Opinions and suggestions solicited

[FierceKitty]

The page below has not been tested in action yet. It is intended to counteract the "telepathic peltasts" problem without paralysing armies. If you, gentle reader, have like me been troubled by the way we tend to make more chess-like moves in a single battle than Alexander the Great did in his entire life, I'd value comments on how far you think I have a solution below:

(I, D, E are impetuous, disciplined, and elite respectively.)


Unnatural charge targets
Troops and their officers are strongly inclined to direct a melee attack towards an enemy directly in front of them. These may well be the only visible or even known enemy, and will usually appear the most menacing. Since it is, however, often very desirable to work around an enemy flank, wargames generals will often direct them to attack elsewhere. The rule below enforces a degree of realistic play, while allowing some tactical control.
If a unit is ordered to charge an enemy which is not the closest reachable (measure closest point to closest point, including the effects of changing front, and of delaying or impassable terrain or interposed units), it rolls a D6, needing 4-6 to attempt the move normally.
ADD   1   attackers are D or E
1   attackers are led by a general (unless I)
2   intended target is directly ahead of attackers' front
2   closest reachable is already engaged, or attackers are cavalry and closest is a square or is pikemen or LTS facing attacker, in square, or elephants, or in a BUA
SUBTRACT   1   attackers are I
3   another two friendly units have successfully taken this test this round
2   intended target is one of the last group specified in the positive modifiers, and attackers are cavalry
*   Units attempting attacks on unnatural targets must move before all others excepting berserkir.
*   If a unit fails a roll to attack an unnatural target, it may not move at all, and no further attempts may be made by the same army until the following round.
*   If the special order for a general all-out attack has been issued, troops following it are exempt from this requirement.
*   A roll of 1 before applying the modifiers above always fails.

[mmcv]

It seems like a fairly complicated series of checks for an edge case?  You could outright restrict it to only Elite and Disciplined if you still want it as an option for some. Or dictate that when within charge range they can only maintain facing towards their closest threat full stop. Or give the opposing player the option of a free move with the "ignored" unit if they so desire to potentially punish the gamey player. 

[FierceKitty]

Hmmm....must think about that. Thanks.

[sultanbev]

It seems like a fairly complicated series of checks for an edge case?

I'd agree with that. If it's an issue then a blanket rule is you can only charge straight ahead, and at the nearest target unit.

From what I can gather, "charges" are a bit over-done in linear warfare rules. In the sense that it's an either-or situation.

Quite often units would go up to each other, stop at 20m, throw insults and occasional weapons, sing songs, bang shields, issue challenges for one-to-one combat, then individual clumps of men would sally forth then back again, until generally there is a melee going on but with no 'impeteous' of a formed charge. In gaming terms a sort of advance-to-contact; which if I recall rightly some or one recent sets allow?

The other issue may be that there is a separate charge phase. In our Napoleonics (which is can be likened to ancients with bangsticks) bases on Fire & Fury rules, charges are indicated during the normal movement phase, so if during it's activation a unit can manouevre then charge, so be it. You have to be able to reach in your normal move rates, but in F&F they are quite generous. Having said that it's never an issue, because the footprint of the unit in actual models prevents most fancy manouvering. And attacking somebody in the flank only counts as a flank attack if you start that movement from behind their flank. So positioning of units and friendly units makes a big difference.

Maybe the decades of element-based ancient gaming has sqewed perceptions and abilities of what was possible in ancient warfare?

[sultanbev]

My other thought on this is,
do generals order charges? (other than when attached to a unit)

If a 'general', the commander of a wing of ten 500-man pikeblocks (say), is ordered by the CinC to attack the enemy to the front, swing left and envelope the whole line, what happens? the wing commander tells all his regiment (for want of a better name) commanders the plan, the individual regiments move forward. As the grey mass of enemy comes more detailed as the regiments move forward, a sort of tunnel vision develops through the noise and dust, missile fire and falling back skirmishers and wounded, would it be down to individual regimental commanders to decide to 'order a charge' as it were, when he sees a favourable moment?
The wing commander wouldn't have eyes on all ten pikeblocks, his skirmishers and what the enemy units were doing all at once, and even if he had 10 runners to send to order all his (no doubt by now variably positioned pikeblocks) to charge at once, as each runner would have different distances to cover, each unit wouldn't get the order at the same time.

I know we don't know a lot about ancient army command structures but logic and people management science tells us there must have been some structure, to move and supply tens of thousands of troops takes a lot of command.

Thus going back to the original poster's question, I would argue this reinforces the notion that most charges could be a local decision and more likely to be simple, straight ahead at a nearest blob of enemy and over a short distance.

[FierceKitty]

That's pretty much what I'm trying to enforce. At the same time, there must be some scope for someone on the spot to recognise an opening and move into a better position, rather than just go forward and engage.