Mighty Mean-Fowt Fights - Changes

In an earlier post I said how I'd been rejigging parts of 'Mighty Mean-Fowt Fights'. In this post I will summarise the changes I'm looking at, although not in detail, as they would be a bit tedious.

Turn Sequence

I am switching to a simple Side A Goes - Side B Goes system with no initiative roll, as this created too many situations where the double move a side could get could be devastating. In addition I have scrapped the artillery fire phase and just have artillery firing with everything else. Ideally I would like some kind of activation system, but I haven't decided what that will be yet.

I am considering allowing a unit to either fire or initiate close combat, but not both. Firing is 'safe', in that there's no risk to the unit doing it, but close combat offers a greater 'reward' in that you can force an enemy unit from its current position.

Combat

The combat bonus from leaders has gone, but all units hit on a 4+ rather than a 5+. In addition they score two hits on a 7+.

Firing

There are no specific changes here, but it is now possible to score two hits (see above).

Close Combat

Both sides now roll simultaneously, with the side scoring the most hits being the winner and actually being able to apply those hits to the enemy. Ties are broken by the lowest roll, which seems odd, but favours the side with the most positive modifiers - the one with the advantage in other words.

I have scrapped flank attacks, although facing still affects some combat factors. There is still a bonus for attacking with more than one unit. There are more factors relating to the interaction between different troop types. I still need to come up with some rules for cavalry fighting in bad terrain, however.

A victorious phasing player can pursue.

Disorder Markers

One of the biggest changes. One of the design goals of the game was that there were to be no markers. I then compromised on one - disorder. A unit was either steady, disordered, or routed, and disordering a unit with a marker was fatal. This lead to very quick, bloody fights, but sometimes excessively so. I have now opted for units being allowed multiple markers, up to a limit based on their troop type. If they exceed that limit, they are destroyed.

Rally

Retreat in the rally phase means that the unit cannot move later in the turn. Rally is the only thing affected by leaders and the unit's quality. However I am considering removing the troop quality modifiers from the rally roll and factoring them into the firing and close combat to-hit rolls instead. so that poor troops are easier to disorder and good troops harder.

Leaders

Their only effect is to boost rally rolls. If lost an army does without them for one rally phase, then they may be replaced.

So far the changes are holding up fairly well, but I need to play a few more test games before starting to write them into the rules properly and releasing them onto the Free Stuff page. Part of the problem is that I keep changing ideas around from day to day; I need to discipline myself, stick to a particular set of changes and concentrate on them.