My advice to players of our WRG 5th edition Ancient rules is much the same as the classic advice to young men approaching marriage -- DON'T do it! Very few players manage to devise standing orders that actually aid rather than betray them. As in rule writing, the more detailed you get in trying to cover every eventuality, the more opportunities for disaster you are creating. I once spent some time helping build a full size replica of an Iron Age farm. (For those interested who may have the opportunity, it's at Butser Hill near Petersfield, Hampshire, has the right crops and animals as well as a full range of buildings, and is open to the public.) The site Director, taking a realistic view of my capabilities, put me on filling cracks in daub walls. These walls are constructed by interlacing thin branches through the structural posts, then throwing on a careful mixture of clay and animal hair. When this dries, you get cracks an inch wide. You fill these, they dry, and you get two cracks a quarter inch wide down each side. You fill them, then have four cracks onesixteenth wide, and so on. The amount of fresh air coming through may be reduced, though some claim the same amount speeds up to channel in, but the number of cracks is not. Rule and standing order writing can be very similar. Warning Example To illustrate the point, here is a lovely warning example. I warn you, don't laugh too publically at it. The perpetrator is on your side of the Atlantic, and he might just be standing next to you. The player in question, whose name I'm keeping secret to protect the guilty, had a Sassanid army. Wishing to make effective use of the bows of his clibanarii as well as their lances, he wrote standing orders that had them close in to short range of nine inches and skirmish, only changing to attack orders if there was an opportunity to charge a flank or rear. Now his opponent had a unit of shieldless horse archers, and was horrified when at first sighting reaction test these went into uncontrolled advance straight at the clibanarii. How it happened, I don't know. I can only assume that they had a lot of advancing friends in sight, few enemies, and were immoderate in their dice throws. Horror changed to incredulity when the clibanarii, instead of standing fast or countercharging and wiping these fanatics out, turned to evade. Clibanarii evade twelve inches. Light cavalry charge twenty-four inches. The two units started a little under nine inches apart. Result, the clibanarii got caught in the back, could not reply, and were routed. I imagine that the player went home and rewrote his standing orders. I don't know how he did this, but say for example that he might have to change them to "but attack flanks or rears of light troops". The next lot of light cavalry he meets are not in uncontrolled advance, so evade. The clibanarii fail to catch them, and are themselves charged in flank as they come through, or are charged while rallying back. Worse still, what if his clibanarii were charged by light chariots? Assume that he has another order not to charge chariots. He must charge light troops, but must not charge chariots, yet light chariots are both. A contradiction exists, and he is at the umpires mercy. Ingenuity Most of the ingenuity put into standing order writing is in the vain hope of preventing troops getting caught disordered by a charging enemy unit. There are two circumstances when this is likely to happen. One is when the target evades and some third party jumps on your flank. The other is when you are pursuing. Let's look at the options if there are no standing orders. In the first case, assume that the player sees the risk of being charged in flank, but is forced by attack orders to declare a charge. He tests reaction to charge, but takes off General and flanks instead of adding for them. If he can get his total down to below 10 for "B" class or 12 for "C" class, the result he gets is "Obey orders, except that potentially disordered troops may temporarily hold or skirmish". Assume that he doesn't manage this. He charges, the opponent tests reaction to the charge, the target of the charge evades, and a unit with "attack in support" orders countercharges on its behalf. The players unit is now being charged, so must test reaction for that. The most likely result is that it will get permission to countercharge, and will change direction towards the new opponents. If they hold back their support countercharge in order to hit the players unit in flank, they are merely giving him more time to wheel to face. Variation A variant of this situation is when the second enemy unit has "attack" rather than "attack in support" orders. It will not be able to countercharge that period, but must charge next period, when the players unit should be rallying back. The players unit tests reaction for being charged, and does not necessarily have to carry out its rally back. The reaction result and its orders may instead cause it to stand or countercharge. It will be disordered, but facing, so is all right if it avoids being pushed back. If a second friendly unit is following it, it is probably safe. In the second case, the pursuing unit tests for being charged, and can try to face. It will be automatically disordered for being contacted by fresh enemy but has one big advantage. This is that casualties inflicted on the routers count towards its total for the period, so that the opponent is not likely to inflict more or twice as many, even if he scores one per figure. If he does not push your unit back, then the disorder disappears next period and you fight on level terms. I hope the point is now made that exposing a flank is not necessarily fatal. Now let's look at the incentives. These are mainly in the field of reaction. Even a charge that fails to contact will encourage the rest of your army with "friends advancing", "friends charging" and "enemy retiring", and will discourage your opponents with "friends retiring", "enemy behind flank" and maybe add to the number of your units he counts. A pursuit does better still, kills off his figures at a good rate, and delays or prevents rallying. It is not unknown for anaggressive unit's flank to be preserved because the enemy unit assigned to attack it refuses to charge. It is a sad fact that far too many players concentrate on keeping themselves out of trouble rather than causing trouble for their opponents. Remember Montroses little verse "He either fears his fates too much, Or his desserts are small, That dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all". This is not just theory, but a conclusion from many years of practice, starting off when I took the role of Conan of Aquilonia in Tony Bath's Hyborian campaign. I was a little shaken to find that I was expected to act like a hero whose best tactical answer to any problem was to charge straight into the enemy without regrets. To my intense surprise, it worked like a charm. You often caught your opponent with his army not properly deployed or in the middle of some cunning maneuver. At the worst, you crowded him against his base line and added to his difficulties. This experience was reinforced by playing against Malcolm Woolgar, the Treasurer of the Society of Ancients, who many of you send checks to each year. The Romans he used at that time had only a single order for the whole army, advance and attack. You might break unit after unit, but there was always another one coming and no time to make fresh dispositions. My wife, Sue, uses her Ancient Brits in a very similar way, the main variation being that she uses a divisional system. Each division includes a warband of 48 (not 50, she thinks metrication unBritish and likely to demoralise the troops) with attack orders, a small chariot unit and small cavalry unit with orders to attack in support, and a slinger unit who are ordered to skirmish in support but usually go uncontrolled. It is rumored that these do not in fact have slings, but old socks with a lump of lead in the toe. Last time out, they were charged by four-horse fanatic chariots in uncontrolled advance, went uncontrolled right back, threw two up, three up and four up in successive periods, and the chariots needed to be rescued by cavalry. I might also mention a game at the British Nationals last year in which archer armies commanded by two of our toughest players, Bruce Douglas with Indians and Chris Toffalos with Egyptians, spent two hours wrapping bows around each other's necks instead of shooting. Give it a try sometime. So players get themselves into trouble using standing orders for the wrong purposes? Just what are the right purposes? I use them mainly to define target priorities and audio-visual signals, but quite often do not bother to use them at all, especially when using an irregular army. The only times they have made a positive contribution have been when I was using Byzantines. Technique My technique there is to define two kinds of action for each troop type. For example, extra-heavy cavalry have attack and skirmish. The first of my five audio-visual signals is then "Change to the other mode of action". The other four then define types of movement, such as "Army swing right pivoting on right flank", "Army swing left pivoting on left flank", "Army advance one full move", and "Army retire half a full move". I then do not have to write any battlefield orders, but instead control the army by signals from the general. The catch is that I lose control when the general's unit is committed to hand-to-hand combat. This system would apply equally well to a Mongol army, would be less useful with infantry, who do not move fast enough, and inapplicable to regulars. The only irregular troops likely to benefit to any great extent from standing orders are those combining missile and close fighting weapons. The trick is to try and give them a fixed procedure for dealing with each type of enemy threat that they may meet, say for example "Skirmish with elephants, pikemen or cataphracts, attack all other troops" if you are using cavalry combining bow and spears. The catch is that you are also forbidding actions. It may be that the elephant is about to trample on your general, or that the cataphracts outflank your best cavalry unit and your light cavalry could occupy the outflanking figures without risking getting one per figure against themselves. The penalty for failing to act in these sort of circumstances is usually much worse than for acting in the wrong circumstances. Another disadvantage is that your opponents may be able to predict your troops probable actions. If I come across Hun light cavalry, I do not expect them to charge my heavies, since most players will have standing orders to stop this. A player who has no standing orders, but has half his Hun units ordered to attack, the other half to skirmish, might be much more dangerous to meet, because after awhile you would have to assume for safety's sake that each unit might do anything. Skirmishers Forward Another way to achieve some of the effects of standing orders without their disadvantages is to have skirmishing units in the front line, units with orders to attack behind them -- where they cannot see any enemy, unless these chase the skirmishers out of the way and expose their own flanks in the process. When you give light infantry or light cavalry alternative actions in your standing orders, it is best to make skirmishing the norm, and specify attack or hold as exceptions. For all other troops, it is best to make attack the norm, and specify those circumstances in which they should not attack. The more you can minimize the exceptions, the more optimum your use of your troops. Ideally, you should use your lights only for skirmishing and your charging troops only for charging, then you would always be using them for the task they perform best. Of course, ideally you would also have them in the right place to be used, and this just doesn't happen. However, there ain't no reason you can't try, and it may sometimes work. If it works often enough, you might feel like getting rid of those standing orders that have been getting in your way. Want to be the first liberated barbarian to burn his standing orders? You get a bigger prize for doing it before the game! Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. 1 #1 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1979 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com