Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Tom McMillan]

In a message dated 4/16/02 9:00:23 PM, WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com writes:

<< <<I'm obviously not making myself clear on this so here I go again. I
fully understand units reacting to the rout/destruction of nearby friends. My
point is why not resolve all combats started in that bound and then resolve
wavers in the combat direction which can of course mean units becoming
shaken. However why do we want a unit to possibly become shaken before it has
resolved its own combat which theoretically started at the same time?>> >>

As I recall, (from distant memory) the rationale behind this is to give the
attacking player some sense of initiative.
The player who stands on his baseline and waits, a la Gates at Saratoga,
hands the initiave to his opponent, a major concession, yet something that is
difficult to recreate on the tabletop.
Direction of combat resolution is resoved before prep shooting, that is
before charge declarations. This means that the player who will be doing the
charging (eg cavalry looking for weak spots to exploit in a static infantry
line, like Hastings) gets to see which combats will likely cause wavers,
because they will be resolved first , and may effect which charges he chooses
to declare.
It doesn't sound like this would be that crucial, but it is often decisive.

[scott holder]

As I recall, (from distant memory) the rationale behind this is to give
the
attacking player some sense of initiative.
The player who stands on his baseline and waits, a la Gates at Saratoga,

hands the initiave to his opponent, a major concession, yet something
that is
difficult to recreate on the tabletop.
Direction of combat resolution is resoved before prep shooting, that is
before charge declarations. This means that the player who will be doing
the
charging (eg cavalry looking for weak spots to exploit in a static
infantry
line, like Hastings) gets to see which combats will likely cause wavers,

because they will be resolved first , and may effect which charges he
chooses
to declare.
It doesn't sound like this would be that crucial, but it is often
decisive.

>Like Tom, I am attempting to dredge up from my less distant (but
nonetheless dim) pastm the philosophy behind this concept. My memory of
this pretty much corresponds to Tom's *and* Jon's most recent
explanation seems to provide most of the conceptual basis for this
particular game mechanic.

>There is one more that I remember. It used to be everything ran from
the player's right. I'm fairly sure the right to left sequence was done
based on western historical precedence that attack plans (in some,
certainly not all, more famous battles) flowed from right to left
because the elite units were placed on the right. Actually, this was
more of a western medieval thang that survived well into the 18th
century.

>But the whole right to left mechanic really wasn't always right to left
when you looked at a grander scale of battles and as such, we decided to
make it a bit more random. Nevertheless, the basics of the mechanic,
it's usefulness in setting up attacks, and the tactical repurcussions it
forces on players, remains.

Scott
Game Philosophy Ho