Appendix B - Iron Cow Variant:

In the introduction we said that you should not worry about using High Crusade to play games in other backgrounds, whether they are drawn from a book you've read, a film you've seen, another game system or even your own imagination. With this in mind we've taken the opportunity to include rules variations for a totally different background to the Gothic SF one of the Ion Age.

Iron Cow is another set of quick play SF rules produced by Wessex Games, this time for 6mm (1/300th, Epic) games using the futuristic universe designed by the author and Jon Tuffley for Ground Zero Games' series of SF wargames rules. Extrapolating from the current political situation on Earth, the background hypothesises Man's exploration of the stars and the attempts of various power blocs to gain advantage for themselves. Whilst totally hypothetical, the background will seem familiar to most players.

In the mid twenty-second century explored space is presently carved up between various human power blocs who by various means both diplomatic and military, attempt to gain the upper hand in a dangerous universe.

Occasionally, major conflict breaks out between the powers and the twenty-second century has seen three major conflicts; the First Solar War (2137 to 2142), the Second Solar War (2145 to 2157) and the Third Solar War (2165 to 2185). The main participants are the two major human power blocs. On one side we have the New Anglian Confederation, an Anglo-Canadian/American conglomerate; whilst on the other is the Eurasian Solar Union, a Communist Sino-Russian bloc. Various of the smaller power blocs periodically ally themselves with the two major groupings or supply them with mercenary forces. The most noteworthy being the Neü Swabian League (an Austro-German European Federation) who tend to favour the Anglians, the Federal Stats Europa (a French dominated European grouping) with ESU sympathies and the Islamic Federation (a Fundamentalist Muslim Saudi dominated bloc) who dislike everyone.

With Ground Zero Games producing a nice range of 15mm NAC and ESU infantry, as well as some excellent NAC, ESU, NSL and FSE 25mm troopers, we've taken this opportunity to include stats and rules amendments for this background, which we hope you will find of interest, especially if you play Iron Cow as well as High Crusade.

Organisation:

Fireteams should be organised as follows:

Larger military structures are as per the standard rules.

Initiative:

Modifiers to the Initiative die roll are as follows:

Firing:

The Defence Factors and Weapons tables for the Imperial Commonwealth are as follows:

Defence Factors:

The following weapons tables show the appropriate weapon for the respective nationalities troops. The percentage to hit factor takes into accounts the abilities of each nationality to be able to hit their target:

Hand to Hand Combat:

In the unlikely event of hand to hand combat occuring the following modifiers should be used:

Morale:

Morale die roll variants based on Nationalities are as follows:

Ambushes:

Ambush modifies to forces attempting to spot an ambush are as follows:

Snipers:

Sniper modifiers for forces attempting to spot a sniper are as follows:

All other rules are as per the standard rulebook. If you wish to develop stats for other human power blocs such as the Indonesian Commonwealth, Pan African Union or for smaller nations or even mercenary forces we'd love to see them. Adventurous gamers could also come up with stats (and some fresh rules) for introducing the alien Kra'Vak into the game...

© Wessex Games 1994, 2000