I brought my coffee upstairs this morning and looked at the table covered in disorder markers which tended to blend in with the units. What was the Aim again?
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| Two turns later, with modified rules in play, a Reb unit has punched their way through the Yankee first line. Well, the rump of a Reb unit anyway. |
I started by wondering if I really did need to bring back a disorder status after having once again managed to banish it as an explicit state. At this stage of battle with a close range firefight raging, it was hard for officers to get troops to cease fire and move forward unless the enemy started to give way. On table, it would be quicker and easier to just treat everyone involved in a close range firefight as being "disordered" without any markers.
OK, so what about commanders and orders?
What was a Brigadier's job?
Essentially to coordinate his regiments and carry out the orders given him by his Division commander, to keep higher command informed and to risk his life leading his men in action.
The last bit is covered by my usual rules for leaders in combat (not included here), the first bit is covered by requiring the brigadier to be present to make a group move. We don't really need to concern ourselves with him beyond those two things, especially if there are as many as 20 of them on the table at once as could happen in a large game.
What was a Division Commander's job?
Unless he is the highest officer on the field, his job is to implement his orders, use his judgement, keep higher command informed and coordinate his brigades and only in desperate situations to risk his life trying to lead troops in person. (Not that they weren't at risk of stray shells and bullets, not to mention snipers, regardless of where they were.)
Really this is the Player's job and ideally one should have a player for each Division Commander and higher but in a solo game, they are all me as is the Commanding Officer on each side. If I stick with some sort of simpler activation/orders table then a modifier there is probably enough for now.
So hits and stand removal. If I don't have a disorder result and don't really want to track hits or have units evaporate, what is my best option? After much pondering and a bit of die rolling I think the easiest way to meet my criteria is to remove a stand for each 2 hits dropping remainders. (One could carry them over but...) Here is where I can use some of those marker figures again. Units may start the game with up to 3 markers each depending on unit quality. Each marker can be used once to make a saving throw or as an extra die in charge combat. This would give crack units a small edge, not need any immediate work from me, and help reduce clutter as the game goes on instead of increasing it.
Since the disorder is gone, I have replaced it with the assumption that at long range a combination of skirmisher and long range rifle fire are causing a trickle of casualties resulting in the urge to stop and fire despite orders and officers.
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| Overview from the other flank. |
So now how do the stripped down core command and combat rules look now?
COMMAND
Active player rolls for each detached unit or formed brigade before moving it:
5,6 Move Full
3,4 Move 1/2
1,2 No advance
+1@ if Division or Corps General within 6"
+1 Full strength
-1 Within 12" of enemy
SHOOTING/CHARGE
1 d6 per inf stand, 2d6 per arty stand.
Side moving shoots 1st unless charging. Apply hits
Side moving 2nd then shoots unless charging. Apply hits
Roll for all charging units and apply hits
Arc of fire per stand, fire at tgt closest to front. Target is unit. Allocate all dice against target before any are rolled at it.
Hit on 4,5,6 at point blank, 5,6 at close, 6 at long
-1 vs cover
Rifles: contact/6"/12"
Artillery: 6"/18"/36"
CHARGE RESOLUTION.
If at least 1 stand remaining, units taking more hits (not stand losses) than inflicted will retreat a full move and must reform next turn. If still in contact charger must fall back at least 1" and may retreat up to a full move and must do so if mounted cavalry. If defender eliminated or forced back, charging unit may occupy position.
I do like the command rule mechanism it looks very clean and simple, easy to apply (remember) in games, and gives variable movement. The previous version had rally, is this handled elsewhere in the rules? Or is zero still a failed rally?
ReplyDeleteI've removed the disorder combat rezult so need to rally from it.
DeleteI have a copy and have read them years ago but never played them.
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ReplyDeleteCharlie Wesencraft book Practical Wargaming for fun has an interesting set of ACW rules that keeps everything simple with no disorder. There may be some ideas you could borrow.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in seeing where you go with this as I have recently got out my old ACW 28mm collection and I am reorganising and rebasing it and was wondering what rules to use or whether to write my own.
I read through PW some 15 yrs ago but it didn't resonate with me so I never picked up a copy. Something I should probably do.
DeleteMy aims for this collection have shifted a couple of times over the last decade but once I organized and rebased it to integrate a large donation with my own figures I became determined to NEVER redo it for this army. (A rash determination but I'm discovering that sometimes its good to have a fixed point of reference.)
I may have missed it, but do you have a mechanic for units retiring under fire / fleeing from charges? From what I remember reading about the ACW, while it was rare for units to be wiped out, it wasn't uncommon for them to "break" in the short term (fall back from a charge, retire from fire, etc.), spend some time rallying, and then move up again. Might be another roll for Brigade commanders, and force some player choices between the "leading forward" role and the "rallypoint" role?
ReplyDelete