Confroming of Melees

[shall]

We have taken a look at this one.

While the rule mechanisms do allow the rules to function without conforming we found two things if one tries to remove it:

1) the battlefield looks a mess with clutter at all angles that never tidies itself up. It therefore detracts a lot from the visual appeal of the game. While perhaps les simportant to the hardened pro we worry that it would detract from the look of the game and its appel to the wider audience.

2) there is a fair bit of potential cheese that can be engineered by making contact with no conforming - blocking manouvres, fudges to put certain BGs in contact and choose which dice to use at impact, and a few in melee too.

Clearly if one plays a straight up fight then these cheesy things go away, but then so would comforming anyway as we wpould all have done it ourselves ont he way in.

So all in all we feel that - even with its downsides - the tidying up effect of conforming is worthwhile.

Any other views

Si

[lawrenceg]

We have taken a look at this one.

While the rule mechanisms do allow the rules to function without conforming we found two things if one tries to remove it:

1) the battlefield looks a mess with clutter at all angles that never tidies itself up. It therefore detracts a lot from the visual appeal of the game. While perhaps les simportant to the hardened pro we worry that it would detract from the look of the game and its appel to the wider audience.

It's a battle. It should look a mess with clutter at all angles. It should look like a melee.

2) there is a fair bit of potential cheese that can be engineered by making contact with no conforming - blocking manouvres, fudges to put certain BGs in contact and choose which dice to use at impact, and a few in melee too.

I would have thought that "the troops are where they are" would eliminate cheese and the "step forward" and "feeding more bases into an existing melee" would remove any remaining. CAn you give specific cheese examples?

[shall]

Yes but not now as rushing out - I'll try to next week. All systems have cheese - its just whether one rpefers Cheddar or Brie.

On looking a mess - my personal view is that it should at micro level but less so at macro level.

Also the attractivenss to the eye - wherther hsitorically accurate or not - is an important issue. Its a game and the visual appeal is important too.

So I tend to go with battles should look

Neat and organise at the beginning
Fairly tidy through ther middle
A mess bny the end

The current version does this.

Stopping conforming creates lots of "mess" fro initial contacts. I guess that its just a matter of individual visual preference, but my guess is that the broeader market will prefer the above. To me it doesn't affect the rules much as not coforming all the time and allowing it as an exception creates the same technical issues.

Are there other views from tester - we have 50 odd of them out there and 3 or 4 very concerned about this. Does it reflect a concern for many or a few?

Si

[rbodleyscott]

Clearly historically battle groups in close combat would conform to each other. Hence conforming must give a more believable visual effect even if it presents some gaming issues.

Removing conforming does not eliminate those gaming issues, because we have to have rules for which bases fight each other, so in effect we need the equivalent of conforming rules even if we don't have conforming.

That being the case, we may as well keep the more plausible visual effect that conforming produces in the vast majority of situations.

[petedalby]

I don't have a strong view one way or another. Both can create problems.

When you charge a BG that is partly in terrain and partly out, say with pikes, then in the impact phase you are in the open. Having to conform and putting the pikes into the terrain in the melee phase puts them at a disadvantage. Would they have entered voluntarily? Or would their charge have carried them in involuntarily? Who knows? But it hurts when you have to do it.

And of course it is possible and cheesy for an enemy BG to assume such a position knowing what must follow. So you don't charge.

Maybe an exception to conforming if it will disorder you?

Pete

[lawrenceg]

Clearly historically battle groups in close combat would conform to each other.

Up to a point.

Yes, battle lines of necessity would become parallel to each other.

But after charging into the enemy, would a phalanx pull out and march 20 paces across the enemy front before getting stuck in again?

[rbodleyscott]

Clearly historically battle groups in close combat would conform to each other.

Up to a point.

Yes, battle lines of necessity would become parallel to each other.

But after charging into the enemy, would a phalanx pull out and march 20 paces across the enemy front before getting stuck in again?

Would they fight with 5 men while the other 1,019 stand still twiddling their thumbs?

[lawrenceg]

Would they fight with 5 men while the other 1,019 stand still twiddling their thumbs?

It's more likely they would pull sub-units out of the unengaged section, move across the rear of the engaged section and feed them into the melee on that side. You already have a mechanism for that.

Or perhaps they would wheel around the flank of the enemy.

Or perhaps they are fighting whatever enemy troops happen to be in front of them. I don't think it would matter if they were all from the same cohort, or some from one and some from another.

[jre]

I like the mechanism because it forces the active player to conform. After all, they are the ones who choose (more or less) who attacks and can even play a little with angles by wheeling to choose the contact. So if the conform is a bad one, it is your fault. Your guys are just trying to fight those unyielding fellows there. Once you get to melee, it will start to become more like two intermingling blobs rather than perfect right angles, but it does not affect us. We just mark what is the advance-retreat axis for each of them, and we will worry more once one starts to run away.

As well, from your omniscience you may know the flank is safe, but most units will naturally try to conform the front to the initial front line.

José

[shall]

rbodleyscott wrote:


Would they fight with 5 men while the other 1,019 stand still twiddling their thumbs?

It's more likely they would pull sub-units out of the unengaged section, move across the rear of the engaged section and feed them into the melee on that side. You already have a mechanism for that.

Or perhaps they would wheel around the flank of the enemy.

Or perhaps they are fighting whatever enemy troops happen to be in front of them. I don't think it would matter if they were all from the same cohort, or some from one and some from another.

I feel that one is looking too much at a BG as a unit - often the philosophical reason for doing things.

A single palanx unit would almost certainly line itselft up prior to contact in order to have maximum push.

A BG of phalanx contains perhaps 3-6 individual units - being something from 2000-3000 men. So conforming represents the other real units moving up at the side wheeling and frontally contacting the bases ahead of them in support of the rest of their Battlegroup on the orders of their local BG general who is not represetned ont he field as he is too junior for your personal attention and role play. To me that is what is happening. If they cannot/do not then the opposing BGs units do the same to support their colleagues in action.


The BG concept is not just there for show - it seems to us to be how real battles functioned at the large scale level. One therefore needs to think about the tabletop BG as exactly what it is definde as in the desing philosophy, as at times this important concept influences the best choice of mechanisms.

I appecaite it feels a bit esoteric at first but the more one can shift ones mind into these being BGs of ssevearl unit the easier it becomes and the more it feel like the large scale battle it is set out to represent.

Hope that adds a different perspcetive.

[lawrenceg]

[quote="shall
I feel that one is looking too much at a BG as a unit - often the philosophical reason for doing things.

A single palanx unit would almost certainly line itselft up prior to contact in order to have maximum push.

A BG of phalanx contains perhaps 3-6 individual units - being something from 2000-3000 men. So conforming represents the other real units moving up at the side wheeling and frontally contacting the bases ahead of them in support of the rest of their Battlegroup on the orders of their local BG general who is not represetned ont he field as he is too junior for your personal attention and role play. To me that is what is happening. If they cannot/do not then the opposing BGs units do the same to support their colleagues in action.


The BG concept is not just there for show - it seems to us to be how real battles functioned at the large scale level. One therefore needs to think about the tabletop BG as exactly what it is definde as in the desing philosophy, as at times this important concept influences the best choice of mechanisms.

I appecaite it feels a bit esoteric at first but the more one can shift ones mind into these being BGs of ssevearl unit the easier it becomes and the more it feel like the large scale battle it is set out to represent.

Hope that adds a different perspcetive.[/quote]

If the step forward included wheels as well, it would do the thing you describe. Full conforming sometimes gives odd looking results and, as you have rules for non-conformed combat, it is not strictly necessary, so need not be compulsory, although in many cases it is convenient.

I'm still a non-conformist, but it's only a game and it's you that's designing it.

[shall]

I'm still a non-conformist, but it's only a game and it's you that's designing it.

We welcome the non-conformists to our community and have provided special rules to allow their particpation without the need for a change of beliefs ....

Si

[sgtsteiner]

Hi

Personally I prefer the current Conforming in Manv phase system.

Cheers
Gary