Rules design question

[Conquistador]

Inspired by the Buckets of Dice thread I have been thinking about the miniatures rules I have played under since the 1970s (board games since the 1960s but different animaL,) and a mechanic many rules used (fear of disaster) made made me ask myself a question, "How many times in the Napoleonic era was an entire army swept away by the morale failure of a single attack?"

Obviously (or was it?) Waterloo seems to end that way.  Other battles where an entire army was scattered by the morale failure of a high status unit?  Is it a significantly common occurrence to justify the mechanic except in extreme cases?

In the several sets of rules I have played it either is

1) Check triggered when a higher morale unit flees in rout;  (An A class unit triggers anybody, a B class unit affect classes C Through E, etc., E class only affects other E's; a hierarchy potential as it were.)  Routing unit must pass in front of or through units required to check.

2) Check triggered when an equal or higher morale unit routs back.   Routing unit must pass in front of or through units required to check.

3) Check triggered when a unit with an Army/Corps leader figure routs back.

Gracias,

Glenn

[Lowtardog]

Itholeonics, yes a brigade or Division breaking would cause an army to falter however even at Waterloo the young guard were fighting the Prussians and didnt break when the Guard were broken.

Also bare in mind it was late in the day of waterloo so both armies had taken one hell of a beating.

[workerBee]

Itholeonics, yes a brigade or Division breaking would cause an army to falter however even at Waterloo the young guard were fighting the Prussians and didnt break when the Guard were broken.

Also bare in mind it was late in the day of waterloo so both armies had taken one hell of a beating.

The rules sets I was speaking about triggered it when an infantry Battalion broke.  I don't remember if Cavalry or Artillery were triggers.

Gracias,

Glenn

[Mindenbrush]

Those rulesets that I have played which have an Army "Morale Test" appear to base it on two things:

A) Percentage loss ie 25% etc which is based on reviewing casualties records of the period and some armies may have a lower loss percentage than others that trigger a test.

B) The overall situation at the time of testing - Commanders, standards etc lost/killed/captured, insecure flanks/rear, etc.

I added a similar test to the 2 Brother Against Brother games I ran at Historcon this year - I had painted up 55 casualty figures for each side which represented about 40% of the figures on the table and informed the players that as soon as one side hit that percentage the game would finish after the last squad had performed it's phase.
I then added up objective points to define the 'winning' side.
Everyone was okay with that and the most common comment was "You need to paint more casualty figures" as the players were enjoying the game.
Hope that helps.

[Elbows]

Perhaps a radius mechanic would work well here?

A unit in the center of the line falters...then any units within X-distance of that unit must test.  If they in turn falter, the chain continues.  Then add a simple "if X-percentage of your army falters, the army is broken"?

Adding modifiers to account for the quality of the unit which broke originally (so if a Guards unit broke, it would be more devastating to nearby units vs. a normal fusilier unit?).

This would add some intrigue to the system too, allowing a chance (albeit, slight) at breaking the entire army with a well delivered attack.  This would then benefit you in organizing your units to help prevent this, and would seem slightly realistic.  If you sent green units to the center of your line there would be an increased chance of your entire line faltering under fire.

 

[Elk101]

Interesting question! With our homegrown Napoleonic rules (where a unit is a battalion and the organisation is by brigades) we originally had it that if a unit routes within 6" of another unit (regardless of whether it is in the same brigade) it forces that unit to take a morale test. This caused a lot of domino effect results where entire flanks would simply run away. Not necessarily without historical precedence but it was happening too often and was too much of a gamechanger to enjoy. We altered it so that the test is only taken if a unit routes through another unit (elites can ingore breaking militia, however) but if a unit (any level) has to take a morale test while there are any routing units within 6" then they suffer cumulative modifiers. This is intended to represent units feeling the effect of routing friendly units once they themselves are put under pressure, not necessarily before a single shot has been fired at them. This can still create the situation where entire flanks fade away (which is fine as it seemed to happen) but only when they are put under pressure themselves, not by simply having a friendly unit panic nearby. One other impact this has is that if breaking units leave a friendly unit unsupported (which is not being within 8" of an ordered friendly unit but within 8" of an enemy unit), during the end of turn review each unit (except certain independant units) must take an 'Unsupported' morale test. If they fail this they drop to the next morale stage, which could cause them to break if they are already disordered. Even if they have a high morale and are likely to pass this test it gets players to try and keep units in support. We don't like rules that say you can't do something, preferring rules that encourage good tactics and some thought about how the different units should be used. It also punishes certain tactics or rather lack of them! This has encouraged some very characterful use of cavalry to harrass enemy infantry rather than directly assualting them and gets players to think more about manoeuvre rather than crashing units headlong into each other. It has also led to the interesting situation whereby different players exhibit different strengths with the various arms. One player is definitely a rash cavalry commander, while another is brilliant with artillery but give him an infantry brigade and it will be marching in circles all game. It works for us and we enjoy it, which is the main thing!