by John Hill
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Hence, I would recommend by starting off by using the infantry column march rate - 18 inches on road, 14 in open, etc. Then, for each turn roll one die, and that is the number of inches of movement that is lost due to ornery mules, temporary tie-ups, wobbly wheels, or whatever. Overall, that is not much of a problem unless the wagons are trying to go through woods or worse. But, that assumes: good weather, full teams of six mules, and well-maintained wagons - so that is as good as it gets. However, for each additional hassle, such as rain or mud, less than full teams, or poorly maintained wagons, add an additional "negative" die, and very quickly the wagon train, even on a road, becomes more of a problem, than a resource. A nice additional touch - though it does increase the bookkeeping -- is that should the negative dice total be greater than the allowed movement for the terrain in question, keep track of how much the wagons went "into the hole" and insist that that deficit be made up on following rolls before the wagons can move. Using this rule, it is easy to see how a wagon train, should it decide to decide to risk going over broken terrain in bad weather, could wind up stuck for the remainder of the scenario. The intent of these guidelines is to recreate the frustration of wagon train movement, and despite the fact that without them the army is borderline nonfunctional, not a few generals would give the order to, "Burn the Wagons!" Back to Table of Contents -- Charge! # 6 Back to Charge! List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2005 by Scott Mingus. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com |