Combat Fatigue ?

Aetius · Post by **Aetius** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:05 pm

Having played a very long 'training' game on Saturday (Sassanids v Parthians) - many thanks Andy C for your time and patience - one thing that did strike me as an oddity was the lack of combat fatigues.
Now I am sure that this has nodoubt come up before & cetainly during play-testing, but what seemed odd to me was the fact that we had one unit of Cataphracts that repeatedly charged (defensive spears) and bounced off, then fought a 2 round melee with some rather unfortunate MF and won, and then sucessfully charged and eventually beat another unit of enemy Cataphracts - all of which occurred in swift move sucession. At no point did this Cataphract battlegroup get a moment to regroup or even draw breath and as the 3 sucessiive melees were all at almost 90 degrees to each other (so the Cats charged twice forward, turned 90 degrees and charged the over zealous MF, and then wheeled and charged the enemy Cats bearing down on them from their flank), you couldn't really even argue that these were 'follow-on' charges - especially as the Cats had bounced twice from the defensive spearmen (I knew there was a reason for defending my camp with the Sassanid Levy!).

So my question is really ... why no fatigues for rounds of combat? In my own view it prevents such examples of super units continuing to fight melee, after melee, after melee without taking time to reform. Even a disorder for each sucessful melee would be a start - so in the case of these Cats, they'd not have got disordered for the initial bounced charges, but become disorded for beating the MF in melee, but then suffered from that disorder in the melee with the fresh enemy Cats.

I can see the idea of not wanting Battle Groups to drag around too many markers but it does stretch my credibility a bit.
Any thoughts?
Mark

Ghaznavid · Post by **Ghaznavid** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:12 pm

My guess is that the strongest counter argument is that it adds quite a bit of complication and bookeeping for limited gain (it is not to common IME that BGs do as you described). Also how often do we hear of units, especially victorius ones, to suffer from fatigue during the battle? Losing units seem to suffer from it a bit more often, but that's basically covered by the cohesion system.

marioslaz · Post by **marioslaz** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:14 pm

You indeed are right. Likely, author would reply this is counted within of casualties. But, anyway, all rules from DBM onward have this problem and casualties don't resolve all problem tied with super units.

benos · Post by **benos** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 7:25 pm

strangley i can see an arguement for this being the case, my experience of larp and re-enactment tends towards the fact that while things are happening adrenalin will keep you going, it is when you get a chance to pause for breath that things start to kick in and you feel the fatigue, now if it is like that in a controled fairly safe environment , how much more so when it is for real and you life is at risk?
the real effects of fatigue i suspect would be felt when the fight is over and the body starts to run out of adrenalin?

though this is of course entirely guess work?

Ben

CrazyHarborc · Post by **CrazyHarborc** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:48 am

Battle lust IS also common.....at least to have had one or two guys in an army, go off the deep end.

IMHO, the rules do not "need" one more reason to test, to roll dice.

Aetius · Post by **Aetius** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:09 am

It is, as I thought.

As a long-time re-enactor and gamer I'm more of the view that fatigue does have a huge impact on a units ability to continue to fight new enemy one after the other - which in most historical battles appears IMO to be a very limited occurance anyway. But there are simple mechanisms in other sets of rules that allow fatigues to build up over the course of a prolonged melee or series of melees, only having an effect once a unit reaches fully fatigued status (based upon it's experianc rating), but then to be removed in a single game move when the unit reorganises itself.

I agree this is not a very WRG / DBM type mechanim - and where it is used is in the Armati/Tactica 'genetic bloodline' of rules.
In these a unit receives a combat fatigue for each round of combat it participates in. Each type of unit has a fatigue threshold (based on status: Vet/Non-Vet/Raw and the Break Point of the unit). So a standard unit of FT (FoG HF Average) has a fatigue level of 4. There is no effect on the unit until it reaches it's 4 fatigues (so fights 4 game moves in melee) and then it will drop a fighting value or 2 (-1 or in some cases -2) in combat. If it's a Warband unit (Impact Foot) or Cavalry with impetus (Lancer) it will loose it's Impact phase bonus if fully fatigued. There is no dicing-off of fatigues - all the unit has to do is remain stationary for a move (without shooting or melee) and it is considered re-ordered and can the fight as normal.

Admittedly it is another lot of markers to drag around but there's no need to dice off or test (I agree - there are enough dice tests as it is).
It was just a thought.

Cheers
Mark

Fulgrim · Post by **Fulgrim** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:23 am

I can agree that sometimes some units, "superunits", seems to be "to much" - but how often is this? Is it not soo that it happens so seldom that it can represent exeptional circumstances? As a infrequent player of armati i do find that system rather good, but i find that introducing another thing to "bookkeep" doesnt add to the game experience of FoG. Perhaps an automatic Disordered (non-cumulative) on units that fought (and finished) an melee and lost bases in it? Representing fatigue springing from an hard fight.

Read something about romans on the line that they just needed to stay firm to make their barbarian opponents winded and fatigued (especially in warm wheather) and then press on when that happend (would this apply to Clibinarii aswell, as the name inplies that the were getting hot rather quickly..?). If that is historically correct introducing fatigue "over the board" would be just as unhistorical as "superunits".

BTW - isnt this topic in the wrong place, its hardly army design?

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:40 am

Fulgrim wrote: BTW - isnt this topic in the wrong place, its hardly army design?

Indeed - which is why it has been moved

Moderator

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:43 am

Indeed - which is why it has been moved

Oooh, the power. You'll be putting Tibet in China next.

Polkovnik · Post by **Polkovnik** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:48 pm

It's an extra layer of rules that would slow the game down, require more bookkeeping and markers are rarely add anything to the game. So unnecessary IMO.

hazelbark · Post by **hazelbark** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:09 am

Well fatigue and battle tired and all that are rolled up into one thing...dice.

If you keep rolling well the fatigue hasn't caught up with you.

If you are charging and breaking off spear with no one dying or disordering on either side. Perhaps the reality is the guys keep threatening to charge but never do a full blown charge, represented by dice.

I think people should look at effect and not detail. Just because you think the guys are getting tired, maybe it is the other way around? they had a good nights sleep and fresh water and their foes were suffering from typhoid.

dice..dice... it answers all.

shall · Post by **shall** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:22 am

its a game and therefore an abstraction of reality. We sought to only include items that universally built the correct feel, and avoided any complexity that we felt could be avoided or that detracted from that feel. Indeed we tried to avoid counters even for DISR - and in non-comp games I still do; and zero recording too..

We looked at fatique points but felt it was a secondary effect better wrapped into other matters than one worth explicitly dealing with - just like unlimited ammo, as ammo would be nightmare to track.

One very important principle is that bounds represent phases of battle not literal time. Many battles involve lots of waiting and downtime. So a repeat charge next bound does not mean no rest at all. In addition there are lots of repeat charges in history that we were alerted to - Hastings being one of the most noteable. Of course some fatigue would set in but this is often true for the opponents too so will cancel out.

To me fatigue is wrapped into status and death rolls. If you charge repeatedly and avoid any base losses or DISR effects you are still fairly capable. If not, you are suffering all sorts of degredation effects, which is what matters.

Cataphracts that repeatedly charged (defensive spears) and bounced off, then fought a 2 round melee with some rather unfortunate MF and won, and then sucessfully charged and eventually beat another unit of enemy Cataphracts - all of which occurred in swift move sucession.

So the above is quite rare. To avoid base losses when a POA down at impact several times is difficult - you will need a 3 or 4 each time you lost to pass DR. If in a 4 as most cataphracts tend to be you will on average be down 25% after 2 attempts. Swift move succession does not mean no time to rest. Probably an unusual result in a first game giving a false impression - well done those cataphracts. See how it feels after a dozen games.

Si

Aetius · Post by **Aetius** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 1:42 pm

I gather from my FoG 'trainer' that:
a). it was pretty unusual for a BG of 4 bases of Superior, undrilled, CATs - led by an IC to bounce, twice off the front of Poor, undrilled, unprotected, defensive spear (but when the Levy re-rolled their 6's they more often than not got another 5 or 6 - and there were 10 bases of them).

b). a player throwing a unit of light spear armed MF into said Cataphracts is also an "unusual" occurance (I think that's polite for "daft"!)

c). having so many melee's so close together was also very uncommon - although that might be more a result of me playing everything close together so as to maximise my weaker generals - similarly the CATs through fantastically good dice to be able to complete two 90% turns, in sucession within 6" of their enemy.

As you say - I'll keep playing and see how I get on - as I've stated previously I'm not a huge fan of book-keeping or dragging a lot of markers about.
But maybe some sort effect on units that win melees might be an idea in future, even if its only a 'pause for breath' hold still for a move might be an idea, as I can potentially envisage larger 'elite' super units roaming around the battlefield going through multiple melees and coming out 'fresh' and totally uneffected. 12 base BGs of Armoured, Elite, Drilled Varangian Guard or Later Republican Romans Legionaries come to mind

Many thanks all - most informative

Mark