The Sun Never Sets - Random Hidden Unit Generator - a solo game aid

 Today I thought I'd present a solo game aid that was a little more of a solo game aid. My first solo "The Sword and the Flame" game, "Disaster at Gakdul Wells", featured an Egyptian force in a makeshift fort being attacked by a bunch of Dervish. As such, there were no hidden unit needed, the Dervish just came blazing down the hills at the fort.

For my next game, I am doing a British supply column crossing through hostile territory in Zululand. For this action, I would like to have the Zulus represented by hidden unit markers so that I do not know if the position occupied by the marker is a real unit or a dummy marker.

To accomplish this, I have created another spreadsheet. It will allow me to use up to 60 hidden unit markers. I can enter the number of markers I want to use and a percent value for the number of dummy markers.

For my game, I am using two platoons of infantry, a troop of Natal Mounted Police, and a unit of hussars. For this force of four units there should be about twelve Zulu units. With that, I set the number of unit markers to 30 and the percent of dummy markers to 60. This should give me somewhere around the twelve actual units called for.

Next, I click the Create Units button. This starts the routine that writes the status of each marker to a hidden worksheet. Here is an example of the data generated.

Notice that data for 30 hidden unit markers has been generated. Also, 11 of the markers are actual units. The other 19 are dummy markers. Column "P" is the list of percentage values that can be selected from the main page. Column Q is used for the pick list on the main page that identifies if a unit marker has been spotted.

Here is what the game table looks like at the start of the game.

The British side enters the table.

The Natal Mounted Police have split up to scout both sides of the road.

Captain Gerard Moon is at the front of the column.

A nervous looking lieutenant Gilbert Cleaton leads the left platoon of 23rd Regiment of Foot (Royal Welsh Fusiliers).

lieutenant Josiah Collins, of the Natal Mounted Police, notices a rough patch of ground to his left. He goes over to investigate

Could this Hidden card be a real unit?

The unit marker is number 1, so I click in cell A2 (for this group of cells, the B column indicates the hidden unit card number) and set it to "Yes". In this case, the card is a dummy unit marker.

When unit marker 4 was spotted, it turned out to be a real Zulu unit. I place Zulu unit 4 on the table, in the spot where its marker is. Then I click the Wattie-Hootie Roll button.

What is a "Wattie-Hootie Roll"? Well, when playing a game with unit markers, it would be all to easy to just isolate 1 marker at a time and blast it away. What the "Wattie-Hootie Roll" does is to give a radius from the discovered unit and any unit cards within that radius are activated as well.

In this example, the "Wattie-Hootie Roll" says any cards within 12" are activated as well.

If unit 4 is the rightmost unit circled above, then the two markers next to it would be revealed. Should one or both of those markers be actual units, another "Wattie-Hootie Roll" would be made, and the radius is measured from the newly revealed unit. In this way, hidden units may get support from nearby friends. It might also spring an ambush prematurely.

I have placed the Hidden Unit Generator on my Google drive for those who want it. If you have any difficulty downloading the file, please let me know.

Thank you and happy gaming!