Colonial systems and wounded

[Sinewgrab]

Gents,
    Pardon me if this seems an ignorant question, as these historicals are kind of new to me. Why is it that every colonial system seems to feel the need for wounded, when almost no other system ever has that? I have looked at 3 or 4 colonial systems, including The Sword and the Flame, and no other systems I am familiar with ever has this mechanic. Why just colonials, but not Vietnam, WW2, WW1, moderns, or future, much less the infinite number of Napoleonics, fantastic, and medievals?

[answer_is_42]

I know what you mean; I just got a copy of TSATF and have already decided to drop the wounded rules. I suppose it could be that colonial wars were not the sort that had extensive medical support, and so the troops had to care for their wounded themselves, without the aid of casualty collection and field hospitals. The area fought in was also awful big, and the forces involved rather small, so you couldn't rely on someone else picking up your fallen at a later time.

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll on your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

-The Young British Soldier, Rudyard Kipling

[Plynkes]

I don't have any colonial rules with "wounded" rules personally (if by that you mean rules where the wounded have to be treated or dealt with in some way). The only ones I have played I can think of that did that are Stargrunt and a Vietnam game that I forget the name of.

I guess that means I can't answer your question, as my experience has been the exact opposite of yours.

[Gluteus Maximus]

I assume it's the fact that most "Colonial" forces were fighting against "savage" enemies where the wounded were often slaughtered (or the perception was that they would be). This would certainly be the case against the Pathans etc, where Kipling even mentioned it in a poem and the actions of their women were particularly feared. Save the last bullet and all that 

Presumably, the rules for wounded are meant to add an extra complication for the Colonial player, forcing him to look after his wounded and thus giving the natives a bit more of a chance.

There's no reason to include these rules if you don't wish to, but I tend to like them and often include similar in my Fantasy, S€ciFi etc. There's also a case for forcing the French in the Peninsular to take special care of their wounded, due to the Guerrillas.

[revford]

The Vietnam rules we use, FNG from Two Hour Wargames have rules for wounded and calling for helicopters to carry them out.

Now I think about it, most of the games we play have rules for wounded models.

[Sinewgrab]

Huh. I had never run up against a system that included them except in Colonials, so I was really wondering why the colonials rulesmakers felt it was necessary. Myself, I feel they are an unnecessary complication, especially in a large scale battle. At a purely skirmish level (i.e. 10-25 figures per side) I can see them, but for upwards of 500 figures on the table divided between 12 players, they just make the game one hell of a lot more difficult to keep track of.

Although, when I really wrack my brain, I guess Necromunda and Mordheim do have wounded rules, sorta...

[bc99]

They work great for The Sword and The Flame, which is for smaller engagements. Not sure why they do it for games that play hundreds of miniatures. What rules are those?

[Gluteus Maximus]

They work great for The Sword and The Flame, which is for smaller engagements. Not sure why they do it for games that play hundreds of miniatures. What rules are those?

I would have thought that anyone writing a large-scale ruleset would factor the numbers of "first aiders" lost helping the wounded into the casualty figures to help streamline things 

It does work for the sort of numbers TSATF is designed to handle, but I wouldn't want to deal with it for brigade or larger actions.

[Sinewgrab]

They work great for The Sword and The Flame, which is for smaller engagements. Not sure why they do it for games that play hundreds of miniatures. What rules are those?

We were using TSATF for a battle that, had it not bogged down before pulling the natives into play, had (I believe) between 400 and 600 models available between 8 people.

[Smokeyrone]

In my last stand/Rorkes Drift/similar outpost games, wounded mechanics are important.  It's 1/1 scale, and the outpost has a surgeon, who's a unit, and during his turn, he can treat wounds


(prospects are not good for seriously wounded, but the  lightly wounde have a chance at ketting patched up ).

Important  when the garrison consists of 4 or 5 units of five men and a sergeant.  Light wounds are a -1 melee/firing modifier, a big deal when there's ten or more 25-40 figure movement trays   attacking.


In most SATF games at our cons, the wound cards are considered killed.

[warrenpeace]

The senario Sinewgrab is referring to involved 220 figures (25/28mm) on the British/Egyptian side landing on a Nile River bank and attempting to march about 4 meters to the other end of the table.  The British/Egyptians only stirred up about 140 out of more than 500 figures available for the Mahdi's forces.  In that potentially big scenario, the TSATF wounded rules were a bit of a nuisance.  The British kept being forced to detach men to carry wounded back to the boats, and there were a lot of the Mahdi's wounded, especially Fuzzy-Wuzzies, left lying in front of the advancing British as a risk that the wounded native would take out an imperialist on a d6 roll of one.  Given the potential size of the game if the British had marched another meter or more, the effects didn't seem worthwhile to some of the players.  Also, some of the players were thinking in terms of the TSATF stated scale of platoons and companies, with figures representing more than one man, so the intended dramatic effect of the TSATF rule didn't make as much sense.

However, I've played a lot of games, like those depicted on www.warflag.com under the "Red Shadow" section, with a different wounded rule, in which the TSATF "wounded" is called "incapacitated" instead. In addition to "incapacitated," there is a "wounded" status which results in minus 1 on d6 for melee and minus 2 on d20 for firing by the "wounded" figures, while the "wounded" figures remain mobile.  In that system, there are not too many "incapacitated" results.  Most of the scenarios I've played involved 200 to 300 figures, and the "wounded" rules added to the drama and story arc of the scenario, at least in my opinion.