A FIRST BATTLE ============================================================================== This walks through the opening of the Battle of Hook's Farm, which is the game Wells describes at length in his fourth chapter. You have three guns, forty-eight infantry and twenty-five horse. So has your opponent. 1. PUTTING DOWN THE MEN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choose the battle, choose your side and choose your opponent's temper, then press "Put down the men". The two forces are set out on their own back lines and the toss decides who moves first, exactly as Wells has it. 2. GUNS FIRST ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ At the start of your move, deal with your guns before you touch a single man. Once a man has moved, your guns are done for that move, and the panel will tell you so. To this rule there is no exception. A gun is in action only when there are four men of its own side within six inches of it. Fewer than that and it can neither be moved nor fired. Keeping men beside your guns is most of the game. 3. LAYING A GUN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Click a gun. Rings appear round it showing what it may expect at each range -- these are measured, not guessed. At a foot the gun hits a standing man 80 times in a hundred; at two feet 48; at three feet 31; at five feet 23. Click the ground to lay and fire. You may fire as many as four shots in a move, or move the gun instead by pressing M, but never both. The bolt is not a die roll. Watch where it goes. A shot that falls short still rolls, and a shot that rolls into a man kills him. A shot that takes a file of men lengthways will lay several of them down at once: over 200 shots at a close file of eight, the average was 2.68 men down a shot. Fire down the length of a body, never across it. 4. MOVING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Click a man and a circle is drawn round him at the scale of the floor: one foot for an infantry-man, two feet for a cavalry-man. Click inside it to move him. He cannot walk through a house, a wall or a stream, and he must end clear of his neighbours. Take cover as you come on. A wall or a wood does not give you a modifier; it stops the bolt. 5. THE MELEE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ At the end of your move, any of your men touching an enemy start a melee, and everyone within six inches of the men in contact is drawn into it. Then count: equal numbers every man on both sides is killed the smaller supported each of them kills one of yours and dies the smaller isolated the surplus takes prisoners, the rest kill a man each and are killed A body is isolated when it has less than half its own number within a move of it. This is why charging is dangerous: against a supported body you trade man for man and gain nothing. Charge what is isolated, and charge to take a gun. 6. PRISONERS AND GUNS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ One man can escort as many as seven prisoners, and they are freed the moment that escort is shot. A gun is captured when no man of its own side is within six inches of it and four of yours have passed its wheel axis. A gun is worth 10 points -- the price of 10 infantry-men -- so it is usually the thing worth going for. 7. THE END ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A fought-out battle is scored at 100 for the victory, 10 for every gun you hold or are in a position to take, 1.5 for a cavalry-man, 1 for an infantry-man, and a half for every prisoner, whether you hold him or he is yours and held. A skilful retreat therefore saves points, and a man walked off your own back line is out of the battle but still counts.