Slitherine

This is partially an idea for scenario games, not as a permanent change.

All non-skirmishers begin the game with a fresh status. This conveys a +1 on all CTs. Units lose their fresh status if they: fail a CT or take a casualty or fight in close combat.

So what do people this that would do to the game? I figure the following:
easy enough to track with a simple marker.
weaken missile fire, but increase its desirablity.
strengthen troops that need to receive an impact from things like lancers, impact foot.

Any issues?

I thought about also adding a -1 CMT for non-fresh, non-skirmishers. But that could be cumbersome.
I also thought about losing the fresh status for declaring a charge or evading, but that assumes they are not feints or simple moves which i thnk they mostly are. Also it become easy to take away the fresh status of stuff that needs to push off skirmishers and sort of defeats the purpose.

As I told you before, I like the idea very much, specially the fact that once it is done it can't be recovered again. For scenarios and alike I would not give it for all non skirmishers troops but for some targetted ones. It would help to get better results. In my opinion HF should be the target in most Ancient battles, but in some scenarios I would not give it to poor HF. It would help to get more historical results. For example in pike on pike fights they would last longer and let the cavalry decide the fate of the battle.

Strategos69 wrote:For example in pike on pike fights they would last longer and let the cavalry decide the fate of the battle.

That may not be positive.

hazelbark wrote:

Strategos69 wrote:For example in pike on pike fights they would last longer and let the cavalry decide the fate of the battle.

That may not be positive.

For scenarios of Successors certainly I would recommend it if you want it to ressemble a little bit to a real historical result. If you look at historical battles, the ones were one phalanx defeats the other frontally are the minority and only when dealing pikemen considered superior against recruits.

I like the idea of a BG having a little advantage in it's first fight.
Please clarify if a fresh BG will drop from fresh to steady or disrupted?

About the shooting; maybe loose fresh status if you pass a cohesion test with 7 (i.e. you would have failed if not "fresh").

Fluffy wrote:I like the idea of a BG having a little advantage in it's first fight.
Please clarify if a fresh BG will drop from fresh to steady or disrupted?

About the shooting; maybe loose fresh status if you pass a cohesion test with 7 (i.e. you would have failed if not "fresh").

Good question. When should the Fresh status be lost. At first I thought....
I think the Fresh status is lost at the end of the phase if you are in any type of close combat (impact, melee, pursuit) or you drop a level from shooting.

So it really would never effect Melee phase which was is odd. So how about...
You lose Fresh status at beginning of JAP phase where you are still in close combat or are disrupted, Fragmented or Broken. So if a charge breaks someone before the JAP phase and you are no longer in contact potentially you could keep your status. Which means a lucky charge that blows through someone doesn't cost you fresh. Which I can live with.

In a club game last year (a refight of the Second Battle of Taraori) we had some additional rules, one of which was a "Fresh" bonus for cavalry (though not infantry). Any cavalry unit that had not charged or fought a round of impact or melee combat counted as "fresh".

In impact ONLY it got a +1 POA against non-fresh cavalry. The main reason for the rule was to simulate a charge late in the historical battle by Ghurid bow- and sword-armed cavalry against Rajput lancers. The Rajputs' horses were by that time blown and the force of the Ghurids' charge routed them. In game terms, the lancers' +1 at impact was balanced out by the bow cav's +1 for being fresh.

In game terms it worked well: the impact phase itself was indecisive (ie, the Ghurids didn't lose atrociously) but the succeeding melees saw the generally protected Jajput units ground down by generally armoured Ghurids. We also played with voluntary break-off rules (which also worked well), but I'll leave those out of this discussion.

Although we played with printed unit manifests (it was a big, multiplayer game) and ticked off units that had lost their freshness, I have decided to just use counters for the next refight: fresh units all start the game with a counter to prove it and lose the counter after they charge or are charged. Counters are much simpler and less ambiguous than paperwork.

Any specific battle groups that get other kinds of bonus in the scenario would also carry a counter for that special ability -- and lose it once they had exercised that ability. Abilities like initially high morale that gives the BG a +1 on tests until such time as they fail a test and become as mediocre as the next guys.

These seem like good ideas.

By giving fresh troops a slight edge they'd help to make reserves more useful. This would add to the realism of the game.

Alan