I played a quick ECW Portable Wargame this afternoon, because I wanted to try a small tweak to the way combat results were resolved. I set up one side (the Royalists) with a small number of quality units, whilst the other (Parliament) had a larger, lower quality, force. I randomised the terrain, but made a small hill in the centre an objective, offering a morale bonus to any side holding it if they have to take a break test.
So here are the armies set up. The Royalists had three foot and three horse. One of the foot was commanded shot and was veteran, and one of the horse was veteran as well. The rest of their units were trained. Parliament had four horse and four foot, all pike and shot. One unit of each was trained, whilst the rest were all raw. In terms of SP both armies were roughly the same.
Parliament made the opening moves, moving their horse forward on their right. But failing to cover their flanks saw them attacked by the Royalist horse.
In fact the melee was inconclusive, despite the Royalist advantage. Meanwhile Parliament's infantry took the Royalist infantry on the hill under fire.
The cavalry melee on Parliament's right swung through 90 degrees as both sides fed more units into it. Both had horse on the other flank, but with it having dense terrain neither were likely to see much action.
Parliament's horse was soon overwhelmed, leaving the Royalist horse free to turn on the flanks of the enemy foot.
Parliament saved the day by commiting their reserve horse.
Except their reserve horse was outnumbered by the Royalists, and soon found itself in trouble. However with the pressure off Parliament was finally able to take the hill.
The Royalist foot were reluctant to advance, content to use musketry on Parliament's foot, but their horse continued the attack, seemingly indestructible.
Parliament was now forced to commit some of their foot to try and hold their right flank.
But it wasn't enough. The loss of all of their horse broke Parliament's army. The Royalists had taken a great many hits, and were heading towards their own breakpoint, but hadn't lost a unit.
The change I was trying was triggered a couple of times, but will need more play. Basically it is this:
When rolling for the effects of a hit, an unmodified die roll of 1 means that the unit loses 1SP and must then roll for the effects of a hit again applying the second result as well. This may be an unmodified 1, in which case keep rolling.
When rolling for the effects of a hit, an unmodified die roll of 6 means that the unit must retreat if it is able. You cannot lose an SP instead, unless no retreat is possible.
It is always interesting to see how rules deal with quality differences. In some the effects are so extreme that the Veteran Imperial Guard or whatever romp all o er the table, while in others, the big battalions always win. Some of this is period specific of course.
ReplyDeleteI like the suggested PW hit mod (mandatory results on 1 and 6) although the 1 result might be a bit powerful?
The '1' result is designed to make combats decisive from time to time; if you use SPs in PW it can be a bit attritional sometimes, but the One Hit Kills doesn't always cut it as an alternative being a bit too extreme in the other direction.
DeleteIn these rules all quality does is increase or decrease the amount of hits a unit can take before it's removed. In theory a large low-quality force should win more often, since it gets to activate more units each turn and make more combat rolls. The total number of hits each *side* takes is the same.
DeleteJolly interesting. Thank you for a solution to the somewhat confusing 'lose 1SP or Retreat option' Could you suggest a forum where I could ask for feedback on an ECW minicampaign map of mine ?
ReplyDeleteSorry it's taken me year to reply to this ...
DeleteFor Portable Wargame queries you can't do better than the Portable Wargame Facebook group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1834456900102155
Ah, right, I understand. Yes, we found that one hit kills was way too extreme for club games, whereas the standard system was indeed a bit too attritional.
ReplyDeleteFor some games (ACW and Space marine) I have tried a two hit system where a unit can be suppressed or forced to retreat by shooting, or killed or forced to retreat in close combat or if already suppressed. So cloe assault is decisive, but shooting is a little less so. The hit result on a unit is modified by it nominal SP and its quality (so elite space marines with an SP of 5 retreat on a 2+ but are destroyed on a 1. for example). Works well, but still needs some tweaking.
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