Gents,
It has been a while, for various reasons, since I've been able to frequent this board. However, opportunities have arisen, as of late, which let me once again lurk and occasionally post.
I am in the final stages of preparation for beginning my long awaited 1708 imagi-nation campaign and after a few intro games for some of the players who had not played previously, I am seeing some potential problems for the future.
Essentially, I want to have varied deployments and battlefield objectives which will help avoid a consistent series of set-piece battle for my players. "Set up 12" from your table edge and GO!" seems a bit stilted. So, here I am looking for suggestions for or even directions to a source of solutions to that end.
1)
As it stands now, my campaign requires each player to organize his military and create, by die rolls, the stat abilities for his generals. Here is a brief run-down of what is pertinent to BLB2 rules (as they are the tactical rules for the campaign):
Skill - determines the tactical competence of the general (plodder, etc.)
Initiative - strategic level determiner if the general will attack when ordered to do so or take matters into his own hands and attack without orders.
The problem with initiative is that since BLB2 is a game of simultaneous order placement and movement, it has no real value for tabletop games.
My current line of thinking is that initiative tie into the pre-battle phase, of terrain set up and figure placement.
Courage - Determines whether or not a leader (general or even regimental colonel) will join a unit in close combat in a battle or assault on a BUA.
Health - When a leader is a casualty, a die is rolled for wound severity, resulting in either death, critical wound, serious wound, or minor wound. The latter three results subtract from the health stat (also removes character from table for that battle and potentially other battles) for that character; when a character reaches 0 health, he dies.
I am content with how I have associated Skill, Courage, and Health, but not fully satisfied with Initiative. I want that skill to be of value at the tactical level, but am running into a wall with it. So, please, if you have suggestions, share them.
2)
As for battlefield objectives, I am wanting more than a couple of ways for battles to be resolved (50% of units routed, player decides to retreat).
The player-nation armies are already fairly small. Few will have more than a dozen battalions and six to eight squadrons, in total. At least, to start with. However, they can seek the loan of troops from the major powers, and from each other. So, the desire to limit one's losses is already built in as a factor.
However, I don't want all of the decisions left up to the players. There needs to be some level of unpredictability so that significantly smaller armies stand a chance of winning a battle, else the players will always retreat smaller armies.
What I am considering is to add a number of battlefield objective markers for each side, during a battle. These would be placed by each commander, prior to writing his overall battleplan. Each marker would have a value of -1, -2, or -3, which represents a negative morale impact on whichever side is not currently in possession.
For example, Side A is defending a hilltop which has a -2 marker on it. Now, Side B counts has having 2 units routed for the purpose of fulfilling the optional Army Morale Check on page 69 of the rulebook.
OR
Another thing I was thinking of doing was taking the Army Morale Check to a d10 and then modifying the roll result based on the Courage of the leader (a range of -3 to +3) and the value of any objective marker his enemy currently possesses, still needing the required number (not posting it as it is in the rulebook) or less to fail.
Again, any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.
Note: I have Donnybrook on backorder with a US supplier, so we will be using those rules for whatever skirmish games we end up playing in the campaign.