Micro Maipo - More Pictures

Here's a few more pictures of yesterday's Micro Maipo HOTT variant game.

I forgot to add in the original post that the scale makes each element equivalent to about 400 men.

The Royalist army.

The Patriot army.

The initial setup.

A view from behind the Royalist left flank.

The Patriot advance, initially full of enthusiasm, but destined to end in inertia and confusion under the Royalist guns. That second-rank Patriot element in the foreground of the picture is facing the wrong way as well.

The Royalists await the Patriot attack.

The Royalist artillery accounts for another Patriot infantry unit.

I'm still pondering what to do with columns in this variant. After some games we played last year, Caesar and I did discuss making them more vulnerable to artillery fire. The problem is, of course, that they only exist as a function of close combat, as they are created by the HOTT rear-support rule. One thought I have had is that they subtract one from a losing score in close combat against artillery, or where artillery provided an overlap or flank support. This would make Militia in column a very risky thing to use. Another adjustment I am looking at is to make columns impetuous under certain circumstances - an element of infantry that receives rear support pursues a close combat opponent if it is in its own bound, and the opponent is infantry or artillery. The supporting element pursues as well, or course.

There's always room for tinkering in rules ...