"Should "assaults" be a distinct thing in skirmish rules?" Topic

Movement, shooting, assault, morale.

Pretty much every game works like this and on larger scales, it makes reasonable sense. A squad sitting in support will act differently than a squad that is pushing in.

But on the man-to-man skirmish scale, does it make sense?

Let's say the rules already permit close range small arms fire to be pretty effective and lets you throw grenades.

Let's say the morale rules reflected that having enemies nearby is very unnerving.

Would we still need an actual "assault" rule? (other than when two soldiers blunder into actual hand-to-hand fighting in a building or something).

I am defining skirmish here as:

Individually based figures.
Figures can move and fire reasonably individually.

You probably want some kind of hand-to-hand combat rule for bayonets etc. It doesn't need to be super detailed though.
"Assault" in larger scale games usually means getting close enough to use grenades.

I like a seamless turn sequence. If it's your 'go' you can fire, move, throw grenades, fight hand-to-hand, do other stuff in any order until you somehow run out of steam.

You pick a unit – an individual figure or a group [formal or ad hoc] and perform actions until that unit is 'done' – then pick another eligible unit and so on. The other side can shoot at you and perhaps perform some reaction moves while you go.

No system is ever going to be perfect.

But – NO – a separate assault phase is not needed especially in skirmish games.

You don't NEED anything at all in a game.
So the literal answer is no, you don't need an assault rule or morale tests or ammo limits.

There's a weird real world effect where small scale attacks will get close to the enemy and then just stall.
( Brains and bullets ).
Separating out assaults could model this.

Assault is also likely to be the decisive part of combats. At least with one side dug in or whilst in busy terrain.

Personally, I prefer things like grenades and full auto fire "factored in" to a separate assault mechanic.

It also introduces a bit more interest in a game anyhow. If you have real world effective small arms fire then you have a lot of shooting for any casualties unless you're at quite short range.

Define "assault" at the level of a skirmish action. I see it as an act by an individual soldier (or perhaps a small team under his influence and control) who swallows his fear, leaves cover, advances through the fire swept zone and closes with the enemy to do them harm. The history books are replete with examples of such individual acts deciding a fight.

So yes, IMO, "assault" should be a discrete element in a skirmish game.

FWIW.

B

For one-on-one skirmish I would separate fire from hand-to-hand combat, but if you're playing platoons or larger I use assault rather than melee. In skirmish games you count every bullet, in larger scale games you don't.

As the others said above, it depends a lot on what you mean by assault. But certainly going close up and personal with close steel should be an option (though not necessarily one that players should choose lightly).

I see "assault" in man to man combat on a couple on a couple different levels. One would be attacking a known fixed position and the other would be attacking a tank or bunker.

Nuts! by THW covers assaulting pretty well with varied outcomes. It has the "Charge into Melee" test where the enemy can fire back as you're making the assault on an enemy position.

For a tank or bunker there's a table for Close Assault which may have various results, including the explosive you're using going off before using it.

From a modelling stanpoint you need to fully define what you want from a model and the level of detail you are prepared to go to and the relevant time steps (turn length) you are using.
As an Example Maneouvere Group uses an "assult" phase to allow us to simplify the game. In this very short period it is assumed the troops carry out an action in very short (compared to turn length) action where ammmunition expenditure in terms of ammount and type is un-usually high). Therefore we do not need to count how many grenades we throw as Troops only do one or two assults before becoming generally to0 worn to do any more that day. Also it is one occation where lots of troops activate at once as its a co-ordinated busrt of fire and then run like hell. Even in a skirmish game you would expect a small group in very tight time limits to rush a point.

So as has been said you have to look at your model, how it works and how best to reflect the expected result of the model. That may, or may not show why and if you need an assult phase. I always suggest forget rules, how would you do such a thing in the real world, what would be the outcome, and then write rules that gives you that result.

Coming from a computing background, designing and developing systems ( and fixing /extending them ) is what I do all day.
Well.
Between herding cats, whipping minions and people stuff.

Top down design is the way to go.
You decide on what the big picture is first,
How important everything is.
You then decide if you're leaving out bits as unimportant, impossible or not cost effective. In game design terms this includes negligible or not-fun effect.
Eg is ammo something you want to record. How about supplies like petrol… food?

You then work your way down until you reckon you covered everything significant.
Consider what mechanisms you're going to use for this stuff.

Next is to pick through detailed stuff you ignored or decided to exclude and see if they should definitely be dropped or maybe you can find a simple +1 when blaa mechanism adds that part into your chosen mechanics. Maybe this is merely a modifier rather than a separate mechanic.

If you instead do "bottom up" and concentrate on a huge list of details you often miss out pieces and resolving relative significance will be a nightmare of repeated iterations. Redesigns.

You can see bottom up design problems in those over complicated monster systems from the 70s and 80s.

I prefer to start at the bottom and work up. It's not in fashion but it avoids fudging things to create an effect you think justified by a 100% top down approach.

I set out some basic principles. How is Firepower figured out? What different grades of morale are really needed? How long is a turn etc.

Then I build upwards until I have a workable game and test it. Comparing the results it gives to the historical data and adjusting accordingly.

With experience you can limit the 'huge lists of details' quite early on. I agree many of the 70s-80s games are monters and cannot be played or even learned by 21st century gamers with marriages to sustain and children to raise, not to mention jobs to do.

But I contend you can do 'bottom up' better and avoid the problems.

The problem with top down is it can end up being overly abstract and merely confirms your starting prejudices. It can also produce rather dull and simple games that are too lacking in flavour.

I'd be interested in hearing if others have come full circle on the top-down/bottom up thing or if everyone is following the new orthodoxy.

I introduced a group of newbies to wargaming on Wed and two of the three were loving it until the first assault; after that they seemed underwhelmed with proceedings. I think they wanted something more descriptive and detailed

AO Niell it is definitely neccessary to have a very pricise definition of what you want out of a game, detail should be at least 3 times what you need so that you can then besure athat what you get at two or 3 levels up is correct.