Suggested rule changes for next edition

[Neil Williamson]

i'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this so please redirect me if there is a more suitable place.
The following are just a few things I'd like to be considered for the next edition. I'm not trying to wordsmith them - just trying to convey the intent.

1. When you have multiple elements in combat (front, flank, and/or rear) you can choose which single element you fight with, this does not have to be the front one.
Rationale - Lets take an extreme example. A Ps has pinned the enemy to the front, and Elephants charge into the rear (downhill with the wind behind them) - who do you think is going to do the most damage? I think it is more realistic to allow the game to reflect the damage output of the El rather than the Ps. Flank attacks are similar.

2. When an element, excluding skirmishers,  is turned to face the enemy for combat it should be at a -1 combat disadvantage for that bound.
Rationale - The elements represent 200+ men (1000 for hordes) in close or fairly close formation. If attacked in the flank there would be a great deal of disruption as they turn to face the enemy. In the game there is currently no accommodation of this disruption. Troops can fairly comfortably try and sneak past confident that there is little downside if they get caught.

3. With marches, currently a group within 400p containing 2 or more contiguous non-skirmishers can block a march, if they are just skirmishers the enemy can be moved straight ahead. I propose that the march blocking is limited to 400p from the nearest non-skirmishing element not from the nearest lement in the group.
Rationale - Currently you can employ a gamey (IMO) deployment where some Ps or LH extend out towards the flanks attached to elements of other troops. This can effectively stop any marches coming down the extreme flanks. This seems contrary to the spirit of the idea that skirmishers only have a limited effect on the ability to march.   

STRATAGEMS

3. Guides - Change the wording "passage counts as if along a road" to "passage counts as if in good going".
Rationale - The current wording creates too many problems to use the stratagem. It gives the opponent notice about what you're attempting to do which can then be relatively easily countered. The hidden pass should enable the attacker to spring an attack from an unexpected direction. This change will allow an easier use of the stratagem which still has counters to it.

4. Feigned Flight - The direction of the flee should be the same as for combat outcome.
Rationale - The feigned flight is meant to trick the enemy into believing that you are fleeing from combat. Why, when you hit a flank would yu then run off at a peculiar angle? Its even odd with an oblique attack and makes the feigned flight less useful to use.
 

[Barritus]

These are all good ideas and worth discussing further.

My only reservation is with number 2, and that's for practical reasons rather than because I disagree with it. The general concept underlying the DB* system is to remove the need to place markers next to troops for any reason - elements either exist or they don't, and it's at the command level that any status changes occur. However with turning elements it would be necessary to mark them as a reminder.

Obviously this isn't a show-stopper, and I know a lot of players use markers anyway to ensure no combats are missed, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Barritus]

Here's a couple more suggestions:

1. Scouting stratagem: Eliminate the need to allocate elements to perform the scouting. Instead, purchasing and using the stratagem entitles you to a single roll. The problems at the moment are: (a) the stratagem is biased against armies with only a few eligible elements (especially if they're armies with Cv (S)); (b) the need to place surviving scouting elements with the C-in-C seems clumsy and unnecessary; and (c) for some armies the elements historically used as scouts can't be because they can't be in the C-in-C's command (a classic example is the Early Crusader, for whom the Byzantine allies were their scouts). This change simplifies and speeds up the process.

2. Betrayal stratagem: Eliminate it altogether. Has anyone ever used it? Or, as an alternative to eliminating it, change it to a stratagem which allows a player to increase the chance of an enemy's ally being unreliable to 1-3 on their first PIP dice (the cost of the stratagem representing the bags of gold delivered to said ally general).

3. BUA and BUAf: Eliminate the latter and simply allow all BUAs to be fortified with PF or TF. As it stands there are a number of very odd choices over whether an army can have BUA or BUAf - or even have a BUA at all - the lack of which effectively prevents some armies from using the Delay Battle stratagem.

4. Paved Road: Eliminate it. In how many battles did the existence of a paved road play a major role? Sure, they were significant strategically, but how often did they play a tactical role in a battle?

5. BUA and river: Is there any particular reason why BUAs can't be placed against a river? I'd suggest there are a significant number of cases where the site of a battle was near a town on a river. As it is there are some lists which have BUA and River in their terrain list, but not Road, which means the BUA can only be placed on one of the three non-enemy table edges.

6. Single element moves: The distinction for Expendables, train and Ships as opposed to other types of elements making single element moves should be eliminated. After all, the element represents a considerable number of chariots, wagons, ships or whatever within the area covered by the base, with a lot of empty space as well - that's plenty of space for the individual whatevers to make their moves. However, people think it's necessary to distinguish them, perhaps make such moves more expensive in PIPs.

7. Turning to face a flank hit: It'd be good to get some clarity about what happens when a group in line hits the flank of a group in column, particularly when the contacted elements are not 40 paces deep. For example, how do the attackers line up with the defenders, and which attackers do the defenders turn to face?

8. Kn wedges and Cv: The benefit for Kn wedges of not being overlapped doesn't come close to making up for the loss of the Quick Kill against Cv. For example, it makes it particularly hard for Alexander and Companions to deal with Darius and accompanying Cv in a realistic manner.

9. An index and more cross-referencing: Please! It's still so hard to find everything in the rules about all sorts of subjects. Even worse when Important Stuff isn't in the rules but in the list books (for example, the distinction between BUA and BUAf).

[Barritus]

Oh, and another suggestion that comes to mind...

How about having a Dismounting stratagem, for those troops who dismounted in other than those cases of automatic entitlement to dismount. It's unfair having two otherwise similar armies in which one's mounted troops have an automatic right at no cost to dismount, while identically costed troops in the other army can't. So, if you want your men to be able to dismount, make them pay for the right.

And when armies acquire or lose the ability part-way through the list (Med French come to mind), then make the stratagem available only within a limited time period (but still available to Inert Generals seeing as there are plenty of such examples).

[Neil Williamson]

I like the sound of all your suggestions too Sir Barritus even though a lot of them I have not experienced yet as I've only been playing a year. I only found out about the BUA on a river one a month ago. I was misled by page 11 re a BUA abutting a water feature and assumed it could line up to a river. As you say - indexes and cross references please.

I did consider the necessity of placing a "turned" marker, but thought it was not a biggy and in most situations you can remember anyway as the combat occurs soon after the movement.

Another one I meant to post, but the wife was hurrying me out of the house - Betrayal Stratagem.  I suggest the 5ME losses to pay for the bribe is dropped. I don't understand why a successful infiltration results in the loss of morale for the attacker and an unsuccessful one does not! The chances of getting to the loot is so much greater if you have infiltrated. The stratagem costs 5AP for something quite high risk and does not need a further penalty.

What is the procedure for suggestions to get forwarded and considered?

[LawrenceG1]

Contact Phil Barker via


Wargames Research Group Ltd
Home Page
(www.wargamesresearchgroup.net)

Directors (in alphabetical order) Phil Barker, Steven Bowns, Chris Hanley, Sue Laflin-Barker and Nigel Spinks.
Secretary: Steven Bowns. Chairman: Sue Laflin-Barker.
Address: 208 Mill Road Cambridge CB1 3NF, England.
To contact any one of us, please email our Christian name @wrg.me.uk

[grandad]

Is there any point in contacting Phil?
 I understood he had declared himself uninterested in making any further changes to DBMM.
I suspect that the only way forward would be an attempt to achieve consensus on appropriate rule changes including the exact wording thereof - similar in format perhaps to the commentary.

[Orcoteuthis]

Phil's been very quiet since about the publication of the Revised army lists, so I don't expect there's much chance of any suggestions being incorporated in a 2.2 or 3.0.

OTOH, if you don't send them in the chance is zero.

[Geoff Pearson]

As far as I am aware Phil has retired from rule writing. He is in his mid to late eighties now.

[grandad]

I am currently working on a set of proposed amendments to DBMM v.2.1 in hopes that if it can address enough of the concerns about the existing rules the DBMM user community might agree (in the absence of any co-operation by Mr Barker, which would, of course, be desirable) to creation of a committee to review all amendments proposed by any interested party with a view to producing a “universal” set of amendments, to be adopted in the same way as the commentary has been so widely accepted.
Without Mr Barker’s approval it would obviously be impossible to produce an amended set of the complete rules, but I don’t believe that should deter the publication of a set of comprehensive and precisely worded amendments with clear directions as to where in the existing rules these amendments should be inserted.
I have also been trying to think of rules to cover certain lacunae in the ability of the current rules to reflect real occurrences, such as the occasional impetuous behaviour of so-called regular infantry. After all, if you want to fix something it seems pointless to ignore the possibility of improvement by addition of new features.
Some of the suggestions put forward by Neil Williamson and Sir Barritus address matters I had already considered, and some deal with issues which I haven’t previously thought about. In connection with the latter, I propose to incorporate in my draft, with appropriate acknowledgement of the source, details of those suggested amendments which seem to me to have merit, and I hope to submit my draft to this group shortly to get the ball rolling towards the objective referred to in my first paragraph.  Meanwhile, I’d be interested to know what other members think about trying to create a broadly accepted set of amendments, for use, for example, at tournaments.

[LawrenceG1]

1. This already happens in DBM. However, the number of changes actually made has been very small, and in DBA where it resulted in divergence between the unofficial revision and the subsequent official revision.

2. If anyone other than the commentary group makes "unofficial" changes there is likely to be chaos. Therefore the commentary group would need to be intimately involved in this process, if not be the "authority" for the changes.

3. There is no harm in people suggesting rule changes for a hypothetical next version of the rules here (or elsewhere). Collecting them here is not a bad idea.

4. WRG may at some point implement a "succession plan" to take the rules further officially.

[grandad]

 Apologies for the delay in posting this since my last email. I was given further food for thought, which resulted in some last minute changes to my draft amendments.
I attach a list of points which bothered me, followed by suggested solutions formulated in terms of darft amended wordings to the rules.
I hope the attachment will give much food for thought to others, and engender a lively and, most of all, a productive discussion.
Finally, may I say I entirely agree with Lawrence Greaves that if there is to be a generally accepted set of amendments there needs to be a committee set up similar to that which produced the DBA amendments before the last "official" version of that rule set came out.
Tom Worden

[Orcoteuthis]

That's a lot of stuff, and I don't have a lot of time right now, but something that caught my attention on a quick scan:

why would anyone ever fight from a camel, except those classified as (S), against mounted, giv-en present factors?

This might be a problem not with the rules, but with camels - despite Cyrus' well-known trick against Croesus, people choosing to confront cavalry on camel-back appears to be quite rare. In the two other examples I'm aware of where horses' aversion for camels is reported to have been important to the course of a battle, the camel-men fought on foot, throwing javelins from behind a stationary line of camels.

There was a long thread (started by yours truly) about this over at the SoA forum recently.

[grandad]

Thanks for that. I will have a look at the SoA  thread. I had in mind the early Bedouin army, in particular, which has the opportunity of using loads of mounted Camelry. However, I suppose it can be argued that Camelry is and should be any good only in dunes or brush, so if one wants to use them effectively then do so only against opponents with the relevant terrain. Then again, if they are really a kind of mounted auxilia, perhaps the issue might be addressed by reducing their cost and/or making Camelry half an ME each, though that then raises the issue of whether LH camels should also be half an ME, and, if so, why not other LH too?
A tricky issue!

[grandad]

Further to my last post, I have now read the camel thread on the SoA forum. I thought the most interesting point was that  Lawrence's camelry was able to overturn Turkish cavalry horses. It seems to be asumed that such horses were smallish or light steeds, which rendered them particularly vulnerable to the camels, but I wonder how valid that assumption is? Does anyone know much about Turkish WW1 horse quality?Another interesting point, for me, was yhe apparent consensus that camels are generally abandoned in favour of horses if the latter are available, except when terrain/climactic considerations dictate the continued reliance on camels as preferable. Horses are certainly considered more responsive and ly faster over at least short distances. All that seems perfectly logical. However, I don't think the suggestion that camels smell so strange as to be capable of upsetting horses significantly stands up, and similarly I have doubts about the appearance of camels being a major disconcerting factor. What seems to me to be largely ignored is the sheer nastiness of camels, who in my admittedly limited experience are prone to hissing, spitting, biting and generally behaving aggressively.
If you add all that lot up, I get the impression that:
1. Camelry should be able to perform with a decent prospect of success against cavalry, but possibly be disadvantaged against knights by virtue of the latters' generally heavier horses
2. Camelry should be less manoeverable than cavalry
3. Possibly Camelry should have a shorter move than cavalry - though whether that should be reflected in the tactical move distances on a wargames table is moot.
4. Camelry don't really merit a special "disrupting" capacity against cavalry/horses, as long as the former can meet the latter on terms which allow the camelry a reasonable chance of winning a combat.
Point 2 above also brings me to consideration of whether Irregular Cv(S) should remain unmanoeverable - surely they would generally be more manoeverable than Camelry?. All things considered, including the contents of this site's thread on the subject, I think I would be in favour of them ceasing to be any different in terms of manoeverability than Cv(O). , unless, perhaps, if double-based with other Cv (of whatever grade). Double-basing could provide the answer to Mr. Barker's apparent desire to limit the manoeverability of shower-shooting portions of mounted armies, such as (according to his views) Sassanids.