[Pyramid] Tactical Mass Combat

[vierasmarius]

Another idiosyncrasy I just noticed: because the Fire Range of an element is based on its WT, low-tech Bowmen and Musket/Rifle Infantry are given a shorter range than the (generally lighter) ranged weapons wielded by Chariots and Cavalry. Each hex is supposed to represent roughly 100 yards, so foot archer range could be 2 hexes relatively easily, but the shorter bows of mounted archers (and the difficulty of aiming from horseback) should probably limit them to 1 hex.

[Mailanka]

Upon further examination:

Mounted have +1 movement, and move twice as fast as infantry on roads. Infantry has slightly faster movement across streams (potentially), suck at attacking built up areas or swamps, and gains no defense bonus from defending built up areas.

(Also, TL 0-4 artillery seems to have a range of 3 to 4 period, and nothing more. Granted, that's slightly better than archers, and you could probably create rows of infantry: Spearmen, then Archers, then Catapults. One hex away from the mass, you get hit by the catapults. Once you're in contact with the spearmen, you get hit by the catapults and the archers, and then the spearmen can attack you).

Artillery and Fire have obvious benefits. C3I does too (not that it pertains to TL 0-4 combat, which is what I'm focused on at the moment). Recon helps before the battle. Cavalry, the actual tag, as you say, doesn't seem to do anything.

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

That's true, but in the case of Close Combat up to four elements may stack per hex, and multiple hexes can attack simultaneously, so you can potentially have scores of individual soldiers on each side of a melee. That an engagement of that scale could ever end with 100% casualties on one side and 0% casualties on the other stretches my credulity to the breaking point. It may be a necessary abstraction, but I like to think we can come up with another option that's more granular, without being unduly complicated.

Point.

But how would you represent it? You represent pinned by flipping over a counter and eliminated by removing it from the board. When you're dealing with dozens, or more than a hundred, tokens, this seems pretty reasonable. If you need to start saying "This guy is at half TS," how would you do that?

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Point.

But how would you represent it? You represent pinned by flipping over a counter and eliminated by removing it from the board. When you're dealing with dozens, or more than a hundred, tokens, this seems pretty reasonable. If you need to start saying "This guy is at half TS," how would you do that?

You may not need to. I agree that attrition to a single element may be below the resolution of the system, but what about a skirmish where each side takes some casualties? For instance one combat result could be, "Enemy destroyed, Attacker loses elements equal to 1/4 TS". No messing around with flipping over tokens or using damage counters, you just remove one in four of the attacking elements. Rounding could be an issue, so should be decided on ahead of time. The specific units lost could be controlling player's choice, or rolled randomly.

As it is, the only situation where a stack engaged in Close Combat could lose some but not all of its elements is if it's forced to Retreat, but not all elements can do so (either because they lack mobility, or there's no room to run). Hmm... perhaps that could be expanded, such that if highly mobile attackers force slower defenders to retreat, they could press the attack, potentially catching some enemies as they flee. Maybe treat it as a second attack by any Cavalry units that took part in the initial assault, but only if they were ones that advanced into the vacated hex. Both the retreating units and pursuing units would reasonably be at a penalty in this second engagement (1/2 TS?), though if the defender manages to retreat into a hex occupied by fresh allied troops, those ones would fight unpenalized.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

You may not need to. I agree that attrition to a single element may be below the resolution of the system, but what about a skirmish where each side takes some casualties? For instance one combat result could be, "Enemy destroyed, Attacker loses elements equal to 1/4 TS". No messing around with flipping over tokens or using damage counters, you just remove one in four of the attacking elements. Rounding could be an issue, so should be decided on ahead of time. The specific units lost could be controlling player's choice, or rolled randomly.

As it is, the only situation where a stack engaged in Close Combat could lose some but not all of its elements is if it's forced to Retreat, but not all elements can do so (either because they lack mobility, or there's no room to run). Hmm... perhaps that could be expanded, such that if highly mobile attackers force slower defenders to retreat, they could press the attack, potentially catching some enemies as they flee. Maybe treat it as a second attack by any Cavalry units that took part in the initial assault, but only if they were ones that advanced into the vacated hex. Both the retreating units and pursuing units would reasonably be at a penalty in this second engagement (1/2 TS?), though if the defender manages to retreat into a hex occupied by fresh allied troops, those ones would fight unpenalized.

That's not a bad idea. You could say "You lose (a fraction) of your forces, minimum 1."

At the lowest possible level, nothing changes. You maintain the granularity of the encounter, but at extreme engagements, with lots and lots of elements beating the hell out of one another per side, you don't run into the Civ syndrome of "How did I lose an entire army to a bad roll?"

I'd probably say the remaining forces must retreat.

It would make close combat much less decisive. I'd have to playtest it to see if that's a problem.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

It would make close combat much less decisive. I'd have to playtest it to see if that's a problem.

Actually, I'd most like to see it incorporated into the mid-level results, where currently a stalemate or retreat inflicts no casualties. If instead a stack of units forced to retreat would lose some fraction of its forces (probably rounding down, so it would never lose its final element on a retreat) this could speed up combat by making small-margin failures add up over time.

Let's see... borrowing a note from the regular Mass Combat rules, perhaps a tie in Close Combat (a NE result) would cause each side to lose 10% of its TS. This likely wouldn't come up unless one side was attacking with combined forces from multiple hexes (for 10+ elements) or had an extreme disparity of TS in a single hex. I'd use the full TS of each element to determine casualties, so even if an artillery unit contributes only 10% of its TS to a melee, it would take casualties based on its full TS. If one side retreats, it would take casualties based on the degree of failure. There are always three Retreat results between No Effect and Eliminated, so those could correspond to 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 casualties. Impetuous units would be a special case, since they are all lost on a result of AR. I'd still count those against the regular casualties though. For example, if 4 Infantry units with equal TS, 2 of them Impetuous, attacked an enemy and were driven back with 1/4 or 1/2 casualties, both Impetuous units would be lost; with 3/4 casualties, the Impetuous units and 1 of the remaining ones would be lost.

[vierasmarius]

Oh, just noticed something else which could do with more detail. The "Pin" result means that the defender is taking heavy fire, and will be destroyed with a second Pin, but it doesn't do anything to restrict its movement or attack options (as I at first thought). I could see it not being cumulative (ie, the defender isn't destroyed by 2 consecutive Pin results) but instead gives the target a TS penalty (perhaps x1/2, making destruction by subsequent Fire attacks more likely, but also making it easier to defend against or assault in Close Combat.) The attrition rules I discussed above wouldn't work here, since Fire attacks only target a single element at a time. This might weaken ranged combat though, so may need playtesting to see how balanced it is. Perhaps a Pinned unit could be treated as Demoralized, preventing it from attacking or moving adjacent to an enemy.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

The "Pin" result means that the defender is taking heavy fire, and will be destroyed with a second Pin, but it doesn't do anything to restrict its movement or attack options (as I at first thought)

Oh, I though that, too... Also I noticed that usually it's no problem for the acting side to be pinned because at the end of the turn the elements get unpinned - you can only be pinned two times in the same turn if there are at least two different attacks, which happened rarely in my games.