Mounted knights were beating on other mounted knights, men at arms were hacking away at foot knights, longbowmen were plinking at their targets, and all concerned were having a good time table-side... or so I thought.
The Earl of Corth's forces were pitted against those of Lord Walt's, and on the Earl's left flank, Brian Dewitt's units engaged those under Bob Hurst's command. In some five or six consecutive melees, Brian's dice were sufficient to send the Hurst units running back; no matter which unit he tossed into a combat, Bob Hurst just couldn't come up with high enough dice.
Under the rules system, a unit that lost a melee fell back 12 inches and formed column. On the next bound, once the unit had changed into a fighting formation again, it was ready to go, non-the-worse for wear. Which meant that although Bob Hurst had lost every combat in which his men engaged, it looked as if the Hurst forces were still as viable of those of Brian's. True, the Hurstmen, on their unit data sheets, had a lot more of their efficiency boxes crossed out, but for all intents and purposes, despite the fact that Brian never lost a melee, it appeared as if he had never won anything either.
This did not sit well with Brian. "Here I am," he said, "Continually smashing Hurst's men, yet getting absolutely nowhere, as the enemy units seem to rally and come forward again as fast as I send them running to the rear."
And, in truth, Brian was right. In most rules sets, if a unit has engaged in melee and lost, off it goes in a routing mode, and to get back in fighting formation, it must recover and rally and reform, and move up again... and by the time it does all this (if it can), the baffle is over. In other words, once a unit has lost a melee, it is out of the battle.
This has never seemed quite right to me. Given the average game-turn-span of, say, 20 minutes, this means that a unit will engage the enemy for the 20 minute bound, and within that time span, become so decimated and/or disorganized that it is of no use as a fighting force for the rest of the battle.
Under the Simon scheme of things, however, the outlook is somewhat different. A unit moves up, and contacts an enemy force, and tussles with it for the length of a bound. At the end of that period of time, the men of both units are fairly tired, and one of them, slightly more tired than the other, will fall back so that the men can catch their breath. After a short recovery period, the unit is ready to go again... and it advances to the front.
What this means is that a 20 minute melee on the table top is not really a "melee"... it is a very brief bunking of heads, after which one unit will temporarily draw back. The 20 minute combat is not, in other words, a decisive confrontation... I don't believe a unit will become so decimated, so badly beaten in one brief 20 minute encounter, that it completely loses its coherency for the remainder of the baffle.
The Simon concept thus requires that a unit lose a series of melees, each encounter producing a small but finite impact, before it becomes totally unreliable on the field. Each impact shows up, perhaps not visibly on the unit itself, but on its data sheet, on which its true value as a fighting force is tracked.
Now I must admit that this procedure... logical as it is... does not make for happy gaming.
Witness Brian Dewitt's unhappiness, and the unhappiness of other gamers who have expressed the same thoughts as Brian's. These good people, having committed one of their units to combat, and having smacked an opposing enemy unit in fine style during the bound, do not want the opposing unit to ever reappear on the field again.
To them, a single encounter is a decisive one, and the fate of a unit on the battlefield can be a function of a single melee.
In just about every rules set I have ever generated, the underlying concept has been: "easy to rout, easy to rally". This means that units fall back rather frequently, and, just as frequently, reform and dash back into baffle.
The term "rout" in the previous quote should thus be translated as "fall back and catch your breath", rather than "run away forever". This scheme of things produces a flow of units from, and back into, combat. Units are worn down gradually, instead of being subjected to an "all or nothing" set of criteria. Which puts great emphasis on the make-up of the data sheets.
The sheets can contain a number of items... morale level, combat value, unit efficiency, etc... and as these indicators of unit coherency are reduced, so is the unit's capability of performing efficiently. The data sheet must carefully reflect this... too many boxes to be crossed out, and the unit has, so to speak, an infinite life. Too few boxes, and the unit disappears too early in the battle, never permitting the players to exercise their options.
Now, having explained these concepts so logically, so effectively, let me say that in the next game, I caved in. Yes, I pandered to the crowd at tableside... for the sake of a few friendly words, I forsook my wargaming heritage. Sad, sad.
Data sheets were still used, but this time, if a unit lost in melee,, not only was its data sheet marked, but all the stands in the unit - except for one - were taken off the field. This sole surviving stand was placed some 12 inches back, and it served as a rallying point, when, each subsequent half-bound, an attempt was made to rally the other stands in the unit to rejoin the survivor. Only one stand could be rallied per half-bound, and to do so, the unit took a morale check with a fairly large negative (-20) modifier. Failure to pass meant that the stand didn't rally, while the surviving stand remained in place, untouched.
The sole surviving, lonesome stand could do nothing until its unit was fully rallied. This meant that it served as a tempting target for enemy units that could break through the front lines and gain contact. In our first playtest game, Bob Hurst and I lost about every melee into which our units entered... the result was that the field to the rear of our front lines was covered with nonfunctioning, single-stand survivors. Few units rallied, and needless to say, we lost the baffle.
I still remain unconvinced that the "one-punch-and-out" melee is the way to go. More research must be done. A government grant is needed here.
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© Copyright 1996 Wally Simon
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