Creating a customised Reference Sheet

Reference sheets are unique in Optio in that they are army specific, i.e. you have a different sheet for each army vs another army. If you are playing Mid-Republican Roman vs Late Carthaginian you use a sheet tailored for those two armies. This allows the combat table and terrain effects chart to show only the troop types used for that game and also allows them to absorb about 80% of the modifiers that appear in other rulesets, leaving a short list of general modifiers that are replicated on page 2 of the sheet. IMHO it's one of the greatest strengths of Optio.

A customised reference sheet allows for something else: as many different troop types as the heart desires. Optio currently has 27 troop types and counting. My plan is to create as many troop types as would behave with a sufficient difference on the battlefield to be worth distinguishing.

The problem is how to create all the different ref sheets a player will need in the course of his illustrious career as a wargamer? Publish all the possible combinations (729!) in book form? How many players would plonk down money for that?

The problem bothered me for years until the solution finally hit me: give the players the tools to create the ref sheets themselves. For that I opted to use software that most people are reasonably familiar with: MS Word and Excel. 

I created a ref sheet template in Word, then a Master Combat Table and Terrain Effects Chart both in Excel. The Combat Table has every troop type cross referenced with every troop type, whilst the Terrain Effects chart also has every troop type represented.

So how does it work?

There are three templates and one set sheet you need to download: 

• The Reference Sheet template here.
• The second page of the Reference sheet here. You don't need to modify this, just print it out. 
• The Master Combat Table template here.
• The Terrain Effects Chart here. 

Step One

Open the Reference sheet template. It looks like this:

 The "REFERENCE SHEET" text is not editable, but you can edit the "ONE ARMY vs ONE ARMY". Select it and change it to the armies you are using for the game. In this example I've chosen Late Carthaginian vs Mid Republican Roman. Change the font to suit yourself.

 Step Two

Now open the Excel file "Master Combat Table." You will see this.

The table gives all troop types at the top vs all troop types at the side (right and left sides are the same).

First I renamed the armies in the boxes at the top left. Yellow box for the list in the row at the top and white box for the list in the column on the right and left sides.

Then starting with the top list, I eliminated the columns I didn't need, beginning with the left. I started by selecting the heavy cavalry. I placed the mouse pointer in the top left cell and dragged right and downwards to select the columns to delete. You have to select only part of the columns.

 Once the cells were selected, I right-clicked and chose Delete.

Then chose "Delete entire column(s)"

And voila, columns gone.

Then the next batch of unwanted troop types.

And so on until all unwanted the troop types in the top list have been removed. Also the leftmost column giving the list of troop types (I'll probably eliminate it in a future version of the Master Combat Table).

Then I passed on to the troop types in the side lists, starting with the heavy cavalry and this time choosing "Delete entire row(s)".

And so on until all the irrelevant troop types were gone.

Step Three

Now to copy the table to the Word template. First I selected everything remaining, right-clicked and chose "Copy".

Then I opened the Word document Reference Sheet template, right-clicked and chose "Paste." You need to choose the option "Paste as picture" in Word. I did this in Open Office Writer which is a bit different.

And the Combat table appears as a picture.

It can be resized by grabbing the corner handles and dragging.

Step Four

Now for the Terrain Effects Chart. I opened it in Excel.

Then selected the columns I didn't need, starting with the Cataphracts and Knights.

And deleted them.

Until I had only the columns I needed. The rows are left alone.

Step Five

Now to copy the table to the Word template. First I selected everything, right-clicked and chose "Copy."

Then pasted it (as a picture) in Word.

The two tables can be moved around and resized until they fit nicely. As for the broken border lines, you can fix them in Excel before copying and pasting into Word, but that's probably too much to explain in one post.

That's it. Save the Word document as "Carthaginian vs Republican Roman" or something like that. Then print it out. The second page is printed out as is, without changing anything. And you're good to go!