+Erik McGrath of +Inspired Press
Welcome to the design diary for what is currently called Boots on the Ground. Its a tabletop miniatures game of infantry combat in the Second World War. A typical game uses a platoon of infantry with attached support elements, though the rules are resilient enough to cover anything from a single team or crew up to a full company.Design Goals
The purpose of the game is to emulate the final, terrifying moments of an assault on an enemy position. To do this we need a rule system that lets us drill down to the individual warfighter without bogging down and taking too much time or being so complicated it gets frustrating in play.We want to know how each soldier is doing. So we have several degrees of morale (disrupted, broken, panicked), two types of injury (ambulatory, incapacitated) and three broad categories of ability (combat, discipline, physical) that are further subdivided when necessary to show a particular strength or weakness of unit.
Rules Framework
The most fundamental decision made so far is that we are using D12s. Half a dozen of them has been enough to quickly resolve a team or squad's actions. Mathematically they are useful since 12 is evenly divisible by 6,4,3&2 so when we need quantities in those ranges we can roll D6s, D4s, D3s and D2s as well. It also let's us add in critical/fumble rules that a D6 would not work as well for. Since we are trying to measure the effectiveness of the individual soldier its handy to know when one member of a team has jammed their weapon and a fumble is an easy way to show that.
Its a roll-under system and the average trooper has a rating of 4 in everything. So they have a 1 in 3 chance (barring modifiers) of hitting a target, passing a morale test or avoiding incapacitation. The basic trooper also has abase movement rate of 4" on the tabletop. This represents cautious, tactical movement where they keep low and use available cover to good effect. Elite troops have higher values, especially in Combat and Discipline while green or conscript troops have lower values.
A single die is used to determine the initiate effect of a single action. That could mean rolling 6 dice when 6 men use their rifles to make direct attacks or it can be a single roll using their NCO's Command rating to direct the team's combined fire when making a suppression attack. The latter is much more common due to the ability of suppressive fire to inhibit movement, but even in that case you might make several rolls for a single squad to represent the fire of its riflemen and also its MG (German) or automatic-rifle (US) team.
The turn sequence uses distinct attacking/defending player turns with several blended phases. The Command and Suppression phases are only available on your own turn as is the choice to initiate a close assault or firefight. The movement and shooting phases however allow both players to participate with the active player having more options. If this reminds anyone of Squad Leader that is not a coincidence. When we originally started this ruleset we used the ASL turn sequence verbatim. It has since evolved to be a better fit for when we want to see happen but the influence is still clear.
On the tabletop soldiers maneuver in teams typically lead by an NCO though some specialists, particularly MG and support weapon teams, can operate without an NCO present but it does limit some of their tactical options. Leaders are absolutely vital to maintaining morale under fire as well. Soldiers withing their command radius use the leader's morale score to shake off disruption counters and there is an additional phase after the general rally subphase where leader's get a chance to remove additional disruption counters from men within their command radius.
Its a roll-under system and the average trooper has a rating of 4 in everything. So they have a 1 in 3 chance (barring modifiers) of hitting a target, passing a morale test or avoiding incapacitation. The basic trooper also has abase movement rate of 4" on the tabletop. This represents cautious, tactical movement where they keep low and use available cover to good effect. Elite troops have higher values, especially in Combat and Discipline while green or conscript troops have lower values.
A single die is used to determine the initiate effect of a single action. That could mean rolling 6 dice when 6 men use their rifles to make direct attacks or it can be a single roll using their NCO's Command rating to direct the team's combined fire when making a suppression attack. The latter is much more common due to the ability of suppressive fire to inhibit movement, but even in that case you might make several rolls for a single squad to represent the fire of its riflemen and also its MG (German) or automatic-rifle (US) team.
The turn sequence uses distinct attacking/defending player turns with several blended phases. The Command and Suppression phases are only available on your own turn as is the choice to initiate a close assault or firefight. The movement and shooting phases however allow both players to participate with the active player having more options. If this reminds anyone of Squad Leader that is not a coincidence. When we originally started this ruleset we used the ASL turn sequence verbatim. It has since evolved to be a better fit for when we want to see happen but the influence is still clear.
On the tabletop soldiers maneuver in teams typically lead by an NCO though some specialists, particularly MG and support weapon teams, can operate without an NCO present but it does limit some of their tactical options. Leaders are absolutely vital to maintaining morale under fire as well. Soldiers withing their command radius use the leader's morale score to shake off disruption counters and there is an additional phase after the general rally subphase where leader's get a chance to remove additional disruption counters from men within their command radius.
Scale
The game first started in 25mm then shrunk to 1/72 (22mm). The slightly smaller scale allows form more space to maneuver and makes a big difference when using vehicles. We went with it over the still smaller 15mm due to the difficulty we had basing and using individual models at that scale.
We do, however, use a slightly smaller ground scale of 1" = 10' rather than the strict 1"= 6' than 1/72nd implies. On a 6'x4' table this scale gives a scale playing area of 480'x720' which is well within the effective range of small arms. A rifle with iron sights can legitimately threaten a target across the short dimension and a good shooter can extend that across the long dimension. With a scope things get a lot easier and support weapons have no trouble reaching out across the table.
We do, however, use a slightly smaller ground scale of 1" = 10' rather than the strict 1"= 6' than 1/72nd implies. On a 6'x4' table this scale gives a scale playing area of 480'x720' which is well within the effective range of small arms. A rifle with iron sights can legitimately threaten a target across the short dimension and a good shooter can extend that across the long dimension. With a scope things get a lot easier and support weapons have no trouble reaching out across the table.
The Designers
This a joint project between myself and my father, Danny. He served as a Field Artillery Surveyor (82C at the time, 13S under the new system) during the 80s. He plied his trade in Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East and now he's applying his combat experience plotting targets and directing fire to game design. He also designs most of the scenarios with an eye toward authenticity, often using portions of actual battles.
I'm a game designer (mainly card games) with a BS in physics. My job is to make sure the rules actually do what we want them to do mathematically and to convert the effects of explosions and such into scale. And of course to write about it.
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