit execute those actions?

As previously noted, so rules answer these questions automatically, without the use of special "solo gaming" mechanisms. For example, if you are using rules that are IGO-UGO the answer to the question "Which side gets to act next?" is taken care of. Whatever side is the active side gets to act next until their turn is complete.

For games where the turn sequence consists of phases where all units perform the same actions at once, in any order the player likes (most IGO-UGO rules), the question of "Which unit gets to act next?" is also generally moot. This usually only comes up when two units are trying to move through the same physical space, in which the player generally moves the unit that can move the farthest first, so its movement is not blocked by the slower unit.

For rules where a unit can move, fire, and conduct close combat all in a single turn, the question "Which actions will the acting unit take?" tends to be less critical of a decision than in rules where, say, a unit can only move or fire. Nonetheless, this is where the programmed opponent starts to come into play as you need to know what the objective the unit is trying to accomplish.

Finally, few solo game systems answer the last question. In order to specify "How will the acting unit execute those actions?" they likely need to be written specifically for the rules you are using and possibly even the scenario and side you are playing. (The new Undaunted: Reinforcements, which I hope to be reviewing and testing here soon, would be an example.)

Before we take a look at how AI handles these questions, we note that "AI has been designed to work with wargame rule systems that operate with an alternating turn sequence (one side moves, then the opponent moves, and repeat). It is assumed the average game length will be between 6 and 12 of these double turns. For an effective use of the strategy plans it is best to have at least 10 units that are deployed by the AI side." For this reason I will be using the rules One-Hour Wargames (OHW), which I have reviewed here, only modified for using a 6" square grid.

Setup

The first task is to divide the board into a three-by-three grid. Given that out board is already nicely divided into a six-by-six grid, the AI grid cell will contain four cells of the board. Note that this makes counting terrain values (see later) much easier.

Set up the battlefield as normal and deploy the player's forces while also providing orders for the first turn. If the player wishes to simply react to the programmed opponent then the player may not make any moves for the first two turns.

In this test game I have decided to play the defending side in a battle similar to Guilford Courthouse, of the American War of Independence. The Patriots are therefore initially passive, firing at the advancing British, so counting them as passive seems the better option.

AI provides nine strategy cards, which outline the plan for how the programmed opponent will conduct battlefield operations (at a high level). The rules direct you to draw three randomly and then perform a calculation for each strategy to determine which of the three to use. The strategies are named: Equal Attack; Center Attack; Left Flank Attack; Right Flank Attack; Envelop From Left; Envelop From Right; Oblique Left Attack; Oblique Right Attack; and Ambush. I chose randomly and drew Envelop From Left, Envelop From Right; and Center Attack.

The strategy calculation consists of looking at the aggressiveness of the strategy on the left, center, and right and comparing it to the terrain in the left, center, and right. Here is what the board looks like, set up.

As shown in the image above, the map contains a grid for easy reference to terrain, units, movement, and combat.

• E1 contains a Town. (In this scale, it is a Courthouse and outbuildings.)
• B2 contains the West side of a Hill and a Patriot Infantry unit with 15 hits remaining.
• C2 contains the East side of a Hill and a Patriot Infantry unit with 15 hits remaining.
• D2 contains a Patriot Artillery unit with 15 hits remaining.
• E2 contains the North side of a Plowed Field.
• F2 contains a Patriot Cavalry unit with 15 hits remaining.
• E3 contains the South side of a Plowed Field.
• A4 contains the West side of a Woods.
• B4 contains the East side of a Woods and a Patriot Skirmisher (Rifle) unit with 10 hits remaining.
• C4 contains a Stone Wall and a Patriot Infantry (Militia) unit with 10 hits remaining.
• D4 contains a Stone Wall and a Patriot Infantry (Militia) unit with 10 hits remaining.
• E4 contains a Woods and a Patriot Skirmisher unit with 10 hits remaining.

With the terrain set up and the player's units deployed, it is time to determine which strategy AI will use. You start by calculating the strength of each strategy versus the terrain it is facing. Each strategy card shows whether the left, center, and right sectors (indicated by the red grid) are moving rapidly, advancing, ambushing, or holding. You use a table that compares that strategy to the terrain found in that sector to derive a score, which is then combined to determine how effective the strategy is to this scenario. The highest score of the three selected strategies is the strategy that the programmed opponent will use.

Without going into the details of the formulas (that is what the $5 price is for), the Envelop From Left strategy calls for a rapid advance on the left, holding in the center, and an advance on the right. The Envelop From Right is the mirror to that. Finally, Center Attack is an advance on the left and right and a rapid advance in the center. The significance of the movement (hold, advance, etc.) is how far through the board the program intends to advance. Hold only considers the programmed opponent's baseline ares (rows 5 and 6 in this case). Advance considers up through no man's land (rows 3 through 6), and rapid advance considers all rows in the sector. Let's compare the scores.

Envelop From Left

The Rapid Advance on the left starts (reading from the opponent's baseline) with Open terrain (0 points), then moves through the Woods (-1 point), then ends in Hill terrain (-1 point) for a total of -2 points.

The Hold action in the center only considers the Open terrain on its baseline, which gives it a score of -1.

The Advance on the right scores 0 points for the Open terrain and -1 for the Woods in no man's land, for a total of -1.

After scoring each sector a random factor of 0-3 points is added for a total. This strategy earned a -3 (after rolling +1 point for the random factor).

Envelope From Right

I will condense these down to Left -1, Center -1, and Right -2, Random 0 for a total of -4.

Center Attack

Left -1, Center -2, Right -1, Random +1 for a total of -3.

Because Envelop From Left and Center Attack are tied, there would normally be a roll off. However, I have decided to go with a Center Attack because Woods in OHW are essentially impassable terrain to five of the six units that the British have, thus attacking troops would have to flow through to the center, making this a Center Attack of sorts anyway.

With the strategy decided we now need to deploy the units to either the left flank, center, right flank, or the reserves. Troops are categorized as either Regular, Mobile, or Support. This is cross-referenced with the mission (Advance, Rapid Advance, Hold, or Ambush) and the target terrain (the terrain in the grid indicated by the mission). This yields a die roll to indicate if the unit is deployed in that sector or not.

Essentially you are rolling a die for each unit to determine if it is assigned to a specific mission, rolling for them in the order of Ambush, Rapid Advance, Advance, and Hold. Any units not assigned to those missions are placed in the Reserve.

So I have four Infantry, one Cavalry, and one Skirmisher. Starting with the Infantry (Regular) and rolling to assign to the Rapid Advance in the Center, with the target terrain of the Hill, I would need a 5+ to have a unit assigned. I roll 2, 2, 3, 5 so one Infantry unit is assigned to the Center. Next rolling for the Cavalry and Skirmisher (Mobile), still for the Center, I would need 4+ to have a unit assigned. I roll 2, 3 so neither is assigned.

Now I do the same for the Left, which is an Advance to the Woods. Infantry needs a 4+ and Mobile needs a 6. Because one Infantry is already assigned to the Center, I only have three Infantry remaining to assign. I roll 1, 1, 6 so one Infantry is assigned. I roll 5, 5 so no Mobile is assigned to the Left.

Finally I do the Right, which is an Advance to the Woods. Only two Infantry to assign and I roll 3, 6 so one gets assigned to the Right. I roll 2, 6 for the Mobile and the Cavalry gets assigned to the Right. (I rolled off to see whether it was the Skirmisher or the Cavalry.)

The remaining Infantry and Skirmisher unit gets assigned to the Reserve, which according to the strategy card, is behind the Center.

So Now What?

Now, it is time to start fighting the battle. When it is their time to act each mission force (sector) will roll a die, cross reference it to their mission, add or subtract 1 based on how well the mission is going, and get a Tactic to use for that turn. (Troops in the Reserve will deploy on a 5+.) The tactics are as follows.

• Charge - move rapidly towards objective, initiate combat whenever a win is possible, and bypass strong opposition.
• Engage - move steadily toward objective, initiate combat only when favorable results are probable.
• Probe - move cautiously, initiate limited disruptive combat when favorable result is most likely.
• React - hold ground, initiate combat only against weakened or breaking opponent.
• Relieve - retire to advantage, make defensive formations and positions.

These tactics are listed on each strategy card, along with the die rolls needed for each action.

Some of these will be hard to interpret, especially where in this scenario the programmed opponent starts within musket range of my troops. Here is the final setup.

As you can see, two of the British Infantry are Elite, and thus have 20 hits remaining, while all other units have 15 hits remaining.

There is a tendency in rules to make militia and elite troops overly weak or strong, in comparison to regular troops. For example, I have seen them being given modifiers to hit, i.e. the ability to inflict casualties, while simultaneously giving them morale modifiers, i.e. the ability to withstand casualties. Although many would say this is correct, I believe it is not in that the accuracy of the musket is horrendous (especially after fouling from a few shots) and thus the difference in the three types to inflict casualties is negligible. To me, the best way to represent quality of troops is to rate their ability to stay combat effective, which in terms of OHW, it the number of hits it can sustain.

Turn 1

The British start first. Looking at my strategy card the Center will Charge on a 4+, Engage on a 1-3, and Probe on a 0-. This is a D6 roll with a -1 because it is one British (Elite) Infantry against two Patriot (Militia) Infantry behind cover. I roll a 1 making it 0, thus the British decide to stand and fire.

On the left and right flanks they are advancing, so the cards says to Engage on a 5+, Probe on a 2-4, and React on a 1-. Both the left and right flanks get a Probe result. The Infantry will stand and fire while the Cavalry will hold in place.

Because this is the first turn, there is no roll for reinforcements.

As stated earlier, the best solo systems answer all four questions in some way. What action the units will take has been answered (firing instead of moving, for all three cases), but the answer to the last question, which is how to execute the action, i.e. which unit do I fire at, may not be clear. The rules do state that the combat should have a "favorable result". So, what is that?

In OHW I often analyze combat in terms of Average Turns to Eliminate (ATE), or the number of turns, on average, it takes to eliminate the enemy unit. In this case the British Infantry roll 1D6 to determine the number of hits inflicted on the enemy, so 3.5 hits per turn. Units in cover, such as in Woods or behind a Stone Wall, take 1/2 the hits, rounded up. If the target has 15 hits then Infantry's ATE is 5 if the target is not in cover and 8 if the target is.

In the case of the left flank Infantry firing, both targets in range are in cover so both are equally valid. One could next look at the hits remaining (essentially the ATE) to determine the weakest target, and thus the most vulnerable and therefore the higher chance of success. Again, both targets have the same number of hits, so the ATE is tied. At this point either target is equally valid and the rules are thus silent on selection, so presumably a die roll would be in order. However, one additional difference to not is which target can inflict more damage (thus making them more of a threat), i.e. what is the target's ATE against you. In this case the Patriot (Militia) Infantry is lower and therefore the greatest threat. That said, I am going to shoot straight forward and into the sector where my mission is located.

On the right flank the case is largely the same: fire at a Skirmisher in the Woods or an Infantry behind a Stone Wall? The difference is that if the Infantry fires on the enemy Infantry, it is potentially doubling up its fire against that target.

Here is the result of the British first turn.

Remember, because I did not write order before the British set up, I am hampered from making any moves for turn 1 and 2, which is acceptable as I am simply going to fire at the attacking British. Here is the end of turn 1.

While the Skirmishers on the left muffed their shot, the right taught the enemy Infantry to ignore it at its own peril. The two Militia Infantry in the center absolutely pounded the center British Infantry. Had it not been an elite unit (starting with 20 hits), it would now be within one good die roll of being eliminated.

Turn 2

As with the first turn, each sector needs to roll its tactics, and reinforcements can be rolled for.

Left - Probe; Center - Charge; Right - Engage; Reserve - no reinforcements.

The Center charges as the British realize that they cannot afford to slug it out with the two Militia units. Because it moves forward, the British Infantry moving to D5 now blocks the Infantry in E6 from firing on the Militia in D4.

On the Right the Cavalry moves forward. If it moved to F4 it risks being fired upon by the Artillery and charged by the enemy Cavalry, so it only moves to F5.

This is the last turn in which the Patriots cannot react, so all they do is fire.

The British Grenadiers in D5 are looking pretty bad. With it being 'outnumbered', it is unlikely to be able to roll a 'Charge' result. This is one thing I have a criticism about with chance-oriented programs. It sometimes feels like 'morale' is baked into the results. Shouldn't the core rules cover morale, rather than the solo mechanics?

Turn 3

As with last turn, each sector needs to roll its tactics, and reinforcements can be rolled for.

Left - Engage; Center - Charge; Right - React; Reserve - no reinforcements.

The British on the left and right flanks continue to fire, but the cavalry stands. The British Grenadiers in the center rolled well and can continue the charge. Had they rolled less, they would have stood and fired, which would have been a bad result.

This was a good turn for the British. Both the Infantry units on the left and right flanks scored a '6', resulting in 3 hits each on the Patriot Skirmish units. The British Grenadiers charged, inflicting a single hit and forcing the Patriot Militia to retreat.

Note: British Infantry being able to charge into hand-to-hand combat and forcing Patriot Infantry and Skirmishers to retreat from hand-to-hand combat is not a normal rule for the OHW Horse and Musket rules, but is added by my AWI variant.

Now that the first two turns are up, I can finally order my Patriot units freely. At this point, however, I am going to leave the battle report. The idea was to test the AI system and see it in action.

Summary

Let me start by saying these rules are a mere $5, can be purchased online, and are delivered as a PDF. It is value for money. All of that said, to me it is an 'idea generator' rather than a full blown system of a programmed opponent. I see that these sort of systems can cover the following mechanics: overall battle plan; distribution of forces; unit deployment; unit mission; and unit tactics.

Overall Battle Plan

Basically the goal is to help the player come up with a basic strategy for the programmed opponent. AI does this providing you nine basic battle plans. Providing you a formula to calculate the best attack strategy based on terrain is very valuable. If fact, I think that is the singular best idea in these rules. For once a system takes terrain into account, giving it a value. Most points systems, for example, do not take the value of terrain into account, unless it is man-made like an entrenchment or a fortification. AI looks at the terrain within reach of your mission (how deep onto the battlefield you intend to take) and evaluates the difficulty of achieving it.

The only issue I take with the formula is that there are certain unstated value judgments built into that formula. For example, one element that kept coming up while using AI was that the rules I was using, OHW, does not allow most units to enter woods at all. Many rules take the approach that woods slow movement and provide cover, so the idea that you can attack a woods with any unit is somewhat universal. If you are using something like OHW where you can shoot at units defending a woods, but can never take it, the formulation should actually be harsher for the woods being present.

In the example above, if your mission is to rapidly advance on the left, i.e. advance to the enemy's row, the presence of the woods in row 2 makes this impossible if, say, your line infantry, cavalry, and artillery cannot pass through the woods and only your light infantry can. You could put infantry units in row 3 to shoot out the defenders, but at some point your infantry, cavalry, and artillery will have to bypass the woods through the center, while your light infantry moves in to occupy the woods, keeping the enemy light infantry out while your other forces pass by through the center.

So, is it perfect? No. It is naturally generic. That is why I say that these rules are great as a starting point, a template from which to build a more specific program that meet your scenario, forces, and rules needs and restrictions.

One final note: I am not sure why the author wants you to randomly select three possible battle plans, calculate the most effective one, and then use that, rather than having you calculate all of them. Given that you are playing solo, time is one factor that you have on your side. All of this work can be done before you actually lay out the terrain and troops on the board, so even if your time is limited in how long you can keep the game set up, this time calculating does not count against it and can even be done the night before.

Distribution of Forces

Again, my experience with this aspect may be colored by OHW not allowing certain unit types to move into Woods, but having a random roll to determine if a unit will be in a given sector feels … random. That said, I don't have a better way of changing the charts so that it makes more sense for OHW.

Unit Deployment

This was something that seemed missing. Although AI helped you determine which sector of the battlefield your units were going to be assigned to, no mention on how that unit would be deployed in relation to the other units also assigned to that sector. As I sit here and ponder that question, any such rules would probably be very complex and not work well for all rules, so it is probably just as well that it was not addressed.

Unit Mission

I felt like this aspect was something I had not considered, which is the mission of the unit. Granted, the same mission is given to all units in the sector, but the idea a unit would intentionally only advance so far (if at all) until the mission was interesting. Note that missions are always to occupy the terrain in the sector. Generally these might be the objectives in a scenario, so I could see reverse-engineering the overall battle plan based on scenario objectives and victory points.

Unit Tactics

This was the one area I felt worked the least because there was so much interpretation as to what each tactic – Charge, Engage, Probe, React, and Relieve – really means. Take a game like OHW. The basic decision is first "Do I move or fire?" This is something many rules avoid as they allow a unit to move and fire in a single turn. It seems like the tactics should be more aligned with how the unit fights. Does it primarily inflict casualties by fire or hand-to-hand combat? If the former, are you in range yet? Do you have range 'bands' (short, medium, long, etc.) which affect effectiveness? If so, which band are you in?

Considering these types of factors would lead more to rule-based decision making system, rather than one driven by chance elements, but I think it is something to consider.

As stated previously, there is also an element of morale sprinkled into the tactics table, with less aggressive tactics implying a partial failure of morale being the cause for the less aggressive approach.

Final Analysis

Overall, how can you say that this is not good value for money at $5? (I hope Nic does not raise his prices after this review! 😄) There are far better, well thought out ideas that are actually useful to gaming solo than many of the books I have purchased that promise to tell me how to wargame solo. Just consider that, unless the main rules you play fit well into the model published in these solo rules, you should consider this a template for how to convert this process to the rules you use most often; it is a starting point.

Digging into the Solo Mechanics of Space Marine Adventures

So, before I lose you because you don't like Games Workshop, Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K), or the space fantasy genre in general let me just say that this is not so much about those subjects, but how Games Workshop approached solo and cooperative play in their board game (with miniatures) Space Marine Adventures (SMA). It is my intent to dig into the solo game mechanics and show how you can apply it to other genres and historical periods, even without buying the game.

Overview of the Game

The U.S. bookseller Barnes & Noble has licensed a few Games Workshop properties for sale in their bookstores and online store exclusively. (Some titles may also be exclusively in the U.S.) Most of these games are very simple "gateway" games designed to introduce young players to the miniatures gaming hobby by providing the board, terrain pieces, miniatures, tokens, dice, rules and scenarios all in a book shelf-sized box. In the case of SMA it is intended to introduce new players to the world of WH40K in a format simpler than even Kill Team. Games Workshop has done this before with a number of boxed games, such as Space Crusade, Space Hulk, and others this format is definitely more compact and simpler. Further, this is not a competitive game but rather a co-operative game for 1-4 players, with all of the players playing Space Marines. The enemy, in this case the Necrons (killer zombie robots), are programmed completely, and thus is ultimately a solo game system.

The goal of the game is for the player to progress through a series of three missions, each progressively harder than the previous, with a roster of five Space Marines. Each scenario follows the same basic pattern: the Space Marines enter the game board and have to reach a specific square or eliminate a specific enemy, at which point an exit from the board will be revealed, which the Space Marines will need to pass through in order to win the scenario and progress to the next mission. While the players are attempting to accomplish this more enemies will appear on the board in an attempt to wound and ultimately stop the players from accomplishing the mission.

Solo Game Mechanics

For me, When I evaluate a game's "programming" for the enemy side I look at how do the rules answer the following questions:

1. How do I (the player) determine which side has the next turn?
2. How do I determine which unit on the enemy (programmed) side acts when it is their turn?
3. How do I determine what action(s) the enemy unit takes when it is their turn (or if the rules allow it, reactions the unit takes when it is not their turn)?
4. How do I determine how the enemy unit executes the action(s), e.g. which path it moves along, which target it shoots at or charges, etc.?

Which Side Acts Next

In SMA order of acting is determined by a deck of cards. There are two cards in an activation deck for each individual Space Marine and six cards for all of the Necrons. Each round the player draws a card to determine which side acts next, Space Marines or Necrons. Once all cards are drawn a new turn starts.

Note that neither side gets to react (act during the other's turn), so this question does not need to be considered.

Which Unit Acts Next

As indicated above the activation deck determines order. The card drawn indicates either a specific Space Marine that is to act or all Necrons.

What Actions do the Units Take

I will ignore the player's units for the moment and focus on only the Necrons, as that is what is part of the enemy "program". As I said earlier, SMA is a very simple game. Unlike Arcadia Quest (which I reviewed its solo rules in a previous post) the enemy does not move and attack in their turn. A Necron's turn consists of drawing a card from the mission card deck (called the Labyrinth deck) and following the instructions written there.

Scattered on the boards included with the game are six spawn points (called "translocation squares") numbered one through six. On some of the mission cards it indicates which spawn points new Necrons will come in at, as indicated in the image above. In that example by the red arrow, it instructs the player to place a Necron at translocation square "1".

In the image below, the player has drawn a card indicating that Necrons should be placed at squares "1" and "3".

When Necrons are placed, they are placed in the order indicated on the card (typically from the lowest number to the highest). A counter is placed on the translocation square if it is empty of Necrons. If it is not, it is placed on an adjacent square if that is empty of Necrons. If that is not you look at the next adjacent square, and so on, until it is placed. Additionally, if the translocation square already has a counter, you place one Necron in each direction adjacent to it.

In the example above, when it comes to placing the Necron on "1", because that square is empty the counter will be placed on that square.

For "3" however, there is already a Necron there so there should be one Necron placed in each adjacent square, labeled "A", "B", and "C".

Because "A" has a Necron you then check square "D", which is empty, so the Necron is placed in square "D".

For square "C" there is no Necron, so the new Necron is placed there also.

Finally, in square "B" there is a player's Space Marine. Because the square is empty of Necrons it would normally be placed there, but because there is an enemy, that placement is considered an attack. The new Necron is eliminated and the Space Marine player takes a wound.

Coming back to the question: what action(s) do the programmed unit(s) take? The answer is "placement". Placing a unit essentially indicates where future enemy units can be placed and which player units can be attacked.

How Do the Units Execute Actions

As indicated above, placement is the only "action" allowed to the enemy program. If the placement is on the same square as a player's unit, it is considered an attack. The strict placement rules define how the units execute those placement actions. Thus the decision is taken away from the player.

Application to Other Genres

Okay, so now you have the basics of the solo gaming mechanism, how can you apply this to other genres?

The Board

The first component to consider is the game board or tabletop. There are three elements to account for:

1. The paths that the player's units can take and the enemy unit's can be placed.
2. The points where the enemy's units can enter the board.
3. The locations of the objectives.

Personally I think this system needs a grid, whether square or hex, in order to constrain the player's movement (no geometry tricks in order to avoid an enemy attack) and control the enemy placement.

The Reinforcements (Labyrinth) Deck

To recap a little, each round a card is drawn from the activation deck to determine which side - and in the case of the player, which unit - acts next. When it is the enemy's turn to act, a card is drawn from the labyrinth deck, which acts as a reinforcements and events deck, to determine which enemy reinforcements come on and where they enter.

Researching out, say, a historical battle you could use the orders of battle and the arrival schedule of units to create the values in the reinforcement deck. As a variant, you might even not randomize the order of the cards in the deck in order to reflect the historical order of appearance of units.

All each card need do is indicate the reinforcement point(s) where reinforcements will enter. How many will enter can either be dictated by the position of existing friendly and enemy units on the board, as it is with SMA, or it could be stated on the card.

The Reinforcement Pool

One aspect of SMA that I glossed over is which specific unit type is deployed to the spawn point when the labyrinth deck indicates new units are arriving. Each scenario defined the number of types of units that are in play, e.g. 10 Necron Warriors and 10 Necron Immortals. These units are tossed into a bag and when the card calls for a unit to be deployed, one is randomly pulled from the bag and deployed on the board at the location specified by program.

The same sort of concept could be employed in other genres, of if playing a historical scenario, you could combine the reinforcement location and unit composition in the reinforcements deck.

The Units

The Necron units in SMA really only differ in their defense values. As there is no movement, and attacking is by placement automatically inflicting a single wound to the player's unit, the only values a Necron unit has are its type and its defense value. When a player's unit attacks the player rolls a D6, adds or subtracts modifiers, and is looking to equal or exceed the Necron unit's defense value. If it does, the unit is eliminated.

All units of the same type have the same defense value. Some cards in the labyrinth deck will temporarily modify that value for all units of the indicated type, generally making them tougher to kill.

The two elements of combat, that an enemy unit inflicts one wound 100% of the time and that a player unit that inflicts a hit on the enemy will destroy it in a single hit, can easily be changed. Both sides' attack and defense values could be created and used, with die rolls determining the outcome of hits and damage for both sides.

Summary

The basic structure of SMA provides for an interesting method of programming opponents. In turn, there are a number of variations you can consider.

• If you don't like making cards you can easily convert the deck to a table where you make rolls. It does change the dynamics some as, once a card is played it cannot be played again. (Once the deck is played, the game is over, so all cards are only played once, at most.)
• Some people do not like deterministic combat so you can inject any sort of chance element you like, or even your favorite combat system.
• There is another variation of SMA called Space Marine Adventures - Rise of the Orks, which allows the enemy units to move by program, so this is an obvious change that can be made, rather than having reinforcements reflect "movement" of sorts.

The final point is that a good programmed opponent takes work. It is basically a game in and of itself. I think the more you write these programs, the easier the next one becomes.

Arcadia Quest's Solo Rules

 One of the games that I have had for a long time is CMON's Arcadia Quest (AQ). AQ is an adventure board game with cool, chibi-style miniatures (i.e. big heads, smaller body, little hands and feet) playable by 2-4 players. Although it has "monster" enemies that are not played by a specific player, it is only semi-cooperative. Players compete against one another to be the first one to complete quests. When all quests are complete, the scenario is over, players upgrade their characters, and you move on to another scenario (another night). There are six scenarios played total in every campaign.

There are more than six scenarios defined, so each campaign can consist of a different mix of scenarios. Beyond that, each player uses three characters throughout that campaign and there are numerous characters to choose from, so there is quite a bit of replayability. All that said, despite the dungeon crawling, campaign aspect of the game, this is more of a player-versus-player (PvP) than player-versus-environment (PvE) game, although components of both exist.

Given that it is more PvP than PvE, how can you play this game solo? If you can convert this to a solo game, why can't you convert it to a fully co-operative game then? Let's start by looking at the regular game mechanics, how CMON changed it for solo play, then look at a game.

AQ Game Mechanics

My goal here is not to review the entire rules, but to show how AQ works as a game, how the rules make decisions for the monsters, how combat works, and how a scenario is fought.

Combat

The basic combat mechanic in AQ is that every character (hero or monster) has an attack stat indicating the number of attack (black) dice they will roll, and whether that attack is ranged or melee. In addition, heroes have a defense stat indicating the number of defense (white) dice they will roll. Each successful defense roll (block) cancels a successful attack roll (hit). If there are more hits than blocks, the defender takes wounds equal to the difference. This leads to the third stat characters have, health, which is the number of hits they take before they are removed from play.

The primary difference in combat against heroes and combat against monsters is that the former have defense dice while the latter do not. This simplifies combat in that no one has to "play" the monster when a hero attacks one. There are no decisions to be made (at that time), it is simply does the hero inflict enough wounds to kill the monster or not?

The secondary difference between heroes and monsters in combat is that when the former's wounds equals or exceeds its health the combat is over. The hero's figure is removed from the board and placed on their stat card. (More on that later). Monsters, however, have a unique stat: the overkill stat. This stat represents the number of wounds that, if taken in a single hit, has killed the monster so quickly and decisively that it cannot strike back before it is removed. Anything less and the monster will get to make a "payback reaction".

Monster reactions are the "programs" for the monsters that dictate when a monster can act. Normally, monsters do not get a "turn". They stand in place in the designated location (according to the scenario) and do nothing until their program allows them to react to a player action. One of those reactions is when they are attacked and the hero does not manage to overkill them. At that point they can move (according to their movement stat) and attack the hero that attacked them. Some monsters have ranged attacks while others have melee attacks. It is possible, for example, for a hero to attack a monster and the reacting monster cannot move enough to attack the attacker back.

Another reaction monsters have in their program is when a hero attempts to move within or out of their "zone of control". This prevents players from simply moving their heroes around the monsters with impunity. The rules for this "guard reaction" is that they immediately attack the hero each time they move within or out of their zone of control. They do not move, however.

In both reaction cases, the player to the right of the player that owns the hero the monster is reacting to will act using the reacting monster and roll its dice. (Remember that AQ is primarily a PvP game, so there is plenty of incentive for the other player to act aggressively with the monster.)

Spawning

Monsters are placed in squares initially as indicated by the scenario. The image below shows the configuration of the board, portals, tokens, player starting area, and locations of monsters and objectives. In addition, the marker indicated with the red rectangles are "spawn tokens".

When a monster is killed it is moved off of the board onto the spawn track (the mini-board in the upper-left corner of the table with five slots). When all five slots are filled the monsters on that track will re-spawn into a random location on the board.

Each of the spawn tokens have two symbols printed on it. Two attack (black) dice are rolled for each figure on the spawn track, matching the symbols on the dice to the tokens. As there are three different symbols there are six unique combinations. As you can see in the image above, there are only four different combinations showing, so if a combination is rolled that is not on the board, that monster is permanently removed from the scenario, otherwise it is placed in the square with the corresponding token combination. (As there is a stacking limit to a square, if a combination is rolled and that square is already full, that monster is also permanently removed.)

Turn Sequence

As indicated above the basic turn sequence is as follows.

1. A single Hero activates for each player in turn. Alternately, a player can Rest his Guild (which is not discussed in this post).
1. If the Hero triggers a reaction, that Monster reacts to the Hero and acts according to its program and how the player to the right wishes.
2. Once all players have acted, if the Spawn Track is full, dice are rolled for each Monster on the track to see where it respawns, or if it is permanently removed.

Note that the Monsters do not get a "turn", thus this is not a traditional IGO-UGO game. This will become significant when we look at the solo rules.

AQ Solo Game Mechanics

Again, the idea is not to fully review the solo rules, but to highlight how the core mechanics change when playing solo.

Combat Mechanics

Combat mechanics do not change materially save for the Monster's movement stat. The stat remains the same – typically one square – but it is only used for payback reactions (reacting to being attacked by a Hero). As will be discussed in the Turn Sequence section, Monsters can move in their own separate turn and when they do, they will get to move three squares.

Because the intent is to use these rules by a single player, the mechanic of having the player to the right play the monsters when reacting will not work. The solo rules needed to tighten up their program on running the monsters. Because a reaction is always to a Hero and not to a player, nothing really needs to change. Either the monster can react to the moving/attacking player or it cannot. There are no real decisions to be made.

Spawn Mechanics

The mechanics do not materially change for solo play. The spawn tokens and spawn track still exist and are used the same way.

Turn Sequence

This is where the changes occur. The solo rules essentially have to change a PvP game to a PvE game. As before, no one "plays" the monster side, so the monsters need to be fully programmed.

The modified turn sequence is as follows.

1. The player activates all of his Heroes in any order he chooses, or Rests the Guild.
1. If the Hero triggers a reaction, that Monster reacts to the Hero and acts according to its program and how the player to the right wishes.
2. If the player completes all of the quests the game instantly ends.
2. If the Spawn Track is full, dice are rolled for each Monster on the track to see where it respawns, or if it is permanently removed.
3. The player will roll twice to determine which of the monsters on the board will get to move and attack.
1. Players lose and the scenario instantly ends if the Heroes have been killed a number of times equal to the difficulty of the game (somewhere between one and four times).
4. Once both Monsters have acted, the turn ends.

With the Monsters taking an active role, and there being only one Guild (team) to counter them with, the scenarios are much harder than when playing normally.

Conclusion

The goal of any A.I. or programmed opponent is to take the following four decisions away from the player and for the program to make them:

1. Which side gets to act next?
2. Which unit gets to act next?
3. Which actions will the acting unit take?
4. How will the unit execute those actions?

Given that this follows a traditional IGO-UGO turn sequence, this question is easily answered: the side that is current active will act next.

The spawn mechanics partially answer the second question: two dice are rolled to determine which spawn point to reference. Draw a Monster card. The closest Monster of the type indicated on the card to that spawn point will act next. If more than one meets that criteria, then it goes to the player choice. The player can use a number of rules to break the tie, which is recommended.

The third question is partially answered with rules: the Monster will move towards the closest Hero and then attack them if possible. Essentially the Monster takes an Attack action with an optional Move action if needed to get them to where they can attack.

The fourth question is largely unanswered. Although there are rules governing how a Monster should choose a target Hero, in the case of ties it is silent on how to break the tie. Where most of the ambiguity comes in are in the execution details. For example, if a Monster can attack from more than one direction there are no rules governing deciding which path. Also, if a Monster has a ranged weapon, can it (or should it) advance to the closest point at which it can fire, or should it move its full move?

In short, the solo rules are something to build upon, rather than relying upon it to cover all bases. (It does not even have the generic rule to "roll a die to choose", relying upon the player to choose.)

Testing

The more this lockdown continues, the more opportunity we all have to try more solo gaming and their mechanics. Although you can always fall back on the old "play both sides to the best of your ability" method, this leaves many games feeling like a test of the game mechanics, rather than an exciting narrative playing out. In fact, if you get too invested in one side, the odds are your bias with come out in lackluster or even bad plays on the opposing side. That is why having a solid program really helps solo gameplay.

These rules are "challenging". There is no adjustment to the enemy roster and you are expected to not only defeat the same number of enemy that would face two to four times the number of player Heroes, but these enemy can move towards you at great speed. In the two test games I played, the player's party never got more than one square beyond the starting area!

Overall, however, I enjoyed them and would play them again, with a few tweaks.

Initiative Bidding in Undaunted Normandy

Undaunted: Normandy (UN) is a new card, counter, and tile game about combat during WWII in Normandy 1944. I purchased this recently and just played a game solo.

UN has two game mechanics that make solo play generally harder. I wrote this blog post to discuss how I overcome these obstacles.

The first obstacle is card hand management. Actually UN makes this almost a non-issue as you do not manage a hand of cards from turn-to-turn; each hand is played out each turn. You only manage the hand in terms of determining which of the four cards drawn will be used to bid for initiative, with the remainder being used for determining which of your units get to act.

In general, I play one side of UN normally, while the other is semi-programmed. Ultimately what that means is that the side I play makes their hand management decision first. More on that in a second.

The second obstacle is a blind bidding system for initiative. As shown in the image below. the number in the upper-left corner of each card is a number.

The player who bids using a higher numbered card wins initiative and plays first.

So the questions are:

• How do I determine which card to play for the non-player side?
• How do I keep the player from knowing the other cards in the hand of the non-player?

I solved this pretty readily by altering the Draw Phase of the turn sequence slightly:

1. The player side draws their four cards as normally done.
2. The player decides which of the four cards will be used for the initiative bid.
3. The player draws the top card of the non-player deck. That card will be used for the non-player initiative bid.
4. The higher card value wins the bid, as normal. However, if the values are tied the non-player always wins the tie.
5. The non-player's hand of three cards will be drawn face down. The hand will only be revealed when it is time to play the non-player's hand.

In general, this change will usually result in the non-player winning the bid more often than not. If the non-player acts first, you will be playing with the slight knowledge at what the player is capable of (if you remember the rest of the hand), again giving a slight advantage to the non-player. If, however, the non-player acts second, the player will play their hand with no knowledge of what the non-player is capable of.

In general I find UN very solo-friendly, which is unusual for a game with hidden information mechanics. This is largely due to the card draws defining the limitations of what you can do and which specific units and act and which cannot, along with there being no hand management that carries over from turn-to-turn.

Using Card Activations Without Breaking IGO-UGO Rules

As I indicated in my last post, I do not like injecting game mechanics into rules for the sole purpose of creating randomness to simulate "surprise" as it can break some rules whose turn sequence and turn-to-turn sequence are finely tuned. That said, someone of the solo forum I read asked a better version of the questions normally asked. He asked "I want to play (IGO-UGO) rule set X solo. Do you have any tips or ideas to do that?"

I bought a set of rules some time ago and, for whatever reason, I set them aside unplayed. (Probably because I rotated out of tabletop miniatures gaming at the time, but it could be that I was scoring a fix as I am a "rules junkie".) The rules were from Osprey Publishing and they are called Black Ops, by Guy Bowers, editor of Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy magazine.

Ironically, the solo card set Hostile: Tactical A. I. (HTAI) was written specifically for playing the defenders in Black Ops scenarios, according to the author of HTAI. (I did a two part play through and a review of HTAI a few posts back. Recommended.)

Back to the subject, Black Ops uses card activations, red for one side, black for the other. Each side's leader is the Ace, Kings are the heavy weapons, Queens the specialists, and Jacks (all of) the soldiers. Now it totally randomizes the card draw – cards from both sides are placed in a single draw deck – so not only do you do not know which side will be activated next, you don't know which figure type. The rules Tin Soldiers in Action (TSIA) use this same sort of mechanism – a single draw deck composed of cards assigned to units which are drawn to determine activation order – so this is nothing new to me. However, if you modify the idea slightly – assign a card to a single unit and create a draw deck only for the non-player side, this does not break the rules in any way. You still keep the IGO-UGO sequence between players, but when it is time to play the non-player side, you can take the decision of which unit acts next out of the hands of the player. Let's run through an example.

Let's say the non-player forces consist of the following units. Assign a card to each one.

• Orc General: King of Spades
• Orc Bodyguard: Jack of Spades
• Orc Witch: Queen of Spades
• Orc Spears: 10 of Spades
• Orc Swords: 9 of Spades
• Goblin Bows: 8 of Spades
• Goblin Wolf Riders: 7 of Spades

Create a deck of these seven cards and when it is the Orc non-player's turn, use that draw to determine the next unit to act.

If your rules are, say, broken down into Movement, Ranged Combat, and Melee Combat phases, and all units complete a phase before moving on to the next phase, then you would use the draw deck for each phase, determining unit order for action in that phase. When the phase is complete, reshuffle the deck and draw again for the next phase. So in this example, there would be three sets of draws, one for each of the three phases.

If your rules are broken down into phases, as above, but a unit completes all phases before moving on to the next unit, you would simply only draw through the deck once a turn for the non-player's units.

Sometime there are glitches simply following the order generated randomly, especially with moving. Random generation may not allow a group of units to act in concert, such as marching in column down a road. Black Ops, like many rules, provide a mechanic to deal with that. In Black Ops it is giving the "Reserve" order; other rules might call it "Hold", "Wait", "Standby", or similar. It is basically the order that says "I cannot make the move I want to make because another unit is blocking the way, because it has not moved yet. Once it moves, I will make my move."

You can fix this glitch simply by placing a marker on the unit being ordered, and fixing in your mind the unit it is waiting for to move first. When that unit then moves, the waiting unit takes its move immediately after. This, in fact, may cause a cascade of units that were waiting to move, say if all of the units in a road column were selected to move before the head of the column is drawn.

In summary, you can easily add the randomness of card activations to help the player decide the question "Which unit should act next?" without disrupting or materially altering the way the game designer intended the turn sequence to function. (See my last post on the subject of decision making and activation order for more information.) This is a much less disruptive way that strapping on a Red/Black card activation model to replace IGO-UGO.

Surprise, Activation, and the Solo Wargamer

What is "solo gaming"? Well, clearly it is "playing a game by oneself", but it has to be more than that. To some people, however, it is not. Anyone who says "I just play both sides to the best of my ability" sees the definition of solo gaming as being just that and no more. Others believe that there has to be some "surprise" element added to the game because the player has "perfect knowledge". Even Stuart Asquith agrees with that idea, to a great extent.

A frequent comment made regarding solo war gaming is "What's the point? The player controls both sides and thus always knows what the opposition is going to do and thus there is no element of surprise." A not unreasonable statement, so irrespective of the period in which the solo player intends to war game, or the manner in which the games are to be conducted, various solo play mechanisms and techniques will be needed so that the soloist can introduce a random element into the unfolding situation.

- Stuart Asquith, "The Partizan Press Guide to Solo Wargaming"

I am on a forum for solo wargaming and there are a stream of questions like "what rules should I to wargame solo?" or "how can I play rule set X solo?" The responses generally fall along these lines, like:

• "Rule set X uses a card activation method, so you are halfway there."
• "You should choose rule set X because it uses cards to determine which side acts next. Solo rules should do that."
• "You should first determine how the player side is going to deploy, then randomly determine how the opposing side should deploy its units."

Actually, those comments also come from authors of books and articles on solo wargaming so they are in good company. All that said, I think the comments miss the mark. Let me explain why.

Surprise in Wargaming

Let me ask you a question, and be honest now: how many times were you truly "surprised" in a wargame by your opponent's move and because it was a really good move? The last one I can think of - and it did not happen to me - was when AlphaGo made move 37 in game 2 against Lee Sedol. That move so astounded Go players around the world that the Go community was abuzz about how it came up with the move. Lee Sedol took a full 15 minutes to recover from the shock before he could make his next move. Have you ever had such a game? I have not; not even close.

I can remember all of the times I was "surprised" (and the move was good) and they were always when I was playing a new game and did not know all of the rules. It is a game that has a fairly straightforward core set of rules, but with too many "special abilities" that were constantly being added as new supplements came out for you to buy. Essentially, a unit made a move that was illegal, according to the core rules, but perfectly legal according to the special rule in the supplement that I had not yet purchased. You know that kind of game. There are plenty of them out there.

Now, there have been some moves where I was surprised that the player made them, but only because it was either a bad move or a risky one. On the latter, some worked and some didn't. I made a few of those "you're a hero if it works, zero if it doesn't" type moves myself. But at the end of the day, playing the game is about exploiting the missteps your opponent makes while minimizing your own. The last thing you want to do is introduce a random element to force you to misstep.

Does that mean I don't agree with adding in random chance elements into the game? Of course not. The thing is, the games already have them. Is adding another element really to facilitate solo play?

Card Activation

Let's take card activation as an example. Is adding card activation for units conducive to solo play?

First, there are three types of card activation mechanisms. The first use cards to determine which side activates next. When a red card is drawn, the red side acts with all of its units. A variation of that is that the card indicates that one unit on that side activates next. The last type of card activation - and one used infrequently - is assigning a card to a specific unit. When the card is drawn, that specific unit then acts.

Let's think about this in terms of decisions. Unless you are in the "play both sides" camp, what you are looking for in a solo system is a means for answering the questions every time a decision point comes up. So, what are some of the basic questions?

• Which side gets to act next?
• Which unit gets to act next?
• Which action(s) will the acting unit take?
• How will the unit execute that action(s)?

If your system is not answering these questions then it is not helping you as much as it could. You, the player, are making decisions for the non-player that allows you to let your bias creep in.

Which Side Gets to Act Next?

As you can see in the table below, all activation methods, including the traditional IGO-UGO method, takes away the decision of "which side acts next" from the player.

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	Yes
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	Yes
Card to determine a unit	Yes
IGO-UGO	Yes

Which Unit Gets to Act Next?

Unless you are using a mechanism that assigns a unit (or sub-command) to a card, card activation does not answer the question of which unit you should act with next. If you provide no mechanism for making this decision, you leave it up to the player to make the choice.

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	Yes
IGO-UGO	No

Which Action Will the Unit Take?

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	No
IGO-UGO	No

How Will the Unit Execute Its Action?

Activation Type	Result
Card to determine side	No
Card to determine side that chooses a unit	No
Card to determine a unit	No
IGO-UGO	No

As you can see above, none of the activation methods answer the remaining two questions that pertain to the unit acting. That is because activation methods stop providing use once you get past the decision on which side or unit activates next. Put another way, card activation is not a solo gaming mechanic unless you use it for unit assignment. It answers no more questions than IGO-UGO does (again, with unit assignment by card as being the sole exception).

What card activation does is create "surprise" to the player as to which side will get to do something. It is a command-and-control mechanic, not a solo mechanic. However, it has side effects that you need to consider.

Variable Activation

Whether variable activation - activation where the order of the side acting varies from turn to turn - comes into play the most is where each activation only allows a very granular action. For example, if a unit can only move or fire in a single activation then moving into the weapon range of the enemy becomes a significant decision. In IGO-UGO games when a unit moves into range the enemy is guaranteed the chance to fire first. Changing this to variable activation does not provide that guarantee any more. A unit could activate at the end of one turn, move into range, and then in the next turn draw first, allowing it to fire before the enemy can respond. It is actually these sort of "double activations" that players attempt to set up and exploit as they are so effective.

Even if you are using rules that allows units to move and fire, variable activation can have an impact. You could move in and fire on one turn and then fire again on the next turn with a lucky draw.

So, you might be thinking, what is wrong with that? Some games are rather delicately balanced regarding the volume of fire in relation to distance moved and the passage of time. Changing that affects the core balance that the rules author put into their rules.

The main point is that these sort of mechanics are attributed as being "solo friendly" and my point is that they have nothing to do with solo gaming. These are ways to add additional random chance elements into the game, often in the name of modeling "the fog of war", "chaos", or "friction". A player will either like such a mechanic or not, but do not attribute it to facilitating solo game play. If a mechanic does not take away a decision from the player when acting with a unit for the non-player side then it is not a "solo gaming" mechanic.

Injecting Chance into Non-Player Decision-Making

Another response I see in forums regarding "how to game solo" is to use random chance elements to answer the type of questions above. Donald Featherstone calls that 'instant' solo wargaming.

But even the most volatile spontaneity can be dampened in the case of the solo-wargamer if he has to waste a large part of his precious few hours in so organizing the battle as to give him the enjoyable interplay of tactics that comes from dividing himself down the middle and being two generals at once. Briefly, this means that he requires some ready-made method of 'instant' solo-wargaming that enables him to set up armies and get on with the battle in a manner that allows for a realistic demonstration of both tactics and the fluctuations of the fortunes of war. He need not despair because, if his inventive mind has not already though up a system of his own, then there are a number of other methods that he can utilize or adapt to suit his own requirements.

- Donald Featherstone, "Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming"

I admit to using some of these mechanisms myself, on occasion, but for me the goal is that it is a fallback for when you want to game, but don't care as much about the quality of the result. That typically occurs when I am testing out a new set of rules. I tend to push the boundaries in such games to see if the rules allow "crazy" results and whether or not it punishes "bad" tactics. More often than not though I simply play both sides without regard to "being surprised". I tend to have less bias (or at least I like to think so) when I am simply testing than when I am gaming for fun.

The simple fact is, a random die roll that includes a chance to select a sub-optimal option will always be, at best, on par with the decision that a thinking human would make, given all of the factors present. A far greater portion of the time it will produce an inferior decision. Multiply that over all the decisions that will have to be made and it is not hard to see why the more you inject random chance to make decisions for your non-player forces, the dumber and more erratic the opponent will be.

Baron Babbage Beats Me

If you have been following along lately you know that I have been speculating about how to make programmed opponents work by starting with a look at the solo mechanics called Playing Against Mr Babbage which are included in the The Men Who Would Be Kings rules, making my own programmed opponent Baron Babbage for the Medieval variant of the rules One-Hour Wargames (OHW), making another programmed opponent Warlord Babbage for the Dark Ages variant of the rules One-Hour Wargames, and finally Shawn's test of Warlord Babbage. I finally took a breath and decided to try out my original Baron Babbage in order to see what refinements needed to be made. I suspected that there was a bad hole in my logic for units that were not the closest to a triggering condition, i.e. they had no orders whatsoever, and that there might be a lot of edge cases.

Let me start by saying that this will not be a typical battle report. My goal is not to report how the battle went, nor give a blow-by-blow, but to review the Red (programmed) turns specifically, state the decision that I took, and discuss what refinements need to be made.

Scenario #8: Melee (One-Hour Wargames)

Red (Defender): Programmed

Just as a reminder, here is what the scenario's terrain looks like.

The scenario has two Red units on the hill at the start of the game. All other forces on both sides come in at various turns. There are six units in each army. The army composition is random for both sides. The scenario lasts 15 turns with Red taking the first turn.

Red Turn 1

I now believe this is a bad deployment as it anticipates Blue moving around the left flank. Better that it deploy in D4 and D5 facing South (the Blue baseline) and move on Red Turn 2, based on Blue's actual move.

Also, I realize that I did not think the deployment orders through. My order of preference in units to deploy here are Men-at-Arms then Knights. It is possible to have zero, one, or two Men-at-Arms units. What if you only had one? Should it deploy on the left or the right? (It should deploy on the right as the left is the position of maneuver and a Knight is more maneuverable.)

Red Turn 2

I brought on three Knight units as my move, using one to try and flank the hill from the East. The other two units will assault the hill frontally.
So, this is where the first rule refinement comes from.
Rule #1 says once you are on the hill, you stay on the hill. So that rule does not apply.
Rule #2 states that if there is an empty position on the hill, the closest unit to that position moves to occupy that position. It needs a qualifier that states that if you are already on the hill you may ignore the rule under some circumstances. Without the qualifier, a programmed unit would simply move back and forth between two empty positions on the hill. We do not want that.
That said, if a unit on a hill could make a move to block a Blue unit from gaining the hill, without risking its current position being take by a Blue unit, shouldn't it move to block? We will consider that rule later. For now we are just going to add the qualifier that if a unit is already on the hill it is not forced to obey Rule #2, nor will it count as the "closest unit".

Red Turn 3

During Blue's turn the Knight unit flanking the hill could not yet make a charge from the road. (Charging only allows a 45º pivot at the beginning of the turn and it was adjudged that the unit would clip the woods, so it had to move farther down the road to charge.) Now that Red reinforcements are coming on that really looks like a bad move. Nonetheless, let's review Red's decisions.

The two Red Knights on the hill have no decision to make. They are defending the hill, so they solemnly wait the charge from the Blue Knights.

The first unit entering from the road is a Red Knight. It can ignore Rule #1 as it is not on the hill. Rule #2 states that, as the closest unit, it must move towards the (closest) empty position on the hill. As it stands, that is also the position that is threatened by the West-most Blue Knight, so that is a good move. Red Knight #3 moves to occupy D5.

The second unit entering from the road is a Red Archer unit. Rule #1 does not apply. Rule #2 has been applied to Red Knight #3 for square D5, but square D6 is also empty. Normally you would apply Rule #2 to another unit, but Archers are an exception. Rule #3 does not apply as Blue has not occupied the hill. This essentially leaves the Red Archer unit only with Rule #4, which says that it may not move move than 6" from the Red baseline. The rationale for this deployment was listed as: "Archers on the left flank will have more opportunity to engage in shooting as they will be away from the objective. Archers on the baseline have the potential to shoot enemy Knights attacking the left flank of the hill, or those sweeping around. If the enemy engage them, all the better, as that means they are not engaging the units on the objective." With that, it made sense that the order should have been to move 6" off of the baseline to threaten the Blue Knight preparing to charge the East end of the hill.

I need a new rule that covers the condition when a Red Archer unit is not on the hill and does not have a Blue target on the hill.

Red Turn 4

As you can see from the image above, Blue has attacked on the East end of the hill and frontally. One of the Blue Knight units has gained the heights. Before I go on with discussing Red's moves, I ran into an interesting issue with the OHW rules.

Notice the Red Archer unit on the bottom left. It is on the flank of the Blue Knight unit which is engaged in hand-to-hand combat  with the Red Knight unit on the hill. Can the Red Archer unit fire into the Blue Knight unit? I know plenty of rules that would say 'no', or have a rule like one-half of the casualties are allocated to each side, but OHW is absolutely silent on the issue. Further, OHW is incredibly permissive, which lends me to believe a unit can shoot at an enemy unit in hand-to-hand combat. The one applicable rule I thought would apply was that a unit cannot be attacked on more than one face (in hand-to-hand combat) and that aligned nicely with, say, the rule in Dux Bellorum (which allows a missile unit to fire at a unit in close combat as long as the line of fire is completely clear of the enemy unit's base), so I felt I was on solid ground. What do you think?

By the way, the red and yellow die are both there because I misinterpreted the flank attack rule. It applies only to hand-to-hand combat and not to shooting. I sort of rationalized to myself that it would get double hits for flank, but one-half hits for "cover" (being in melee), so I only registered 5 hits. In this case, it worked out...

The Red Archer unit ignores Rules #1 and #2. Rule #3 would have applied if it were not for the Red Knight to the North of the hill being closer and the shot being blocked. So again, no applicable order applies to the Red Archer unit.

This is probably a separate rule from the one indicated above, which would govern firing. Given that you can only move or fire, which new rule should have precedence?

The Red Knight unit to the North of the hill matches Rule #2 and #3. It occurs to me that I may need to switch the order of these – having the unit attack the Blue unit on the hill over first moving onto the hill itself – but I am not sure. I will leave that decision until next turn. As it stands, the move to obey either rule is the same. I also need to add a clause about not exposing your flank to the enemy at the end of your move. (Note that my Red Knight to the North maintained its facing. That was not in the program.

One other note: for some reason I did not bring on Blue's reinforcements on turn 4, but rather turn 5. I did not even realize this until writing this report, in fact. That was a big mistake.

Red Turn 5

This was an interesting turn, in terms of programming. I realized that the Red Knight unit had to obey Rule #2, so rather than attacking uphill against the Blue Knight it moved to the vacant hill position and faced to charge the following turn.

That move, in turn, triggers the option for Rule #3 to apply to the Red Archer unit. Now that the Blue Knight unit is exposed, the Red Archer unit shifted right in order to shoot in future turns.

The other two Red units, being engaged in hand-to-hand combat, can do nothing but continue to fight.

Red Turn 6

The last of the reinforcements enter the board. The Red Levy units enter from the West edge, North of the hill.

As the Knights on the hill are all in hand-to-hand combat, there are no decisions. That leaves the Red Archers and the two Red Levy to consider.

I began to feel that the angle was too sharp for the Red Archers to fire into the Blue Knights that it had shifted right to attack last turn. So, with rules 1 through 3 not in play, they fired at the Blue Knights at the East end of the hill. This was the first instance of where the program went in one direction one turn, then reversed back the next. Basically, I lost one turn of fire due to that 'indecision'. I can live with that result, but it is something to watch for in future games.

The first Red Levy unit acts on Rule #3, which is to attack the Blue Knight unit on the hill. It thus moves towards a position from which it can charges its flank. The second Red Levy unit, however, has no applicable orders.

What happens to a unit when there is no unoccupied hill position and other (closer) units are already engaging enemy units on the hill? I need an order to reinforce the weak link in the line.

The original two Red Knight units on the hill are pretty beat up, so the second Red Levy unit moves left in order to fill any gap that may appear on the East end of the hill.

Red Turn 7

Blue was able to shoot down the weakened Red Knight unit on the East end of the hill, so the second Red Levy unit continues to shift left, as Rule #2 now applies to it.

The first Red Levy unit charges into contact of the flank of the Blue Knight unit on the hill.

The unengaged Red Knight cannot move from the hill and because I indicated earlier that a unit on the hill does not need to move to another unoccupied position on the hill, it simply stays put.

Finally, the Red Archer has no target and Rule #4 does not allow it to move farther off of the baseline. I allow it to do nothing, for now. But if it continues to stay out of the action, I may have to rethink its orders, especially as there is a possibility of having two such units.

Red Turn 8

The third Red Knight unit (that reinforced from the road) is gone, but the Red Levy was able to eliminate the Blue Knight unit they were both fighting before it was able to turn to flank. The Red Levy unit will gain the hill position.

The second Red Levy unit continues to shift left to occupy the East end of the hill. Once it gets there, however, I am not sure what it will do...

The Red Archer unit shoots at the advancing Blue Archer unit.

It may not have been a valid shot, considering that the Red Levy unit partially masks the line of sight. However, I generally go from unit center point-to-center point and that is not masked, so I allowed it. Would you have allowed the shot?

Red Turn 9

The first Red Levy unit has another Blue Knight unit to its flank so that means that Rule #3 now comes into play. It will simply face 90º to the right as it cannot charge.

The remaining Red Knight unit is nearly exhausted (as indicated by the arrow showing that it is four hits away from being destroyed).

The Red Archer unit continues to fire at the Blue Archer unit and the Red Levy unit finally gains the position on the East end of the hill. Its flank is exposed to the Blue Archer unit, but as it cannot turn 90º and charge it is relatively safe.

Red Turn 10

No unusual decisions. Red Archer fires. Red Levy holds firm.

Red Turn 11

The Blue Archer unit gets cut down by the Red Archer fire, relieving the last of the threats on the East flank. The Red Levy unit no longer needs to concern itself. Next turn we will look at how its orders should change, along with the Red Archer unit.

Note that the single, remaining Red Knight unit is still hanging on by a thread, with Blue having rolled terribly all of these turns.

Red Turn 12

Amazingly, Red Knight continues to hold on. One more hit and it collapses. This causes me to think about 'threats'. Red Levy cannot contribute to the melee between Red Knight and Blue Men-at-Arms because: a) it cannot come off of the hill (Rule #1); and b) it cannot move through the woods. If Red Levy were to stay facing South and the next turn Red Knight were to collapse, Blue Men-at-Arms would gain the hill (take the defeated Red Knight's position) and Red Levy would not be poised to charge as it could not turn 90º and charge.

I posit that there needs to be an order to allow a unit to change face on the hill which threatened from one side, but not threatened from the other. But I am not sure how to write the rule.

Red Levy faces right in anticipation that Red Knight will collapse next turn.

Red Archer, meeting the conditions of Rule #3, slides to the right to shoot into the flank of Blue Knight on the hill.

Red Turn 13

As expected, Red Knight is eliminated and Blue Men-at-Arms advances to take its position. This triggers Rule #3 for Red Levy, who charges into the flank of the Blue Men-at-Arms. Clearly they were reluctant to do so as they rolled a '2'!

Red Archer finds the Blue Knights closer and shoots into their flank due to Rule #3.

Red Turn 14

The Red Levy finally get their courage up and roll a hefty '6' on the die (which only counts as three hits, despite what the die shows), enough to vanquish the Blue Men-at-Arms (who had been badly mauled by the Red Knights Who Would Not Die).

The Red Archers continue to plink away at the Blue Knights. Don't ask me why the Blue Knights are facing down the hill; they should be facing the Red Levy. Don't ask me why the die says two hits, when the minimum is three. This picture clearly was messed up.

Red Turn 15

The end. The Red Levy and Red Archers pound the Blue Knights, inflicting a total of ten hits in a single round. (Ouch!) Baron Babbage clears the hill, leaving Red the victor.

Decision Review

So, here are the following additions that need to be made to the program:

1. When a unit is already on the hill, it is not required to obey Rule #2. This stops a unit from shifting back and forth between unoccupied positions.
2. When a unit is already on the hill, it may obey Rule #2 if:
1. The direction it is turning towards either allows it to attack an enemy unit on the hill, or allows it to block an enemy unit from getting on the hill.
2. The direction it is turning away from contains no possible threat to gaining a position on the hill.
3. When an Archer unit does not have a Blue target on the hill to shoot at (or move towards), it has no order.
4. When a non-Archer unit does not have an open hill position to move to (Rule #2) and no Blue unit on a hill position (or it cannot reach it), it has no order.

All in all I am very satisfied with the orders as is, and with these additions I think I am happy with it representing a cautious defender.