Mons, 1914: The Mad Minute will include the 2.0 version of the Rifle and Spade series rules; the 1.0 version shipped with Gallipoli, 1915: Churchill’s Greatest Gamble. 

In the last chapter I described the new fire resolution method. In this chapter I will describe the streamlined charts used for assault resolution.

There are two ways you can “damage the enemy” in Rifle and Spade:­ by fire or by assault. Fire is slow; if you really want the hex then it is in with the bayonet (or saber). Assault is fought as a series of rounds. Every round of assault has a result; by design Rifle and Spade avoids the problem in some other tactical systems where assault is a long dice fest with few results. Assault continues until either one side is eliminated, is forced to retreat, or voluntarily retreats. Assault is decisive.

In Rifle and Spade version 1, the assault modifiers were included in the large DRM table, which made them difficult to find. There were only a handful of modifiers, so for ease of use they have been moved to a small separate table in version 2. The Mons table is below (playtest artwork):

18.4.3 Assault Shifts Table

The defender’s terrain provides one shift, the situational shifts apply in unusual circumstances. The assault sequence is laid out in the charts and tables, next to the assault table for easy reference. The attacker and defender add up their assault values, which is the number of rifle steps for the attacker, and rifle steps plus machine guns and (rarely) artillery for the defender. The two assault values are cross-referenced into the assault table, and the shifts applied. The final cell will look like this (artwork from Gallipoli):

Each round of assault is resolved by one roll of percentile dice. In this case, a roll of 00 through 77 will eliminate one step of defenders, a roll of 82 or higher will eliminate an attacker, and a roll in the middle will cause a step loss to both sides. As always, a step loss causes a morale check, a failure will force one side or another to retreat. The following youtube video has some detailed examples:

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