Slitherine

One thing that I missed while going through the experiences so far:

How about introducing the effect of BGs loosing combat being pushed back? I know that this creates all kinds of game mechanics issues if multiple units fight. But i really liked the feel of the Battle Line being pushed back gradually if in a long struggle and slightly weaker than the opponent. Hannibals Battles come to mind but also Greek Hoplite battles. Before starting any discussion on how to do this in the AoW: is there anyone but me who would like to see such a creeping movement during melee?

General consensus at present seems to be that the time spent moving the figures around isn't worth it. We have played AOW with push backs in the early days. How many games have you played? People seem to get the same excitment from seeing the DISRs appear along the line etc. We can easily do push backs but is there any value added other than s little visual appeal?

Si

the value in practice is very limited.
What are the situations they do create? As I see it the only thing it adds in mechanics is that BGs pushing forward through a part of the enemy BL get exposed to reserve BG behind the original BL. Actually this happened very rarely even in the systems that have the feature, most noted effect probably being the DBM overlaps that are created. I opened up the point because one tactical decision to make is find the right position for your reserves behind the battle line. And the distance where this is best place is easier to estimate in a game where a melee between two BL is static until parts rout or break off. That was the point for me.

arnimlueck wrote: I opened up the point because one tactical decision to make is find the right position for your reserves behind the battle line. And the distance where this is best place is easier to estimate in a game where a melee between two BL is static until parts rout or break off. That was the point for me.

Absolutely, and this is one of the reasons we abandoned push backs.

I have managed to take advantage of enemy troops following up a broken BG of mine on several occasions now. It can be an expensive way to draw them out of possition but it worked aganst Bruce at Usk.

You also get line breaking up if they try and chase away skirmishers or cavalry archers.

I too am not sure that q push back mechanism would add very much to the feel of a battle.