My experience with rule sets before Piquet and FOB was one of disappointment. The games went the same way. First, we would spend some time setting up the battle, going over the rules and assigning sides. Then there would be a slow process of consulting charts and rule books for at least 6 hours. Only occasionally would units move or fire. Three turns were completed and then we would start packing up. During the clean up, we would speculate about what would have happened had we been able to play another three turns. This discussion was always friendly and inconclusive. Both sides would come away with the belief that, if the game had been played to a conclusion, they would have won or at least not lost by very much. Every one was competent and we were all as smart as Napoleon.
One micro armor game played at the old Escape Velocity in Tacoma Washington in 1978 or 1979 took all afternoon to play. The rules were Tractics by GDW. It was a massive eastern front battle in which the equivalent of a German Panzer Division ran head long into a Russian Armored corps. After 7 hours, both formations were effectively destroyed. In game time, approximately 4 minutes had elapsed. Yet, no one could say for sure who won the game.
As a teenager, I was able to memorize all of kinds of obscure details regarding WWII tank characteristics. Much of that material is still stored in my brain, waiting for the day when someone says “What was the thickness of the side armor of the Sherman M4A3?” That question has never come up but I am ready for it. Even now, I cannot look at a French Char 1Bis without pointing at the side mounted radiator and saying “shot here to disable it”. I wanted rules sets that fed more such information to me and allowed me to apply it.
Thinking back critically to those early games, I am certain that we were terrible generals and probably not very good players. Attacks were launched on broad fronts with no particular goal in mind. Games had no clearly defined victory conditions. Rules were absurdly detailed. In the WWII arena, they took into account things like slope of armor, armor thickness, exact caliber of the firing gun, probabilities of deflection shots and other minutiae. Charts were numerous. There was even a set called simply “Tank Charts” which purported to simplify WWII wargaming. All you needed was one 5” by 8” card per tank type and you could fight a battle. All of the numerous statistics and charts were there. It was as much fun as a calculus test.
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