"What's Your Favorite Morale System?" Topic
12 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
In order to respect possible copyright issues, when quoting from a book or article, please quote no more than three paragraphs.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the 15mm Sci-Fi Message Board
Areas of InterestScience Fiction
Featured Hobby News Article
Featured Link
Featured Showcase Article
Featured Profile ArticleWant to know what's inside this Heavy Gear: Blitz! starter set?
Featured Book Review
|
Cyclopeus | 30 Mar 2015 8:18 p.m. PST |
What's your favorite morale mechanic? Does it keep track of a unit's morale status through various levels, or is it a simple pass/fail based on a unit's stats? Or is it something completely different? |
Weasel | 30 Mar 2015 8:49 p.m. PST |
Stargrunt 2 is still the gold standard as far I figure it. For games that don't track levels with counters, I prefer games that just focus on individual figures getting pinned down rather than "unit morale", like 5150 or my own stuff. I'm more of a skirmish gamer though. |
the trojan bunny | 30 Mar 2015 8:53 p.m. PST |
I've always been fond of the wound system found in many of toofatlardies' games. It does a nice job of simulating the gradual degradation of a unit's morale as a battle progresses. For those unfamiliar, units incur wounds (usually marked with a micro d6 or something similar) from combat. These give minuses to movement and to combat, so the longer a unit is under effective fire the less effective the unit gets. |
Extra Crispy | 30 Mar 2015 9:04 p.m. PST |
I'm very happy with mine. Fail a check and you go to an order one level less aggressive. From assault to advance to hold to retire to retreat to rout (picked up). |
Pictors Studio | 30 Mar 2015 9:32 p.m. PST |
I liked how Howard Whitehouse did his in Clash of Iron. You had two stats, ferocity and discipline. They went from 0-4/6 depending on the troop type. Combat, when lost, degraded both. When won it might increase ferocity but usually still decreased discipline. It wasn't for a sci-fi set, so it might work better for sci-fantasy than straight up sci-fi but it was really neat the way it worked because units would get into these fights and just fall apart at some point after doing pretty well even. |
Lou from BSM | 31 Mar 2015 5:59 a.m. PST |
One of the things that I saw that made a lot of sense was a cumulative 'morale clock'. I believe it was from Le Petit Empereur. Basically, each negative effect sustained by your forces resulted in a deduction from your overall morale clock. When the morale clock was consumed, the army would reach its break point. We've incorporated that into several of our games whereby individual units continue to suffer morale as dictated by the rules, but we've also added an army level morale standard. Each time a unit loses a melee, for example, a deduction is taken from the army morale value. When that value reaches zero, the army morale is broken. It's kind of the death from a thousand cuts; the cumulative effect of several smaller failures has a detrimental effect on the overall health of the army. |
Phil Hall | 31 Mar 2015 8:21 a.m. PST |
I believe it was from Road to Osaka, a Samurai skirmish game. When a unit checked morale all of the failing figures checked a second time using the number of figures who passed morale as a positive modifier to the second roll. It seemed to me to be a good way to represent the cohesiveness of a unit. |
leidang | 31 Mar 2015 8:58 a.m. PST |
My 2 favorite are: * Activation Roll from Fire & Fury * Break Check from Hail Ceasar! |
Mako11 | 31 Mar 2015 9:08 a.m. PST |
EC's and Lou's systems sound good to me. Pictor's system sounds interesting. I think for some battles, especially skirmish ones, the ability of troops to have a setback, but then re-rally would be nice, useful, and realistic. They might waiver a bit, but in some cases, could be spurred on by their compatriots, leader, or other units around them. Of course, they could be adversely affected as well by the above, too. |
Cyclopeus | 31 Mar 2015 4:10 p.m. PST |
In one sense, morale can be thought of as commanders in the field evaluating the likelyhood of success in the evolving situation versus whatever constitutes acceptible losses; sort of a risk/reward analasys to determine if and when to withdraw from the field. From another angle morale has to do with how much abuse a unit can take before they make up their own minds to leave. I do remember Stargrunt has some very colorful morale effects, a gradual loss of willingness to take risks. I particularly like how different missions can have different levels of importance, like on a recon mission in the back 40, no one is expecting to have a heavy fight. |
aapch45 | 31 Mar 2015 5:39 p.m. PST |
I like morale systems that represent the absolute terror of the battlefield. I like anything that has suppression mechanics Thanks Austin |
BrotherSevej | 31 Mar 2015 5:58 p.m. PST |
My fave is a boardgame wargame morale system. There's no heroes or leaders here, so they only rally over time. There are two suppression levels, and everytime you want to do something to a unit you have to roll a d10. The default morale value is 10 so you always pass. First suppression reduce morale to 4-6, and a fully suppressed unit will have morale value 1-2. Standing in the open, next to enemy, or being in the same space as enemy trigger a rout check at the end of every turn before melee. Failure means you have to retreat to the nearest cover, away from enemies. If you can't or your move takes you next to an enemy, you're eliminated (this does mean if you are in the same space an enemy and fail a rout check, you're eliminated). Combined with the lethal opportunity fire, this makes crossing open fields a fatal mistake if done without suppressing the defenders. |
|