Quality vs Quantity

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.