Little bit slower than my weekly schedule, you should know by now there really isn't a schedule. This is both a boon and a bane, I've found the relaxed schedule a bit easier to actually achieve, but I do have to remind myself to keep on top of things to not let it go too far. Maybe dropping to a fortnightly format will be good at some point. I wasn't helped by a busy week at work; anyway, lets dig in to some Chainmail. This section should be interesting, looking at Melee and Morale, two sections we have a few questions about.
If you want to hear feedback, and the contributions of The Pink Phantom check out the podcast, you're probably missing out just reading this. But I got a call from Mirke this week that is worth mentioning on the blog. The gist of it was “How would you run the Battle of the Five Armies in Chainmail?”. Well I didn't provide an answer, we're lucky that Gary himself has given us the answer in issue 60 of the Panzerfaust fanzine as reported by the excellent Jon Peterson.
Now I've been thinking about what I should do to wrap up each book in the series, or at least set of books, and Mirke has given me some inspiration here. Because Mirke wasn't happy with Gygax's order of battle - specifically the Elves only being 100 strong and only wielding bows rather than the thousand or more who also had spears and swords. So as a finale of my Chainmail deepdive, I'm going to play out the Battle of the Five Armies, and I would like your help. For now, I challenge you (mostly Mirke, but feel free to chime in) to submit your Order of Battle for playing the Battle of the Five Armies - I'll do the same, and I'll choose one to actually play out on the tabletop. Of course, other comment or suggestions on this would be also appreciated. Thanks Mirke for the call, but for now you'll have to wait for the finale to find my answer.
No deadline on getting submissions or feedback on the topic just yet, it'll probably be a month away at least, but I'll put a reminder in a post with a firmer date when I get closer.
Okay lets dive in, first up is Melee.
So melee, we're told its resolved using a chart (Appendix A). Each unit is classified into one of six categories: Light, Heavy and Armoured Foot or Light, Medium and Heavy Horse. These categories are compared and a dice ratio and a target number is shown. For example: 1 dice per man or 1 die per 4 men and the score required most often is a 6 but can get as low as 4-6.
We get a list of example unit types and how they map to the categories. Peasants and Missile Troops would be light foot; whilst a Dismounted Knight would be Armoured Foot - that same Knight on a horse would be Heavy Horse. Having experienced this type of combat, its simple to use and its quick. There's not much to comment on specifically here.
There are some special rules in addition to the table in Appendix A as well. We continue to see that Gary has a love for the Swiss and Landschkente troops, if they fight in close formation - which is 5x2 figures minimum - they fight and defend at a higher class (medium foot) and throw a bonus die. I believe I had a question about how formations work, or ranks with archers. Here its pretty clear that the formation and rank is made up of multiple figures rather than something determined figure by figure. Gary also likes polearms and so pikes and halberds get special rules, similary they gain extra die if they're formed in close order and can't be attacked by shorter weapons, calvary is also unable to charge closely formed pikes. So nice additions here, but they're pretty specific.
Now we get into the details of the melee procedure and I start to get confused about rounds and turns.
So the first thing is the charge move, if you charge and are victorious in the first round then you can continue the remainder of your movement allowance. In addition, if you charge a unit that is missile troops interspaced with melee troops the missile troop can make a retreat - though again if you're victorious you can catch up to the missile troops. If you do catch up, the attacker can continue to fight. Is this another round? Does it happen this turn? Well we get some answers in the example provided at the end, which is that it would continue this turn - though its not clear if this would be another 1st round or the 2nd and if it would be the first can you continue your charge even further?
And then we get into morale, when the issue is further confused.
Melee is simultaneous, both sides rolling all their dice, casualities are then removed and morale is checked for both sides. A morale score is determined by looking at the difference in casualities, the difference in total number of surviving troops and the total 'points' of the remaining troops. The side with the lower score compares the difference to a table which determines how their side reacts. At the low end the melee continues and at the high end the unit surrenders - in the middle is various forms of retreat either in good order or fleeing. This sort of takes the simple melee process and makes it not so simple anymore - its probably pretty simple in practice though. Of course, we're left trying to interpret 'melee continues' when? Another round, when does that round occur, this turn or next? There's a few other ambiguities but they are all cleared up in the provided example.
I did have a question about the double penalty to morale for fatigue - here we get the answer though, only of the penalties is applicable to post melee morale - so the other one must be used for another type of morale.
Lastly there are some additional bonuses for Flanking, and Rear Attacks. And some rules for handling retreats and routs, with the main point being that a unit must rally afterwards which is automatic on the first turn but gets harder if they retreat for more than 1 turn. And we get some 'miscellaneous' information - missiles cant fire into a melee (choosing not to model random targets I guess), units exude a zone of control, nearby units can join a melee and after the first round additional units can be moved from the flanks or rear to join in. Again we don't know if this second round is on the next turn or not...
We get some optional rules here, one for taking prisoners, another for bonuses for charging (if unhindered by terrain), stationary calvary and lastly more rules specifically for our favourite Swiss and Landschkente being able to array themselves in a 'hedgehog' formation. Some nice stuff, I feel like the charging rule could've been a standard rule where as the others definitely feel more situational.
That wraps the Melee section. All pretty self explanatory, except for our rounds/turns question - I know this has been talked about a lot online and I've never really found an answer. Does one exist? Please let me know your thoughts.
And we'll end on the section for morale - the other types of morale in this case.
There are two main kinds here, and one for our special little boys (the Swiss and Landschkente again). And this is where the other half of the penalty comes in to play - because we actually need to roll dice here.
The first type is for excess casualities, when a unit has lost a certain percentage of its strength (number of figures I assume) it must check morale by rolling two die. Depending on the unit type the casualty percentage and the score required is different. There is a bit here that I'm struggling to wrap my head around: “If the unit remains stable, it need not again check morale until such time as it suffers losses to the stated percentage of its original strength, ...”. I'm really not sure how this works. Once you've already lost the percentage, you check morale - if you pass you don't check again until you lose the same percent I guess? So if you were 20 figures strong, and the casualty rate was 25% do you need to lose another 5 figures for this second check? It doesn't read exactly like that though. Again thoughts on this would be appreciated - I probably need to read it a few more times.
The other type is calvary charge. Where as a unit failing the morale check from casualities would be removed from play - in this case failing just causes a retreat. Again depending on the defending unit a different score is required as well as the type of calvary. Theres no mention here of what happens if the calvary charge still connects with the unit after retreat - but I assume we defer to the previous sections in the Melee section.
Ofcourse Swiss and Landschkente armed with pikes or polearms are immune to this morale check, and they get their own charge rules. This causes a check on the excess casualties table - if the check is failed they are removed as normal, if its passed they have to retreat. These guys must have a massive point cost...
And that's about it for Morale.
Next week we'll start with “Historical Characteristics (Optional)” and finish with page 24 - just before getting into the other combat types.