As we are going to delve into the Italian Wars for our next operational outing on the 4th November I need to write up a fuller version of the "Retire" orders for the Renaissance PoW rules.
At present retire orders are simply, "All units except skirmishers must retire at a minimum of speed 2" towards or away from their ordered destination. (The Italics is my replacement for the movement arrow.)
As it stands, at least half the units in a command must obey the order. So if half your command is non-skirmish and the other half is skirmish then that's an easy option of retiring with all your non-skirmishers and fending off the enemy with your skirmishers?
Or can it be interpreted that if you retire with half your non-skirmishers you are complying with your orders as the half of the non-skirmishing units AND ALL the skirmishing units (which are fully complying with the retire orders!) fend off the enemy?
Or half of all your units regardless of whether they are non-skirmishing or skirmishing must retire - in which case the skirmisher option is being ignored?
Personally I prefer the second option as this gives light formations a great deal of flexibility. In an operational game it also makes this formation well placed to hold and react to enemy advances on the first tables. Detached units can have conditional orders to retire against the nearest enemy unit, allowing them to skirmish and slow down attacking forces but have the option of using their superior evades to fall back against overwhelming numbers.
We never use retire orders in a standard battle as there is seldom the room to make it relevant. The operational game will make the "affairs of the lights" or the "petit guerre" far more relevant. Let me know what you think.
4 comments:
Did we agree on an operational game on the 4th?
I thought we were leaving it until Ozy could make it down?
will try it out on Thursday, but the second option is more flexible
Condition orders?, we will need to agree how complex/detailed a conditional order is
We're hoping to put on a full operational game with 7 of us once Ozy is back and everyone can agree on another date. This will be an encounter battle in the desert. But as many of us said we could make it for the 4th I thought we should try another variation on the operational game by going to an earlier period - I think this should also give us more options for having fewer players as well.
Okay, Ill be there but i think a few tweaks need applying to the morale rules, otherwise the game will be over far too quickly. I think that instead of rolling for any unit withing 8" when a unit routs we should look at something less drastic. I really don't like this rule and find it to harsh. I think there is a better way to measure attrition. Not saying that losses should not affect the overall army, it's more about how this is enforced as a rule. Plenty to talk about tomorrow :)
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