"OTR - On to Richmond" Topic

For those who have played it:
Morale, "Before a unit may move or fire for a turn, any morale markers must first be removed" combined with "Units make only ONE morale check for each turn no matter how many times they received morale markers in the previous turn."

I interpret this to mean taking one test removes all of the morale markers for the unit that tested?

I always interrupted the rule to mean that one morale test removes one morale marker. If a unit has two morale markers and removes one, it still has one left.

That was how we played it – when we used OTR (which was a little while ago)

I'm with Bob & Fredrick. And we still play it.

I played with the author years ago at a convention in Roanoke VA. 1 morale check removes a morale marker. Once you get a morale marker, you don't get another. I always found this to be a little weak.

To do what Bob and Fredrick say, you would end up with a lot of units standing around waiting to recover. You could do multiple tests for the turn taking the worst result.

Another way to change things up is to have the first disorder be just that. Other disorders become casualties. That way you always only have 1 disorder/morale marker on a unit.

I always played that a single unit could never receive more than one morale marker regardless of how many times it was shot at prior to its card/chit coming up. Once it had a morale marker, it was considered disordered and could not take any action until the morale marker was removed. I read the rule as applying to all units covered by the drawn card/chit – namely no actions can be taken by any units covered by the card/chit until all morale markers have been removed. However, I concur that there's an ambiguity in the original rules. The way I played represented my interpretation and later having played games run by the author at conventions.

We play it like Linuxbox said. Take the test and all morale markers are removed. Subtract -5 for each marker over the first seems to give a believable result.

That's how my crew played it last time, no more than one morale marker per unit.

Our game of Perryville soon turned into clusters of infantry advancing behind artillery battalions. It made us think of WWI infantry behind tanks. It's why we stopped.

A unit may suffer only ONE morale marker/disorder
marker per turn, per the original rules.

Of course, there are any number of 'tweaks' to handle
multiple occurances of 'disorder'.

The one I like best is – if a disordered unit suffers
another disorder result from any cause, it immediately
moves a distance directly away from the source of the
disorder sufficient to take it out of reach of any fire
or charges.

Vtsao, I can't visualize 'clusters of infantry advancing
behind artillery battalions,' since a reasonable OB
probably wouldn't have that much artillery. Generally
one stand/division.

Could you expand upon your comment ?

Agreed, one stand per division. We were using a Perryville OB from the internet. Union left flank only. Midway into the battle many of the infantry brigades were shot up while the guns were as good as new. They could prolong forward (or back) and shoot. So the best remaining infantry backed them up and the guns prolonged, dealing hits out. It may well be that we were playing it wrong. I seem to recall having reached a similar spot last time we played in a previous century.

You may say we should have played correct tactics for the period, but leading with the guns seemed to work. And it hurt less. I suppose cutting the mobility of the guns might have 'fixed' this.

By the way, nice tweak.

Ah, prolong. Another 'tweak' I use is to allow prolong
and fire to the REAR, only. In practice, the recoil of
the piece aided in the (rearwards) movement.

I still allow 'hand-haul' for pivots in place (up to 45
degrees) and fire, but if you want to muscle the piece
forward (no limbering required) you can't fire it
that phase.

A while back (3 years ?) I had someone try the
'lead with the guns' idea. It cost me most of a
brigade but he discovered that good infantry versus
a good gun crew in melee is an infantry win. That's
when I modified my game to what I mentioned just above.

Maybe we should re-think how we play it…

Lots of great information!!

I'm going to start with the -5 for each disorder after the first one. I also like the idea of mandatory movement away from additional sources of disorder until 'safe'.