League Of Augsburg - Fighting Talk

Chaps,

Sanity check time. I am conscious of Clarity and closing loophiles but also that I do not want things to get too complicated. I am thinking of simplifying the effects of Terrain on movement by lumpng together almost every terrain type and rather than halfing, quartering etc etc.. applying variable movement within difficult terrain ie:

Foot & Horse minus D3 or D6 and of course Disordered.. what do you think?

Barry,

From a pure gaming standpoint that sounds like a lot of fun. But from a process standpoint it might slow things down as you'd have to roll for each individual unit for each time it came into contact with a terrain feature. I would offer to make the effect be a standardized reduction in movement, say a -2" or -1" for a given feature, horse & foot having different reduction amounts to apply. This is easier to remember and keeps with your focus of simplicity and speed of play.

Greg

Barry,

One thought came into mind where you could use the variable aspect as an optional rule. Have the players roll prior to the start of the game and apply those results to the movement reduction for horse and foot which would be used for the entire game.

My only argument would be cavalry have no place in dense woods.

The group is still reviewing the suggestion..

Again guys, really helpful points. I am still however inclined to take the 'cntrol element' away from players as much as possible.

Here is an example of what I mean..

taking Greg's very sensible idea:

Infantry ; -1 inch for moving in woods. Unknown woodland ahead - 9 inches long. Commander sends his troops in and knows for sure than in 4 turns they will be clear of the other side = arithmetical answer to a tactical question.

My counter argument is for vairable movement alloawnace is thus : commander orders a unit through unknown woods - it's a bit risky, they might be through in 2 turns they might be through in 5 turns ... no one knows for sure. The tactical decision to send them in then becomes much more spicy..

The tactical decision to send them in then becomes much more spicy..

I am in total agreement with your reasoning for adding variable movement and unknowns to other aspects of the game. We have a couple of players who these rules will confound and I'm happy to accomodate. I would just be mindful of allowing units access to areas they would not go.

Barry,

I really like the idea because historically we can read of many actions where this happened. My only concern, again, is the time factor it might have on the overall game. So, I thought of a small compromise. How about before the game starts certain terrain features are designated as 'unknown' which will cause the variable movement roll you are proposing. Not every feature needs to be variable but some on the board can and should be.

But I do agree that some unit types should not be allowed in certain terrain features.

Again.. very good ideas guys.. let me see what I can do with this.

Have worked in this tonight. The output is an amalgam of both sets of ideas: Most items are fixed but a few : dense woods and linear are variable distances.
Horse banned from Dense Woods

Guess I'm too late, but I really like the idea of variable movement. I think that is easier than having 4 different movement rates for infantry or horse in difficult, very difficult etc. terrain. Once you move in difficult terrain infantry move 1D3 and horse 1D6, and impassable terrain is...well, impassable...