KS umpires please lend assistance to me.

Hi chaps,

I am in need of some help, I have been trying to understand the rules for assaults and am nearly at the point of giving up. Has anyone done some sort of cheat sheet for umpires? Perhaps along the lines of a flow chart whereby, once the correct die has been chosen, then the extra rules for assaults are taken into account.

I would expect the chart to say something along the lines of:-

Has the infantry unit being attacked come under artillery fire? if yes minus 1 die, if no stays the same, from there, has the cavalry assaulting units been on the move? If yes minus 1 die, if not stays the same. Etc etc.

I hope I have made myself clear on this, if not I will try again.

I am sure you umpires out there have some sort of self made aids to assist you in working out the correct die to use in each set of circumstances without trawling through the rules each time.

I am totally new to this game and would love to host a game in the future being an umpire as I am afraid my lack of war gaming experience means a lack of the tactical skills needed.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance

Dutchy.

It seems no one is going to be able to give some aids?

Sorry!

A lot of the problem is that there are a lot of situations that might come up; a chart for all of them might be huge.

Personally, I make a rapid best-estimate of what's going on, then roll the dice and apply results, intending above all else to *keep the game moving*.

You *can* run Kriegsspiel in full accordance to every rule and modifier, and presumably Reisswitz et al. knew what they were on about... but it's pretty slow to resolve when run that way.

Or you read the rules and prepare your mind carefully, then execute the scenairo running very very fast in order to keep the players in the dark as to the situation and under time pressure to make a decision they have to communicate to a another human. Now they have to practice tactical decision-making and clear orders-issuing, not scrambling around to find the perfect set of modifiers.

As a bonus, they also don't get bored waiting for the umpire to resolve each turn.

Thanks James, sound advice.

Excellent advice. Our group has found that the greatest sin is to run the game slowly in pursuit of 100% accuracy.

It's very easy for the umpires to become absorbed in a combat situation, and discuss/calculate every factor. This is often very interesting for them, and *may* give a more accurate result, but takes time, and all the effort will be wasted if the players are sitting around twiddling their thumbs & getting bored.

There are some indications that the early k/spielers did calculate things in detail, but they were primarily running games as training exercises, rather than for fun, and the experienced officers running the umpire teams needed to report back the results in detail to the young officers, so the appropriate lessons could be learnt.

Even in the military though, there was a move away from the detailed use of combat tables during the second half of the 19th C.

One element our group dispenses with is the detailed tracking of casualties. Whilst this analysis would be very useful in the education of junior officers, in the heat or battle, it is unlikely that this information would be available to the generals, even if battalion commanders had the opportunity to make a count.

Hope that helps.

Martin

Yes it helps quite a lot. Thanks to both of you.

I am sure without going into too much detail the game will be more fun for everyone concerned.

I am not quite sure what you mean by, ''One element our group dispenses with is the detailed tracking of casualties.''

Clive.

dutchy124 wrote:Yes it helps quite a lot. Thanks to both of you.

I am sure without going into too much detail the game will be more fun for everyone concerned.

I am not quite sure what you mean by, ''One element our group dispenses with is the detailed tracking of casualties.''

Clive.

For the purpose of the game you need to know if the unit is still effective or how long before it will become available to command again.

It all depends on the period and what you are trying to simulate.

E.G. in the period of I think you might be playing with Martin uses rules to say that the unit retreats and takes time to re-org (hours). This puts this unit out of the battle and the loss of men does not get recorded.

In a WW2 game I ran I was more harsh and disposed of the counters. For the purpose of the game they were out of it, in reality they would be available but not until new leaders and the men had recouped.

Tracking detailed casualties takes time and you just want to distil the experience to the simplest level to keep things moving.

Difficult to explain and if you are UK based perhaps pop along to one of the games and see how combat is dealt with?

One of my major problems is not see a ''live game''. I have been introduced to KS by Barry Carter who has attended a few games now. I live in Thailand, but will be returning to the UK at the end of May for a family visit, so hopefully will be able to see a game in progress.

Tracking losses:

I don't figure out how many men have been killed. Instead, I do two things:

1) Keep a mental tally of what a unit has been up to. If it's been engaged a while then it should start to be less effective due to losses, fatigue, etc. "A while" obviously is fuzzy and depends on exactly what's been going on. A rout or total defeat counts * a lot* more than staring off at another unit. Very subjective.

2) I do pay attention to how devastating the artillery fire result was.

From these....

If the unit is looking shaky, then I put a small marker on it. (These are leftover tiny squares from an experiment with Litko plastic units.) Since I also use these as runners and leaders, I use the enemy side's color as the marker.

The unit doesn't get to recover from this unless something extraordinary happens; and from now on, I don't rate it as well in any combat Fuzzy? Sure.

If things get worse again, then the unit gets destroyed -- not necessarily everybody killed, but "damaged enough that it's no longer combat effective" and I remove it from the map.

Two Total Defeats from a cavalry charge in a row might do this, especially if the unit is outnumbered and has no good retreat route. I've once taken a unit off the map in one turn, when attacked from every direction and suffering Total Defeat on the table - I figured they had shattered with no place to go.

I'll also mark units that suffered any kind of retreat, usually by turning them over, and make them roll 1d6 per turn, looking for a 6 to rally. Adding a player-leader who is paying attention to the issue and give them a +1 on the die roll, maybe +2 if there's been a serious ongoing attempt.

(I also give a side +1 on the combat die roll for an engaged player leader; and roll for survival, with 5 = wounded and 6 = killed. I think I learned this from Martin & Bill! (From whom I learned just about everything else in umpiring, in fact. ) )

All good ideas from James.

I've a feeling that Barry has played with our group, so can give you an idea of what to expect at a game. Do contact me when you get back to the UK, Dutchy. You'll be very welcome to come to our games.

Martin

Thanks Martin, I would like to see a game in action. Yes Barry participated in a game at a show earlier this year, or perhaps late last year. He has watched a few others also.