Cabinette Wars

Chit Games – or how to equalise the inequitable.

[Pre-Cabinette Archives c.2014]

As I'm planning to re-run a 'Chit Game' of the Battle of Barnet at an upcoming gaming session in a few weeks time I thought I would post a quick description of how this game system works as I think it offers something different. 

I enjoy wargaming two-a-side, but sometimes, real life intrudes and someone drops out at short notice, and the camaraderie doesn't seem the same with two against one.  To overcome this, I wanted a game that played down the competitive element.  I sought to do this by making each player's battlefield command assigned randomly for each turn by drawing chits from a container, which is why I call these ‘Chit Games’.

The concept is simple, and not very original; every battlefield command on both sides is represented by a chit placed in a container and each turn the players, in a fixed sequence, draw a chit and play that command for the current turn.  If there are fewer players than commands the drawing sequence is repeated until all commands have been played; the drawing sequence continues uninterrupted into the next turn – it is not restarted each turn.

This means that players can command any or all troops on the table at some point during the game.  While fun, this doesn’t give the player a clear objective.  To provide this each player has a secret identity as one of the commanders on the table-top; determined by the secret drawing of slips before the battle commences.  Each identity has its own historical (or fictional) objectives that earn victory points (VPs).  This gives the player something to strive for; VPs being totalled at the end of the game to determine which player has won.  A player can still win even if his alter ego on the table lost.

The final touch, to stop players deliberately playing 'badly' when playing a command opposing their secret identity, is the ‘Identity Challenge’.  At the end of the game each player writes down a guess for each player's secret identity.  A correct guess gains a player extra VPs, and being guessed results in the loss of VPs!   Consequently, deliberately commanding troops in such a way as to lose to your on-table persona can backfire by tipping off the other players.  All of this hopefully makes a bit more sense in the following examples for the Battle of Barnet which was the first chit game I ran back in 2016.

Table-top Commands: these can be printed out and cut up as slips to draw for secret identities.  As well as the commander identities, they include some special rules for Warwick's Reserve command, and each commander's allegiances which will determine VPs.

Deployment and OOBs: the flags can be printed onto card and cut out to use as chits.  These OOBs were for the DBM rules but other rule sets are available.

Victory Points (VPs): and scenario specific rules.

Battle of Barnet, 1471: as refought in 2016 - my first ever chit game using DBM rules adapted for hexes.  The odds favoured the Lancastrians, as in real life, but included a number of special rules to recreate some of the unusual features of this battle arising from the foggy conditions.  The re-fight initially followed historical precedent as the armies, on sighting each other through the fog, found themselves misaligned each overlapping the other’s left flank.  Again, as per history, Hasting’s command broke first leading to some blue-on-blue action within the Lancastrian ranks (see special rules).  That however, was where the game parted company with the history books.  Unfortunately for Edward IV, the Lancastrian in-fighting just failed (by one element) to break Montagu’s command and from here on in the Lancastrian numbers started to tell and the Yorkists ended up fleeing the field. 

My friends and I have played many chit games since and always found them fun and surprisingly often give a narrative that feels more 'historic' and less 'gamey'.  They are also good for very unbalanced games as everyone usually gets the chance to experience wielding overwhelming force or trying to resist it.

Give it a go, you might like it.