We All Make Mistakes

I've played several games using the OHW Horse & Musket rules now, with and without changes of my own, and it was only yesterday that I realised that I'd been playing them incorrectly all this time. Somehow I had confused the limited movement allowed when charging (one pivot of up to 45 degrees) with the pivots allowed when moving. These latter are unrestricted, but I'd been playing them as 45 degrees maximum as well - one 45 degree turn at the start of your move and one at the end.

Doh!

Now I confess I'd been a little concerned as to why units turned so slowly - no more than 90 degrees in a turn - and that fact that it was difficult for units to fall back, but I'd just put that down as a quirk of the system. Now the falling back is obvious; a unit turns 180 degrees, moves then turns 180 degrees again. Easy.

I played a couple of games last night with this proper level of mobility and I confess that I found units were now too mobile. There was something about the restricted mobility I'd been playing which seemed right, even with the oddities I'd observed. So I set to thinking if that maybe there was a middle ground to be found. I came up with this:

During the movement phase a unit may:

1. Move full distance, with a pivot either at the start of the move or at the end of the move.
2. Move half distance, with a pivot both at the start and the end of the move.
3. If a Skirmisher, move half distance, with a pivot either at the start or the end of the move, and then fire.

A unit coming out of square is assumed to have pivoted at the start of its move.

The Skirmisher section would replace my current change which allows them to move freely then fire at half range. Now the can move and fire, but get a shorter move. Units can fall back facing the enemy or move to the flank, but at half speed. This makes more sense.

I shall see how this plays out in practice in some more test games this week.