Nativity Wars – Combat Rules for Nativity Figurines.

Hey kids!

How many times has this happened to you:

You’re stuck at Grandma’s house for the holidays with nothing to do. Everything smells like mothballs, and you’re expected to sit quietly on the plastic-covered furniture and stay out of the way. As the hours roll by, you grow stuporous in the close heat next to the fireplace.

But wait! What’s this? Scattered among the knicknacks are at least two or more competing Nativity scenes with individual figurines. And where there are figurines, miniature wargaming cannot be far behind.

These rules are intended to be simple enough to remember even when you’ve got no access to a rulebook, and flexible enough to create balanced battles for two or more players, even in circumstances where some players may have better nativity scenes than others.

I. COMPONENTS

Figures

To play Nativity Wars, you will need at least one nativity set per player. At a minimum, each nativity set should have (1) separately-based individual figures (as opposed to a diorama or nativity in which one or more of the figures are fixed permanently in place), (2) a Mary figurine, (3) a Joseph figurine, and (4) a Baby Jesus and manger (Baby Jesus can be molded into the manger, as long as the manger itself is separately-based from the other figures).

Terrain

Terrain consists of the furniture and objects in any spare room that doesn’t contain boring grownups. Please note that there must be sufficient accessible flat surfaces to set up the figurines at least 3-4 feet apart from each other, and that care should be taken to play only with relatively sturdy figurines. Avoid using a family heirloom nativity scene, especially if someone is going to cry if you accidentally step on Melechenidzar (or whatever that particular Wise Man’s name is). For the most part, play should occur on a floor that is flat, and that is not covered in deep pile or shag carpeting.

Equipment

You will need two ordinary wooden rulers or tape measures, and at least six ordinary dice.

Sequence of Play

1. Disrupted Units Recover

2. Units Move

3. Opportunity Fire Check

4. Ranged Attacks

5. Close Assault Attacks

6. Check for Disruption

7. Apply Combat Casualties.

Army List

Baby Jesus

Attack Strength: 6; Defense Strength: 5; Move: 1; Ranged Attack Strength: 6 (Range: 6)

Mary

Attack Strength: 4; Defense Strength: 5; Move: 3; Ranged Attack Strength: 3 (Range 3); Close Assault Attack

Joseph

Attack Strength: 3; Defense Strength: 4; Move: 5; Close Assault Attack; Defense at +2 when in broken terrain or under close assault.

Wise Man (Mounted)

Attack Strength: 3; Defense Strength: 3; Move: 5; Ranged Attack Strength: 1 (Range 3); Close Assault Attack

Wise Man (Dismounted)

Attack Strength: 3; Defense Strength: 3; Move: 3; Ranged Attack Strength 3 (Range 3); Close Assault Attack

Barnyard Animal

Attack Strength: 2; Defense Strength: 4; Move: 6; Ranged Attack Strength 0 (no ranged attack)

Shepherd

Attack Strength: 2; Defense Strength: 2; Move: 5; Ranged Attack Strength 5 (Range 1); no Close Assault Attack

The Secret Pleasures of Dictionary Appendices

Before the first day of school in the 7th grade, my mom bought my required school supplies at Gibson’s Discount Store in Sherman, Texas. Among other things, I got a blue denim three-ring binder for my schoolwork.

As a kind of “extra value” incentive to buy the binder, the manufacturer had added the “Webster’s Abridged Scholastic Dictionary.” This was a sort-of cheapie knock-off dictionary, consisting of maybe 50-70 pages of cramped, incomplete, cut-n-paste definitions taken from some public-domain source. (“Webster’s” isn’t a protected trademark or service mark, so even the most pathetic dictionary publisher can slap that name on the cover in order to “class-up” the place.

The fascinating thing for me was the appendix. Actually, I’ve always been a fan of dictionary appendices; they represent a kind of exuberant digression from the serried ranks of definitions that make up the bulk of the dictionary.

For example, here are some of the various handy fields of non-definitional trivia that one can get from the 1981 edition of the Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Co.):

• The English Language and its History
• Foreign Words and Phrases
• Biographical Names
• Geographical Names
• Colleges and Universities
• Signs and Symbols
• A Handbook of Style

These appendices have all sorts of interesting things. For instance, “Signs and Symbols” has a “Miscellaneous” section, wherein I learn that this thing -> “/” is a diagonal, or maybe a slant, or a solidus, or a virgule. From now on, when I’m reciting a URL over the phone, I’m going to say, “http, colon, virgule, virgule, double-u, double-u, double-u, stop, atavisticnarrativist, stop, wordpress, stop, com.”

Also, the infinity symbol is used in weather charts to indicate “haze.” See, that’s your fancy-pants collegiate experience right there. Who needs secondary education? And in his thoroughly entertaining, “The English Language and Its History,” Professor W. Nelson Francis of Brown University outlines the significant aspects of linguistic morphology from the end of the Neolithic Age through the Atomic Age.

But while the respectable Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary has all sorts of charts and figures of general usefulness, I am even more fascinated by the editorial inclusions and scholarship associated with el crappo public domain knock-off reference works.

I couldn’t find the sad dictionary of my youth, but the following excerpts from the editorial goodies in the “Little Scholar’s Budget Dictionary” (Copyright 1971, Steel-Oh-Graph Instruments Co.) are a close substitute for the original:

Little Scholar’s Budget Dictionary

Appendix B: Useful Information

FORMS OF ADDRESS FOR BUSINESS AND PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE

Address of Clerical Orders

1. An abbot should be addressed as “Right Reverend [Name], Abbot of [Name of Monastery]. The form of written salutation should be “Right Reverend and Dear Father:”

2. An archdeacon should be addressed as “The Venereal the Archdeacon of [Name of Episcopate]. The form of written salutation should be “Venereal the Sir, Upright!”

3. A patriarch of an Eastern church should be addressed as “His Beadledude, Patriarticle of [Name of Patriarchate]. The form of written salutation should be “Most Beat Lord.”

…

21. A rabbinical dentist should be addressed as “Rabbi [Name], D. D. S.” The form of written salutation should be “Dear Dr. Dentist Rabbi [Name].”

22. A papal spouse should be addressed as “Her Holiness Madame Mrs. Pope.” The form of written salutation should be “Most Holy Madame.”

23. A retired vice-pope should be addressed as “His Emeritus.” The form of written salutation should be “Your Vice-Holiness (ret.).”

Address of Government Officials

…

12. Cabinet officers should be addressed as “Cabinetter [Name], Secretary of [Name of Cabinet].” The form of written salutation should be “Dear Mr. Cabinet Person.”

…

20. An American chargé d’affaires should be addressed as “[Name], Esquirrel, American Chargé d’Affaires.” The form of written salutation should be “Dear Sir or Madame.”

TRADITIONAL AND MODERN ANNIVERSARY GIFTS

TRADITIONAL

1st – Twigs

2nd – Dirt

3rd – Damp Rags

4th – Twine

5th – Charcoal

6th – Sack Cloth

7th – Hard Tack

8th – Brackish Water

9th – Wood Pulp

10th – Salt Lick

15th – Cabbage

20th – Dung Heap

25th – Socks

50th – Masticated Wheat Germ

MODERN

1st – Gold Chains

2nd – Motor Oil

3rd – Premium Cable

4th – His-n-Her’s Tattoos

5th – Vanity Plates

6th – Trash Compactor

7th – Post-Nup

8th – Surgical Sterilization

9th – Flat Screen TV

10th – Plastic Surgery

11th – New Roof

12th – Commemorative Collectibles

13th – Blu-Ray

14th – Hair Plugs

15th – Rebuilt Transmission

20th – Hip Replacement

25th – Celebrity Cruise

50th – Assisted Living

GEOLOGIC AGES

ERA – Years Go – Earliest Record of Plant or Animal

Preozoic – 1.142 billion years ago – unvertibrates

Oldozoic – ?? billion years ago – no-see ‘ums

Crambrian – .62 billion years ago – ambulatory fungus

Ordinarian – .5 billion years ago – stick-fish

Slurrian – ?? billion years ago – slimy hedges

Devourian – .39 billion years ago – carnivorous fruiting trees

Massachusettsian – ?? billion years ago – vegetables, ambiguans

Pittsburgian – .3 billion years ago – soft-shelled clumpers

Permanentian – .23 billion years ago – cyclops trees

Tricyclic – .2 billion years ago – three-toed kinkos

Gerbic – 160 million years ago – small woolly mammouses, malingering hummoxes

Curioastic – 100 million years ago – birds, primordial breakfast cereal grains

Septic – 70 million years ago – platytigeroids, flat-tailed ground crumps

Piltocene – 50 million years ago – mumoths, tufted grottos

Epilocene – 25 million years ago – armored budgies, six-legged horsebats

Opposumene – 20 million years ago – Age of the Opposums

Troubalene – 10 million years ago – flying articulids, mushoxen

Burbalene – 1 million years ago – orcs, catfish, ocean-cheese

Gangrene – .5 million years ago – Age of the Musical Glaciers

Docilene – .2 million years ago – Rise of the Hummits

Presentene – Today

Dear Birthers – Go Large, or Go Home

I find it very tiring to communicate with people who persist in holding to the so-called “birther” delusion. (For electro-archeologists from the year 2821, I’m referring to the degenerate fatheads and bigots who incessantly argue that President Obama is somehow not a U.S. citizen).

Frankly, as conspiracy theorists go, these slack-jawed throwbacks annoy me in part because they lack panache. President Obama is not a citizen? That’s the hill they want to die on? Really?

Pitiful.

To show the Birthers how its really done, I have enlisted the assistance of my guest blogger, the Reverend C. R. Dunwoody, DTs, pastor of the 33rd Street True Bible Church of Christ the Revenant, Fort Merkin, Tennessee:

Thank you for letting me communicate to the ignorant damned through your devil’s instrument of lightning and death.

Hello, I am the Right Reverend C. R. Dunwoody, Doctoris Theosophilia scolex, and paster of the True Bible Church.. Most days, I spend my time ministering to the damned and spreading the message of Christ the Destroyer, but today I’m going to get secular on you and talk politics.

The other day, the Widow Faber came up to me after service, and asked me if I knew anything about President Obama being a foreigner, because Fox News said he was. Well, I just had to laugh. If the truth was a pea, then Fox News would be the shell game.

Oh, I’ve heard them mewling and cringing. “Oh, Obama is a sleeper agent. Obama is KGB. Obama is a subject of the British Crown. Obama was born in Kenya. Obama was born at sea under a Liberian flag of convenience. Obama, Obama, Obama.”

People, open your eyes. Use your brains. The whole swirling debate about Obama’s citizenship is a smokescreen. It is a bluff. It is the magician waving his wand so that you don’t notice his assistant switching out the handcuffs. Think, people. You are being duped by a pantomime so that you fail to ask the real question.

Why hasn’t Barack Obama submitted himself to independent medical analysis? Why hasn’t his campaign volunteered anything other than delays and excuses when I have asked for his DNA? Why has not one of the so-called “physicians” at the Reed Medical Center responsible for the President’s care bothered to respond to my reasonable request that they review my proof that (unlike any other member of the human race) President Obama has a nictating membrane behind each of his eyelids, and is capable of seeing well into the ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum?

You notice that Lou Dobbs never asked any of these questions? You notice that Glenn Beck never asked any of these questions? You notice that Ann Coulter (born as Theodore “Ted” Coulter) never asked any of these questions? I’ll tell you why. It’s easy to pick up on some little piddly boring technical dispute, blowing smoke about this or that made-up legalistic hoo-ha. “Oh, this birth certificate looks funny.” “Oh, Barack sounds like a foreign name.” “Oh, I saw an Arab at the grocery store.”

And everybody nods their head and says, “Hm. Well isn’t that fascinating?” “Hm. Well isn’t that provocative?” And then the tea-baggers and the toe-cheesers can just go to town, beating each other over the head over a story about as factual as “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Meanwhile, the real story is sitting right under your nose. Forget about asking where President Obama was born, or who he was born to. You should be asking where President Obama was grown, and who or what supervised his design and construction.

Okay, first, what we call the “State of Hawaii” didn’t even exist until August 14, 1978. All our evidence of Hawaii, everything our senses represent to us about the physicality of the Hawaiian Islands, all our personal memories, all the pictures of the last Queen of Hawaii, all the ukulele’s, all the “Hawaiian Punch.” Don Ho, hula dancers, and “Hawaii Five-O” reruns are sophisticated global psychic Id-projections. If you had walked up to a guy on the street on August 13, 1978 and asked him what “Hawaii” was, he would have shrugged his shoulders, or eyed you quizzically. But go up to the same man on August 14, 1978 and ask the same question, and he would have said that “it’s the 50th state, … I went there as a kid when my dad was stationed at the naval base, … one Summer we rented a houseboat near Waikiki; … here’s an old Hawaii postcard that I’ve saved in my wallet … etc.”

So you all can go on and worry about “candidate eligibility,” while the very foundations of epistemology crumble to the ground all around you. If your thoughts and sensory perceptions can be hijacked globally, imperceptibly, and instantly, that not a single fact, image, memory, object, or idea has any meaning or validity. The veil of the world has torn away, and you are shivering and naked in the dark.

Why is it that I wasn’t affected? Well, I don’t know, but there are several explanations. (1) God spared me for a greater purpose; (2) My mind is a bulwark against manipulation because I have trained it to a razor’s edge; (3) In the darkest days of my previous sinful life (before being lifted up to ride upon Jesus’ Dinosaur of Glory), I huffed benzene (a known mutagen) while everyone else I knew was huffing glue, so I might have some kind of mutant force; or (4) By being raised in a household where we didn’t hold with godless creeping humanist ideas about “Geography” and “Geology,” I was predisposed to resist the effects of the Id-Projector.

Now, you may ask, “Why would anyone ‘make up’ Hawaii?”

Through the Spring and Summer of 1978, the inexplicable and undeniable appearance of what were quaintly called “spacecraft” or “UFOs” and “aliens” (in their halting attempts to speak, they called themselves “Sleeth”) in and around the naval base in the Lesser New Belgian Antilles had led to a progressive decay in the institutions of civil order all over the world. The breakdown of governments and mass rioting accelerated when a translucent 7-foot tall “ambassador” from another universe informed the members of the U.N. General Assembly that a periodic “culling” would occur among human populations commencing on August 15.

Things turned ugly toward the end. I could hear the explosions throughout town, and saw black smoke rising from the power plant.

And then at midnight, an eerie quiet unexpectedly fell over the world. In an instant, the memory of the islands that Captain Cook had discovered for England, strode upon and christened “Nova Cymbria,” as well as the bloody Anglo-Flemish Conflict that transferred ownership of those islands to Belgium eighty years later was universally erased and nullified.

The world you know is not the world. As you sit there reading the newspaper, elephantine translucent beings snuffle and slide around you, checking your eye movements, measuring your vitals, and assessing you for some unarticulated alien purpose.  The former site of the City of Nieuw Bruges is now a graded and polished platform of solid volcanic obsidian, six miles in diameter and mirror smooth, but no one knows why. Occasionally, enormous mirror-smooth reflective spheres emerge from sinkholes, and then race upward into the sky.

The cullings continue. When the cullings come, its the one time that I wish I could live in the made-up world that you live in.

But President Obama, or the “B’u'rak Ubram” (as the Sleeth call their construction when speaking through their puppet bodies) is a new thing, a doppleganger that emerged naked and blinking from an iris door that had opened in the side of the structure on the island of Flaendres that they call the “primary cylinder.”

My theory is that President Obama is intended to be a go-between or facilitator of human-Sleeth interactions. Unlike most of the Sleeth, he was “built” to be aware of, and interact believably with the objects and residents of our false world. At the same time, I suspect that he can function equally well in the real world, and that by being able to see both “overlays” of reality, he remains the living incarnation of a neutral diplomatic party. I think his construction was a desperation move, and that his existence indicates that the Sleeth are struggling to contain some problem or instability that they can no longer control. Because he’s the one “real” thing that the world has been allowed to see, I’m hoping that a medical examination can crack the hold that the Id-Projector has on the rest of you.

Well, the sun is setting out here in Eastern Tennessee, and I’ve got to go. Although you are all damned to the eternal fire for your indelible stain of filthy sins, I hope you have a nice day. I leave you with this quote from the Book of Jeptha, verse 7:16, from the True Bible:

And in that time, Hob of Arythmia came to the temple of the Feather Merchants, and he was sore wroth. And he said unto them, ‘Whither do you sell down pillows for three drachma, when all about you in lesser lands than this they can be had for one and a half or maybe two drachma? Be not thou a rapacious pillower, whose mind unmeetly goeth as a belt that misses all the belt loops on thy pants. For is it not said that if thy pants shall fall about thy ankles, curse not, but accept that you must shuffle comically about in shameful nakedness.

Apollonian and Dyonysian

So, here I am, post-Christmas, playing some Angry Birds on my wondrous. new Kindlefire. Anyway, I pointed out to Rachel that even though birds seem more Apollonian than pigs,its the pigs that turn out to be the builders.

Optional Rules for After the Holocaust – Continued, continued

3. Do you enjoy “After the Holocaust” but find the “Red Dawn” era backstory irritating? Does the thought of a survivable nuclear war just seem silly (it certainly did to Mr. Simonsen’s fellow game designer Greg Costikyian)? Not feeling the Cold War nostalgia? Well, friend, look no further. Here’s an alternate backstory that’s going to look just as dated as the official one:

Some Game Color and Flash

The immediate cause of the Second American Civil War lay in President Harrison’s refusal to leave office following the election of 2024 (often dubbed the Year of Four Presidents), but the seeds of conflict had been sown long before, with the civilian government’s increasing reliance on private security companies.  The transformation or devolution of these corporations into mercenary bands coincided with the decades-long philosophical evolution that had radicalized the increasingly violent nativist wing of the Republican party.

….

President-elect Stevens, from his home state political base in Los Angeles, commanded the loyalty of most elements of the U.S. Army and state National Guard units.  While the Department of Defense wavered, its internal politics roiled by a deep and increasingly violent split between its civilian and career military policymakers, field commanders registered their deep dissatisfaction with Harrison’s unilateral coup, and publicly indicated that they would enforce the orderly constitutional transfer of power to Stevens.

….

Stevens’ assassination by radical white supremacists set in motion the first tentative plans by the British Commonwealth and the European Union to initiate some form of humanitarian intervention in the United States.

….

While Harrison publicly condemned Stevens’ murder, he privately contracted with radical right-wing elements to intimidate and murder Stevens supporters at the regional and local level.  World opinion turned even more sharply against Harrison when he failed to respond to the violence.

….

Harrison, increasingly emboldened, made a national address on April 4, 2024 in which he declared that “[t]he burden of Empire is to make the world anew, to bend both history and the future to the will of the common man, to take back that which was our birthright.”  Two days later, a domestic terrorist band identifying itself as the “Sons of the South” seized and later demolished the Lincoln Memorial, killing a number of black and Hispanic hostages as part of a staged media event.  Harrison’s equivocal response to the event led many to believe that he was generally supportive of racially motivated genocide.

….

Admiral Howell, deputy assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, invoked the 25th Amendment, and declared that notwithstanding the White House physician’s endorsement (seconded by the cabinet, Vice President, and Speaker of the House) that Harrison was mentally sound and fit for the Presidency, the nation was effectively without a chief executive.  Rather than throwing in with Stevens’ running mate, Vice-President-Elect Peterson, Howell declared that in the absence of any of the federal officials ahead of him in line of succession demonstrating any capacity or will to serve, he was now the acting President as a matter of law.  Whatever the merits of his legal claim, Howell commanded the absolute respect of most command elements in the Pacific Fleet, including the fleet’s nuclear-missle-armed submarines.

….

What began with regional sectarian violence in March of 2025 had blossomed into near universal conflagration by late December of that year, as other nations found themselves drawn into what had previously been a contained proxy battle for North American resources.  Chinese intervention in the Pacific Northwest was particularly costly to that nation, as the occupying Chinese peacekeeping forces found themselves cut off and out of supply as a result of the escalating Indian interdiction in south-central Asia.  Admiral Tzui’s orderly evacuation of Portland on August 4th and 5th turned into a rout when the Canadian expeditionary army tightened the Columbia River blockade.

….

By mid-summer of 2027, General Fischer’s decision to respond preemptively to the separatist communes’ warhead thefts led to one last spasm of internecine city-busting, and almost immediately to the final dissolution of the United States as an identifiable political entity.  Harrison and the rump government had no effective control or presence outside the walls of the West Virginia mountain bunker, and by the following winter, the remaining members of the cabinet and “shadow” Congress had either died of starvation or disappeared into the Appalachians.

- Campbell, Adnan and Robert Sutherland, A Concise History of North America (3rd Ed. University of California Press 2109), at 522-524, 528.

Optional Rules for After the Holocaust – Continued

2. Optional Rule for Canada

To accommodate a fifth player, consider treating Canada as a separate politically independent region, with a capital control area at Hex 1320 – London, Ontario. The Canadian player also gets three additional fuel sites, reflecting sources that are not depicted on the game map.

Canada is a severely handicapped region, with almost no manufacturing capacity. The Canada player should probably expect to serve only as a spoiler, or be assigned to a player who is also responsible for other recordkeeping (such as the Federal Reserve player).

Nevertheless, Canada tracks its economy just like the other four regions, making trade and allocation decisions each turn. Add the following to Rule [5.1] Initial Resources Chart:

CA (Canada)

Areas (Good)     5

Mech in Farm    5

Dom. Transp.    5

Res. Transp.      1

Labor (Total)    25

Consumer Pts   5

Free Mech          2

Metal Sites         2

Fuel Sites           3

Plants                  1

Stockpiled Materials

Food                 10

Metal                  3

Fuel                     5

Cash                  16

Optional – The Canada player always gets 20 points added to its adjusted victory point score.

Optional Rules for SPI’s “After the Holocaust”

No, no no. It’s got nothing to do with WWII or the Nazis.

“After the Holocaust” is an interesting board game from the fervid wellspring that was SPI, the home of such game luminaries as Jim Dunnigan, Greg Costykian, Redmond Simonsen, Irad B. Hardy, and others. When I say that this game is “interesting,” I mean that it is interesting that a wargame publisher in the late ’70s would think a game about the economic, social, and political recovery and reunification of the United States (following a general thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union) would be a big seller. One of Redmond Simonsen’s rare turns as a game designer (rather than as a graphic designer), the game is a polemic to some extent. The players don’t so much play against each other. Rather, after repeated plays, players come to realize that the game is emphasizing just how hard it is to re-industrialize a subsistence agricultural economy. The players play against the game rules, and it is quite easy for all the players to lose.

The premise is that in 1982, an overconfident American President begins installing a massive complex of anti-missile defenses around the United States, after conducting several highly public and wildly successful test interceptions of ICBMs. Terrified at what they assume is a prelude to a general nuclear strike at the U.S.S.R., the leadership of the Politburo decides that the last window of opportunity for a retaliatory strike is closing. With “Mutual Assured Destruction” suddenly off the table, the U.S.S.R. launches everything its got against the U.S.

Four days later, less than 20 percent of the human race is left alive, and over the following five years, roughly half of the survivors die of starvation. Then power centers begin to form out of various groups or organizations that were lucky enough to survive in some coherent form. In New England, remnants of New England Bell Telephone form a core of social cohesion. In Texas and Arkansas, paramilitary groups and survivalists begin an aggressive expansion. In the Midwest, an apocalyptic and militant cult grows out of the conservative Missouri Synod. And in California, regional Bank of America offices become the core organizational elements of a new Bear Republic.

I’m not faulting the game for its backstory or color. And in fact, there are very few wargames that enforce economic cooperation among all the players – there really is no way to win the game without making agreements and sticking to them. The game offers the temptation of backstabbing (such as in other diplomatic/macro-scale games), and at least technically any player can spend resources to build military units. But the food economy is so fragile that any player that maintains even one or two standing military units is doomed to starve his or her entire population back to the stone age. (Wargamers who do not “get” the point of the game usually adopt some house rule that makes military units cost-free, with which they then go around pummeling each other. Sigh).

Anyway, the game puts each player in the role of an Excel spreadsheet; and therein lies the reason why the game was not a big seller for SPI. It was as exciting as double-entry bookkeeping.

Nevertheless, I found the game intriguing, partly in awe of the late Mr. Simonsen’s ambition. To attempt to model four regional economies in the context of a boardgame was remarkable; the game tracks industrial investment, primary and secondary industrial production, consumer standards of living, political plebiscite and the use of corruption to subvert elections, unemployment, food storage, depreciation, shrinkage, command economies, labor strikes, opportunity costs of inter-regional trade, geographic effects on raw material availability and food production, and so on. And even with all this, the game made a number of simplifying assumptions.

Anyway, what follows will only be of interest to a tiny (possibly non-existent) population of fans of this obscure game:

 

Optional Rules for After the Holocaust

1. Adding a Touch of Verisimilitude to the Game

Notice how the “After the Holocaust” map of the continental United States is divided up into 60 irregularly shaped areas, but that none of the areas are named? There’s something to be said for providing a little additional color to the game by giving recognizable names to each of those areas. In addition, each area has been numbered (to facilitate random selection, used in some of the optional rules such as “brigandage”), and five “off the map” areas in Mexico have been suggested. The “Hex” references are to the map reference number associated with each urban control center:

Vancouver – Hex 1704

Area 1

Adjacent to: areas 2 (Regina), 6 (Kennewick), and 12 (Butte)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Regina* – Hex 1609

Area 2

Adjacent to: areas 1 (Vancouver), 3 (Winnipeg), 12 (Butte), 13 (Billings), 17 (Gillete)

Resources:  Fuel –1

*Consider changing this to Calgary, adding Saskatoon (as Area 3), making Winnipeg Area 4, and London, Canada as Area 5 – removing Ignace as an area

 

Winnipeg – Hex 1612

Area 3

Adjacent to: areas 2 (Regina), 4 (Ignace), 17 (Gillete), 18 (Bismarck), 19 (Fargo)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Ignace – Hex 1615

Area 4

Adjacent to: areas 3 (Winnipeg), 5 (London), 19 (Fargo), 34 (Pulaski), 60 (Burlington)

Resources:  Metal –1

 

London – Hex 1320

Area 5

Adjacent to: areas 4 (Ignace), 34 (Pulaski), 38 (Saginaw), 58 (Syracuse), 59 (Akron), 60 (Burlington)

Resources:  Metal –1; Plant –1

 

Kennewick – Hex 1504

Area 6

Adjacent to:  areas 1 (Vancouver), 7 (Eugene), 8 (Boise), 12 (Butte)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

Eugene – Hex 1303

Area 7

Adjacent to: areas 6 (Kennewick), 8 (Boise), 9 (Carmel)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Boise – Hex 1305

Area 8

Adjacent to: areas 6 (Kennewick), 7 (Eugene), 9 (Carmel), 10 (San Simeon), 11 (Alamosa), 12 (Butte), 14 (Marbleton)

Resources:  Metal –1; Plant –1

 

Carmel – Hex 0902

Area 9

Adjacent to: areas 7 (Eugene), 8 (Boise), 10 (San Simeon)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

San Simeon – Hex 0802

Area 10

Adjacent to: areas 8 (Boise), 9 (Carmel), 11 (Alamosa), 15 (Flagstaff)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Metal –1; Plant –3

 

Alamosa – Hex o908

Area 11

Adjacent to: areas 8 (Boise), 10 (San Simeon), 14 (Marbleton), 15 (Flagstaff), 16 (Albequerque), 21 (Oshkosh), 22 (Pueblo)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Metal –2

 

Butte – Hex 1507

Area 12

Adjacent to: areas 1 (Vancouver), 2 (Regina), 6 (Kennewick), 8 (Boise), 13 (Billings), 14 (Marbleton)

Resources:  None

 

Billings – Hex 1408

Area 13

Adjacent to: areas 2 (Regina), 12 (Butte), 14 (Marbleton), 17 (Gillete), 21 (Oshkosh)

Resources: Fuel –1

 

Marbleton – Hex 1207

Area 14

Adjacent to: areas 8 (Boise), 11 (Alamosa), 12 (Butte), 13 (Billings), 21 (Oshkosh)

Resources:  Metal –1

 

Flagstaff – Hex 0707

Area 15

Adjacent to: areas 10 (San Simeon), 11 (Alamosa), 16 (Albequerque), 33 (Lubbock)

Resources:  None

 

Albuquerque – Hex 0709

Area 16

Adjacent to: areas 11 (Alamosa), 15 (Flagstaff), 22 (Pueblo), 30 (Dodge City) 33 (Lubbock)

Resources:  None

 

Gillete – Hex 1410

Area 17

Adjacent to: areas 2 (Regina), 3 (Winnipeg), 13 (Billings), 18 (Bismarck), 20 (Pierre), 21 (Oshkosh)

Resources:  None

 

Bismarck – Hex 1412

Area 18

Adjacent to: areas 3 (Winnipeg), 17 (Gillete), 19 (Fargo), 20 (Pierre), 24 (Sioux Falls)

Resources:  None

 

Fargo – Hex 1413

Area 19

Adjacent to: areas 3 (Winnipeg), 4 (Ignace), 18 (Bismarck), 23 (St. Cloud), 24 (Sioux Falls), 34 (Pulaski)

Resources:  None

 

Pierre – Hex 1312

Area 20

Adjacent to: areas 17 (Gillete), 18 (Bismarck), 21 (Oshkosh), 24 (Sioux Falls), 25 (Stapleton)

Resources:  None

 

Oshkosh – Hex 1110

Area 21

Adjacent to: areas 11 (Alamosa), 13 (Billings), 14 (Marbleton), 17 (Gillete), 20 (Pierre), 22 (Pueblo), 25 (Stapleton), 29 (Stockton),

Resources: None

 

Pueblo – Hex 1010

Area 22

Adjacent to: areas 11 (Alamosa), 16 (Albequerque), 21 (Oshkosh), 29 (Stockton), 30 (Dodge City)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

St. Cloud – Hex 1314

Area 23

Adjacent to: areas 19 (Fargo), 24 (Sioux Falls), 26 (Omaha), 34 (Pulaski), 35 (Dubuque)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

Sioux Falls – Hex 1213

Area 24

Adjacent to: areas 18 (Bismarck), 19 (Fargo), 20 (Pierre), 23 (St. Cloud), 25 (Stapleton), 26 (Omaha)

Resources:  None

 

Stapleton – Hex 1113

Area 25

Adjacent to: areas 20 (Pierre), 21 (Oshkosh), 24 (Sioux Falls), 26 (Omaha), 27 (Unionville), 29 (Stockton)

Resources:  None

 

Omaha – Hex 1114

Area 26

Adjacent to: areas 23 (St. Cloud), 24 (Sioux Falls), 25 (Stapleton), 27 (Unionville), 28 (Davenport), 35 (Dubuque)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Unionville – Hex 1014

Area 27

Adjacent to: areas 25 (Stapleton), 26 (Omaha), 28 (Davenport), 29 (Stockton), 32 (Tulsa), 44 (Little Rock)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Davenport – Hex 1015

Area 28

Adjacent to: areas 26 (Omaha), 27 (Unionville), 35 (Dubuque), 37 (Peoria), 40 (Cairo), 44 (Little Rock), 45 (Rosedale)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

Stockton – Hex 0912

Area 29

Adjacent to: areas 21 (Oshkosh), 22 (Pueblo), 25 (Stapleton), 27 (Unionville), 30 (Dodge City), 31 (Wichita), 32 (Tulsa)

Resources:  None

 

Dodge City – Hex 0811

Area 30

Adjacent to: areas 16 (Albequerque), 22 (Pueblo), 29 (Stockton), 31 (Wichita), 33 (Lubbock)

Resources:  None

 

Wichita – Hex 0812

Area 31

Adjacent to: areas 29 (Stockton), 30 (Dodge City), 32 (Tulsa), 33 (Lubbock), 42 (Amarillo), 43 (Wichita Falls)

Resources:  None

 

Tulsa – Hex 0813

Area 32

Adjacent to: areas 27 (Unionville), 29 (Stockton), 31 (Wichita), 43 (Wichita Falls), 44 (Little Rock)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Lubbock – Hex 0511

Area 33

Adjacent to: areas 15 (Flagstaff), 16 (Albequerque), 30 (Dodge City), 31 (Wichita), 41 (San Angelo), 42 (Amarillo)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Pulaski – Hex 1317

Area 34

Adjacent to: areas 4 (Ignace), 19 (Fargo), 23 (St. Cloud), 35 (Dubuque), 36 (LaSalle)

Resources:  Metal –5; Plant –1

 

Dubuque – Hex 1116

Area 35

Adjacent to: areas 23 (St. Cloud), 26 (Omaha), 28 (Davenport), 34 (Pulaski), 36 (LaSalle), 37 (Peoria)

Resources:  Metal –1

 

LaSalle – Hex 1117

Area 36

Adjacent to: areas 34 (Pulaski), 35 (Dubuque), 37 (Peoria), 39 (Evansville)

Resources:  Plant –5

 

Peoria – Hex 1016

Area 37

Adjacent to: areas 28 (Davenport), 35 (Dubuque), 36 (LaSalle), 39 (Evansville), 40 (Cairo)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Plant –1

 

Saginaw – Hex 1319

Area 38

Adjacent to: areas 5 (London), 39 (Evansville), 59 (Akron)

Resources:  Plant –5

 

Evansville – Hex 1018

Area 39

Adjacent to: areas 36 (LaSalle), 37 (Peoria), 38 (Saginaw), 40 (Cairo), 55 (Louisville), 59 (Akron)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

Cairo – Hex 0817

Area 40

Adjacent to: areas 28 (Davenport), 37 (Peoria), 39 (Evansville), 45 (Rosedale), 49 (Memphis), 53 (Chattenooga), 55 (Louisville)

Resources:  Fuel –2

 

San Angelo – Hex 0412

Area 41

Adjacent to: areas 33 (Lubbock), 42 (Amarillo), 47 (Corpus Christi), 46 (Shreveport)

Resources:  None

 

Amarillo – Hex 0612

Area 42

Adjacent to: areas 31 (Wichita), 33 (Lubbock), 41 (San Angelo), 43 (Wichita Falls), 46 (Shreveport)

Resources:  Fuel –3

 

Wichita Falls – Hex 0613

Area 43

Adjacent to: areas 31 (Wichita), 32 (Tulsa), 42 (Amarillo), 44 (Little Rock), 46 (Shreveport)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Little Rock – Hex 0715

Area 44

Adjacent to: areas 27 (Unionville), 28 (Davenport), 32 (Tulsa), 43 (Wichita Falls), 45 (Rosedale), 46 (Shreveport)

Resources:  None

 

Rosedale – Hex 0615

Area 45

Adjacent to: areas 28 (Davenport), 40 (Cairo), 44 (Little Rock), 46 (Shreveport), 48 (Baton Rouge), 49 (Memphis)

Resources:  Metal –2

 

Shreveport – Hex 0515

Area 46

Adjacent to: areas 41 (San Angelo), 42 (Amarillo), 43 (Wichita Falls), 44 (Little Rock), 45 (Rosedale), 47 (Corpus Christi), 48 (Baton Rouge)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Plant –2

 

Corpus Christi – Hex 0213

Area 47

Adjacent to: areas 41 (San Angelo), 46 (Shreveport)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Plant –2

 

Baton Rouge – Hex 0416

Area 48

Adjacent to: areas 45 (Rosedale), 46 (Shreveport), 49 (Memphis), 50 (Biloxi)

Resources:  Fuel –1

 

Memphis – Hex 0616

Area 49

Adjacent to: areas 40 (Cairo), 45 (Rosedale), 48 (Baton Rouge), 50 (Biloxi), 53 (Chattenooga)

Resources:  None

 

Biloxi – Hex 0417

Area 50

Adjacent to: areas 48 (Baton Rouge), 49 (Memphis), 51 (Tallahassee), 53 (Chattenooga)

Resources:  None

 

Tallahassee – Hex 0420

Area 51

Adjacent to: areas 50 (Biloxi), 52 (St. Petersburg), 53 (Chattenooga), 54 (Charleston)

Resources:  None

 

St. Petersburg – Hex 0321

Area 52

Adjacent to: area 51 (Tallahassee)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Chattenooga – Hex 0718

Area 53

Adjacent to: areas 40 (Cairo), 49 (Memphis), 50 (Biloxi), 51 (Tallahassee), 54 (Charleston), 55 (Louisville)

Resources:  Fuel –1; Metal –1; Plant –2

 

Charleston – Hex 0621

Area 54

Adjacent to: areas 51 (Tallahassee), 53 (Chattenooga), 55 (Louisville), 56 (Wilmington)

Resources:  None

 

Louisville – Hex 0919

Area 55

Adjacent to: areas 39 (Evansville), 40 (Cairo), 53 (Chattenooga), 54 (Charleston), 56 (Wilmington), 57 (Norfolk), 59 (Akron)

Resources:  Fuel –3; Plant –1

 

Wilmington – Hex 0822

Area 56

Adjacent to: areas 54 (Charleston), 55 (Louisville), 57 (Norfolk)

Resources:  Plant –2

 

Norfolk – Hex 1022

Area 57

Adjacent to: areas 55 (Louisville), 56 (Wilmington), 58 (Syracuse), 59 (Akron)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Syracuse – Hex 1323

Area 58

Adjacent to: areas 5 (London), 57 (Norfolk), 59 (Akron), 60 (Burlington)

Resources:  Fuel –2; Metal –2; Plant –5

 

Akron – Hex 1120

Area 59

Adjacent to: areas 5 (London), 38 (Saginaw), 39 (Evansville), 55 (Louisville), 57 (Norfolk), 58 (Syracuse)

Resources:  Fuel –2; Plant –6

 

Burlington – Hex 1524

Area 60

Adjacent to: areas 4 (Ignace), 5 (London), 58 (Syracuse)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Northern Mexico Areas (For use with “Mexico” Optional Rule)

 

Chihuahua

Area 61

Adjacent to: areas 15 (Flagstaff), 16 (Albuquerque), 41 (San Angelo), 62 (Monterrey), 63 (Los Mochis)

Resources:  Metal –2; Plant –2

 

Monterrey

Area 62

Adjacent to: areas 47 (Corpus Christi), 41 (San Angelo), 61 (Chihuahua), 65 (Guanajuato)

Resources:  Fuel –6; Plant –1

 

Los Mochis

Area 63

Adjacent to: areas 10 (San Simeon), 15 (Flagstaff), 61 (Chihuahua), 64 (Puerto Vallarta)

Resources:  Metal –1

 

Puerto Vallarta

Area 64

Adjacent to:  areas 63 (Los Mochis), 65 (Guanajuato)

Resources:  Plant –1

 

Guanajuato

Area 65

Adjacent to:  areas 61 (Chihuahua), 62 (Monterrey), 63 (Los Mochis), 64 (Puerto Vallarta)

Resources:  Plant –1, Metal –2, Fuel –2

—-

To Be Continued