Sunday 23 March 2008

Command & Control - Ideas (2)

I found the time to play test the rules a few days ago and found a number of problems. See the Battle of Greenford for details. While playing I made a number of tactical errors, which were based on playing the game assuming normal control. One factor may cause problems in offense.defense games is that it increases the time that the attackers spend under fire, especially artillery.

Firstly as mentioned by Steve it's quite slow. The idea was mainly to provide a mechanism to allow solo play. I also found that by allowing for the casualty effect meant that non-commanded units had it a bit too easy. The solution to both is to drop the casualty effect from the calculation. It's already covered in a sense by the morale and other factors, so it is probably overkill.

As expected sending troops into woods caused command/control problems as they often missed the required dice roll, even if they were just 2 lower. Using the commander was similarly a problem. I hadn't added this as a factor, but given they have to fall back to do so then the command distance is increased and the issue is adequately covered this way.

I will now use the following

+2 if the commander is with the unit (attached)
-1 Per 12" away from the commander
-2 If out of sight of the commander
+1 if a well trained unit
-1 if a poorly trained unit
-1 "group" move (several units belonging to the same commander moving together)
+1 if the CinC is within 6" of the commander (optional)

After all command rolls are completed any individual units that have not tested for command can test independently needing a 3 of lower be be able to move (still with +/-1 for training).

Saturday 8 March 2008

Rules available as Word document

A copy of the rules is now loded on esnips at link

Will