"Negative" vs. "Positive" Activation Rules (and Cold War Commander Review)

It appears I've played my last game of Cold War Commander. When my buddy Michael taught me the game, I was excited about it and wanted very much to like it. I'd been wanting to get into larger scale battles (battalions, regiments, etc), and this seemed like just the thing, with a professed combined arms focus as well.  However, after about 5 games of it, I'm pretty much completely done with it. I've had victories, defeats, and draws, but no matter the outcome, I walk away a bit frustrated. I thought it would pass, but it hasn't, and so, I'm sorry Cold War Commander, I'm breaking up with you.

Michael, who's a big fan of the game and even plays it solo sometimes, is an excellent host, and I feel bad saying goodbye to his favorite game, but fun must come first, and I'm just not having fun. In an effort to explain why to my friend, I isolated a couple of things, the main thing being the rules to activate units.  I haven't been wargaming for decades like many people I play with, but it seems to me that there are three broad ways to handle unit activation in a game:  "I go-you go", Negative Activation, and Positive Activation.

We're all familiar with "I go-you go" rules:  one side activates all of their units, sometimes in whatever order they want, and then the other player goes. Obviously, this is far from realistic in the way it reduces the battle to two large men taking turns punching each other as hard as they can until one falls over.  It can be plenty fun of course, (as in All Quiet on the Marian Front) but most tactically-minded folks seem to eventually prefer something more interesting when they can get it.  For convenience sake, I'll even include games like Wings of Glory (or Battletech), where both sides actually act at the same moment (and to a degree even X-Wing, where pilot skill determines the order of activation), as both sides essentially get the same chance to act, and all intact units can do whatever their abilities allow every turn.  I've actually seen CWC described as I go-You go, as one side takes as many activations as possible and then the other does, but as there is a limiting factor to the activations, I prefer to think of it differently.

The other two types I've lumped together are "negative" and "positive" limited activation rules. Both are an attempt to improve over the "I go-you go" type by limiting what you can do in a given turn. These rules recognize that you can't always coordinate everything on a battlefield perfectly, and limits the units activated on any given turn. This strikes some as less fair, but of course, there is often the same chance of activation on both sides, and if there is a disparity, most rule sets give some kind of benefit to level things a bit. I'm of the opinion that limitations like this are desirable in most cases, but there are two very different ways to achieve it.

"Negative Activation" -  So, say you want to move or shoot with a tank or something. In negative activation, you try to activate, usually with a roll, and sometimes you can do what you want with the unit, and sometimes the dice say "nope, your tank is going to sit right where it is and spin its treads." A good example of this is Cold War Commander, where you can activate a unit over and over on your turn, until you fail your roll. That failure can happen on the first, or on the sixth activation, you never know.  I've had games where a tank company's commander fails to activate for entire game, forcing the overall commander to activate the company and move it to the fight, all while the inactive command unit is literally sitting at the table edge as the rest of his unit reaches the other side of the board.  So much for "simulation". Lion Rampant (which seem to be quite popular lately) uses these rules as well, and I've seen some griping about it online which makes me suspect I should find a different rule set if I dive into a medieval setting.

Positive activation works differently, limiting you by using mechanisms like cards or dice that are drawn either for each unit, or determine the order of activations during a phase.  Examples of this type are Bolt Action, where both sides have a die per unit all in one bag, and one die is drawn to see who goes next (allowing the possibility of one side going several times in a row), but leaving the choice of which unit to activate with that die, and with the knowledge that all units will eventually activate.  Similarly, in IABSM, the units form a deck of cards, and you activate the unit which you draw, but may not get to activate every unit on a given turn (there's a "tea break" card that ends the turn somewhere in the deck). Or, as in my current favorite rule set, Chain of Command, you roll a set number of dice (typically 5) that you can then use to activate various units depending on the numbers rolled. You roll the five dice, and within certain limits, make the best of what you have. If you have lots of units, you may not be able to activate them every time, but once you roll the dice, you'll at least know for sure what you can do. Sometimes, if you roll lots of sixes and fives, you can't activate as many things, but you either get several turns in a row (6s) or advance towards a CoC die and the various tactical options that brings. You may not be able to do much, but you won't be stuck doing nothing either.

I also feel this is a huge improvement over Bolt Action, as once you roll you know you can, say, activate a squad, a junior leader, and a team, and thus you can have your units support each other in a way that is impossible (except by blind luck) in BA. For instance, given the above roll, I could activate a tank's driver as a team, telling it to advance on the road, while activating a squad's junior leader to follow the tank closely, using it as cover. Try that in Bolt Action, and if you draw one of your opponent's dice after moving the tank, they will find your squad still 20' back from the infantry in the open until you can pull another dice to move them. There's no way to do two things simultaneously.  Yet I still prefer Bolt Action's "positive" activation to CWC's "negative".

To me, what makes the positive activation superior is that the activation method limits your resources, and then allows you make your choice of how to work with limited options. I call the former negative because it allows you to make your choices and then limits you by sometimes saying "no".  I find the latter to be psychologically less fun, and leading to far more annoyance.  Perhaps others agree, perhaps not. But for me, this feeling of positive choice, of being able to make a plan to work with what you have (even if limited), is far more fun than trying to stretch your brain to explain why one of your tanks is still sitting on the table edge watching the rest of the battalion get torn apart. If that tank is sitting there, I want that to have either been a conscious decision, either because I wanted it there or because I chose to spend my resources elsewhere.

I guess what this comes down to is that I don't like being told "no" arbitrarily. Tell me what I can do, not what I can't, and I'll happily try my best to solve the tactical problem at hand, and enjoy myself win or lose.  I don't mind being denied, but I'd ultimately prefer it be my opponent, and not the rules, which do so.

Another issue I have with CWC is the way it handles reactive (opportunity) fire. I admit to limited experience with this mechanic in games outside CWC and perhaps CoC, but I've seen others gripe about this online so I know I'm not alone here.  Essentially, in CWC, any unit that is not "suppressed" by previous enemy fire, may interrupt an opponent's action and fire in reaction. Frankly, I'm not as clear about why this doesn't work well in this game as I am about the activations. I can only give you the result: paralysis on the game board. It may be because every unsuppressed unit can do this. Certainly in CoC you have to spend precious tactical resources to do it, whether by putting a unit on overwatch, or spending a CoC die on an interrupt or ambush. In CWC, it again feels more "negative".  Certainly some kind of mechanic like this makes sense - if I'm moving my tanks into a better position, you probably do have an opportunity to fire while I do so. Yet, you could do so if I remained passively right where I was - but not in CWC. I can just hang out where I am ("if I don't move they can't see me"), you can't shoot at me, at least not until your turn. And if you do fire on your turn, I can use reactive fire to fire back then.  In the end I find the way the mechanic plays out limits options too much and drags the game down.

What I DO like about CWC:

I do like the combined arms focus. Planes, choppers, artillery... these are well done and appropriately deadly and chaotic.  Admittedly, I bomb my own troops WAY more than is statistically likely, but I've laughed every time, because even that is kind of fun. If only the rest of the game was a bit more fluid on the table, and a little less arbitrary and frustrating.  I also like the rules for botches - double ones force a roll on a very fun "bad things happen" chart.

So Cold War Commander, adios.  Michael is accommodating me, and we'll be trying Fist Full of TOWs next for our 6mm Cold War games.  I'm hoping it work out better, and I have a feeling it will.

Pushing through Fulda Gap: 1984 (My Last Game of Cold War Commander)

Back to the 80s with some Cold War Commander. In the last game, the Soviets broke through at some cost, and now they are advancing up the main highway to Fulda. The highway runs through a narrow valley, and has two small towns strung along it. The Soviet objectives are to take the town and proceed to the far table edge.  A small US force is hidden in the area, force composition unknown. Onwards for the Motherland!

An infantry battalion in BMP carriers advances rapidly towards the first town while the two tank companies screen their right flank. Soviet artillery tries to shield their movements by covering the nearby hill with smoke.

However, due to the incredibly annoying CWC activating rules, the BMPs pretty much ended up as sitting ducks for an impressive array of American artillery and air power. Unable to get my main anti-air assets out of their friggin' trucks, there was not much to do except sit back and watch most of my infantry burn alive in their transports.

My opponent and host Michael had fewer points to build his force but chose them well, fielding a contingent of Abrams tanks as his main on-table force. In a risky move, he'd hidden them on the left (behind my smoke screen), and was able to activate them enough to get them around the smoke and onto another hill. He had a perfect shot of my tanks' side armor, but wasn't able to take the shot, due to those very annoying activation rules.

However, the way opportunity fire works in this game, the moment I try to turn my tanks to actually be able to shoot at the Abrams (Russian tanks have a more restricted avenue of fire - apparently all of their turrets are broken), Michael will be able to shoot his whole line, even though he wasn't able to on his turn.  I have three choices: shoot with maybe two tanks against one of his, try to wheel the line to face the Abrams, or try and push straight past them. All three options meant weathering a full round of fire.

The enemy also dropped some smoke to limit return fire on the Abrams.

Michael had selected my force in advance, and had given me a sizable airborne contingent mounted in two helicopters. A questionable choice in the face of American air superiority. I decided to send them in to try and distract my opponent from the main event.

Predictably, one of the choppers is shot down, losing half of the airborne force in the crash.

Meanwhile things on the right flank proceeded pretty much how I thought they would. Between artillery fire suppressing one of the two companies, and opportunity fire from the American tanks, I managed to get a single tank platoon clear of the trap, with one other platoon destroyed by fire and the other suppressed.

Knowing I needed some help, I had my HQ call in some air support. The chopper flew in to engage and, as seems to be de rigueur for me in CWC, it bombed my own tank platoon, destroying it.

The Abrams tanks moved out to finish the job.

But honestly, the game was already over, thanks to absolutely punishing artillery fire which wiped out my entire infantry battalion before they could manage to activate and dismount.

Calling it a night after a very short game, Michael revealed his devious strategy. Putting nearly everything into tanks, the only thing occupying the villages was a single HQ unit.  A very risky strategy, but it worked out in this case.

The only other unit he took was an infantry company poised behind the hill on the left to react to my moves.  It was a very savvy and admirable strategy, but as much as I admire it, I felt positively hamstrung by a combination of the uneven knowledge available to both of us, and the rules themselves.

Losing a game can be a very fun experience. I've played epic games that resulted in total defeat, had desperate last stands against overwhelming odds, and led massive offensives that were blunted and taken apart by a wily opponent. But this game felt very different. Part of it was, I think, the rules of CWC itself, which I think are overall rather bland and lacking.  Part of it, sadly, was the way this scenario was developed by my buddy Michael, although I don't want to blame him much for my experience or undercut the wonderful work he did to bring the scenario to life.

Essentially, thanks to him being an enthusiastic host and preparing everything in advance, he had unintentionally given himself an unbeatable edge. He knew his force (which was deployed hidden), my force (which, to save time, he selected), and created the scenario and table with several weeks to go over it in his head.  I knew only my force, which I didn't even choose, and nothing else. I was doomed before we started.  In future, if someone picks my force, I'll insist on having the same info on their force, just so things are more or less even.  

Something we should all keep in mind as we prepare games for our friends I guess.

I'm not one to rage-quit a game, and I played it out to the bitter end (although from the 2nd turn it was clear there was little point in doing so), but this was probably the most frustrating single session of wargaming I've ever had. After four or five games of Cold War Commander, I'm realizing that, scenario aside, I find the game mechanics frustrating, win, lose, or draw. I've given it a solid shot, but I don't think I'll be returning to this rule set anytime soon. It's largely personal preference I imagine, but it is what it is.  I'm learning what I like in a rule set, and just as important, what I don't like. In my next post, I'll post my thoughts about CWC rules, and make some observations about how other rule sets handle the same issues differently.

Quinto: A Campaign for CoC Espana

Over the past month or two, I've been working on an in-depth and (I hope) well-researched campaign for Chain of Command, following the American volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Battle of Quinto. A draft is finished (and 30-something pages long!), full of maps and pictures in the style of the Lardies' "Pint-Sized Campaign" and I hope to make it available in some fashion after I've play-tested it and tightened it up. It looks like I'll be having the opportunity to play both sides of this fight in the coming weeks, and as I'll be posting battle reports I wanted to offer some of the background first.

So, the natural question for many is... Quinto?  ¿Que?  Sure, you may have heard of Jarama or Brunete, maybe Belchite in connection to the Lincolns, but the Battle of Quinto?  Not really the first thing most think of. Why? Personally I think it is because it's the one time where the Lincolns really kicked a little ass and didn't suffer horrific casualties. Quinto shows what the XV International Brigade, and the Lincolns in particular, could do if well-supplied and well-supported. At the beginning of the Zaragoza Offensive, the Battle of Quinto was the successful capture of a heavily fortified town (similar to Belchite) in three days with relatively low casualties. This doesn't fit the romantically tragic narrative of sacrifice and horror that has built up around the Lincolns.

Hopefully, however, it will make for some very good games. With its short duration and easily identifiable phases, as well as the multitude of smaller platoon-sized actions, it's perfect for CoC in a way that Jarama or Brunete wouldn't be (probably better for IABSM).

I'll be playing this as a half-ladder mini-campaign of 5 tables total, which must be captured within 9 games by the Lincolns. The ultimate objective is the town's church, perched on a hill overlooking the town and the Ebro (upper part of the picture below) and the dry plateau to the west, where the Lincolns' starting positions were.

 The campaign map:

 Each side gets one platoon of reinforcements, and one chance to reinforce one of the platoons during the game, as despite the short duration, we know that replacements were arriving during the battle (and we know that the campaign will be bloody). I'm using a special list for the Lincoln Battalion as follows, as well as customized support lists, and my own character creation charts for the SCW along the lines of At the Sharp Edge.

Lincoln Platoon: HQ: Senior leader with Pistol, flag bearer (entirely for decoration), two scouts with rifles.
2x Junior Leader with rifle, three teams of five riflemen.
The Platoon is rated regular, and is considered aggressive, and has the anti-fascisti rule (although support does not).  Platoon rated -2.

The men defending the town were rear-guard troops, and the defender gets one platoon of professionalized Requetés (using the Ejercito Nacional list, rated green) for the first few battles, replaced by a platoon of regular infantry once the Requetés are unable to fight on.

There are some wild cards, two per side, that I'll describe as they're played, and some scenario-specific rules that should be very interesting to play out. The Lincolns will also have commissars available with my custom commissar rule:

Commissar (2 points): Treated as a senior leader in all respects, the commissar may only use his command initiatives to remove shock unless the main senior leader dies or is knocked unconscious for the turn. In such a case the commissar may use his command initiatives as normal.

Stay tuned for the first battle as my buddy Fritz leads the Lincolns against the fortified front lines near Quinto's walled cemetery.  With the Lincolns supported with T-26 tanks and unopposed by AT guns, defending with my green Requetés won't be a picnic.

Later on, I'll be playing the Lincolns myself against my friend Jamie. It's going to be a very Spanish Civil War couple of months!

Battletech: Alpha Strike Playthrough

I do love me some Battletech. It's actually one of the first games of this type I ever played, way back in my freshmen year of High School. It's a wonderfully clunky mass of rules, much like the mechs themselves. A game of with two mechs can easily go two hours, if the damage is evenly distributed and you don't lose too many limbs.

Hence Alpha Strike, a sort of quick play rule set meant to get in a quick game with multiple mechs.  Just about everything is abbreviated in these rules, and Fritz and I were looking forward to trying it to compare with the regular game.

We took 150 points each, Fritz buying 5 mechs and me buying 6.  A game this size would probably take 3 or 4 hours in the regular rules. We finished in a little over 1.

I deployed my mechs in a line, with my heavy mechs directly across from the more concentrated enemy (left) and my fast light mechs on the right.

Fritz kept his force together in tight formation.

Movement was simplified, like everything else, but moving mechs are still harder to hit.

Terrain, however, seemed a bit less important.

Especially water terrain, of which there were several pieces on the board. My initial strategy was to get my heavy mech to water to help with heat management. Guess what, that's not something you have to worry about in Alpha Strike, so water is useless. Instead of carefully choosing which weapons to fire (and when to fire all of them and spike your heat), only some mechs (strangely in my case the lighter ones) could overclock their weapons at all, accumulating a point of heat for an extra point of damage. They could safely do this three times, but at that point you can just stop. Heat just isn't a problem in this game.

Fritz brought one of his mechs out away from the others to deal with my light mechs which were flanking him. I began to concentrate my fire on that single mech, but it's hard to hit from longer ranges.

Then, he returns fire, and one-shots my weakest mech. In Alpha Strike, there's no rolling for where damage is, no limbs being blown off, no head shots, etc. There are critical hits, but honestly, they didn't really do anything for this game as they're very mild in outcome. In this instance, the mech shooting at me did 5 damage (flat) if it hit, while my mech had 2 armor and 2 internal structure, meaning it went down straight. Then again, the mech only cost 15 points...

And while he wasted fire on that puny mech, my Jenner ran around to his rear. Rear armor isn't easier to penetrate in Alpha Strike, instead the attacking mech does an extra point in damage.

With four mechs concentrating fire, Fritz loses his first mech.

His heavies remain on the left.

My flanking motion seems to be working...

Getting my Jenner completely around the back of his heavy mechs, we begin to slug it out at point blank range. No punching mechs in Alpha Strike though...

I win a series of initiative rolls which really give me the edge, getting my mechs behind Fritz's. Initiative is very important in regular battletech as well. It might be even more so in Alpha Strike.

We dance around each other, armor points falling on all sides.

As Fritz's mechs start falling, winning initiative really starts to matter - in fact it snowballs. If I win, he has to move a mech first, after which we alternate. But if I have two mechs more than him, I'm moving two after he's finished his moves, allowing me optimal placement.

After all, if I'm behind you, I can shoot at you but you can't shoot at me...

Fritz's heavy stays on the table edge, the only place I can't outmaneuver him.

But in the end, he goes down.

As does another.

One mech remaining, which I now have surrounded.

And it goes down.  Mechs go down much quicker in Alpha Strike.

So, the verdict?  Some of my favorite parts are stripped out of this version - especially the tension of getting hit and no knowing immediately how bad and to what systems. Also, heat management and choosing between weapons is an essential part of the original game. That said, it was still more or less Battletech, and having so many mechs on the board allowed for entirely different tactics to emerge. But the real selling point was the time it took (or didn't take) to play it. We were able to squeeze in a very enjoyable game of Battletech after a game of All Quiet on the Martian Front and still had time to spare.

So in the end, I'd have to say that I enjoyed Alpha Strike, but it's not so much a replacement as another, less intense, way to play a great game. If you love Battletech and want a quick pick-up game of it, then give Alpha Strike a try.