"Best way to represent morale?" Topic

I like my games to represent the steady decline of a unit, leading up to their rout.
the problem I have is that most games abstract the morale system to a random dice roll.
how would you represent morale in an ancient battle game?
Or, what morale system do you enjoy the most in games you currently play?

Thanks
austin

Shock in the Lardy games represents this, along with the commanders ability to affect the morale of their troops. No single roll, in fact no rolling at all.

There was an article out there about using a sort of snakes and ladders system (my apologies to the creator and author, but I forget where) – as things go well the unit becomes more sure of itself and its moraale improves. As things go badly it moves down the track and becomes less easy to motivate, fights less well, becomes more likely to retreat or break. Add to this some random snakes (sudden panics) and ladders (sudden leaps in morale, individuals boosting the unit's morale)that allow the unit's morale to drop down or leap up by a significant amount.

The down side to this is added complexity and a lot of record keeping (you coould have a single board and flag pins designating the units). The upside is that morale is dynamic and ebbs and flows with the tide of battle.

The reasoning for the random die roll is that the general is unlikely to know the exact morale state of the unit at any given time. With the slow erosion model , the general can plan for collapse to an unreasonable amount.

My sense is that ancient armies tended to have a cascading effect of morale failure. When one part of the army runs, the rest of them follow. Assuming ancient authors exaggerate, but are not complete liars, that accounts for the one-sided losses you often see in ancient accounts. Another morale crusher seems to have been an enemy within sight in the rear.

In my own set of rules that I am working on, commanders generate command points, and have to allocate them to activate units.
once units have accumulated a number of casualties equal to their morale number, they become exhausted, exhausted units take twice as many command points to activate.
also in my rules, when a unit loses combat, they are pushed back 1d3cm (I play in 6mm)
If a unit is exhausted, they are pushed back 1d6cm, and if the number is 4+, the unit becomes broken.
Broken units have to flee, but can be rallied by commanders.
if a broken unit receives any additional casualties, it is removed, and is considered routed.
That is how I personally handled morale

Thanks
austin

Interesting system Austin, I like it!

Casualty removal does this pretty well. Most people see it as actual removal of dead soldiers but it should represent the steady decline of the unit while going about fighting.

This is how it works in WAB, at least.

Also in my system, units accumulate casualties by marching, moving uphill, being outflanked, being charged by elephants, seeing other units flee, being pushed into (unless they are drilled) etc.
theoretically a unit, under my system, could rout without ever actually seeing combat.

I made this post to try to get some better ideas of how to make the system more fluid.

Thanks for posting so far
austin

Would love to see a copy….

Well, extra crispy, when I successfully make my final version of my first draft, I will post them.
they use a card system for determining casualties… basically you total factors, draw cards from a half deck for each factor against your unit, then suffer a casualty for each face card.
pretty simple stuff.

Thanks
Austin

I enjoyed how FoG handled morale. Combats could become real grinds, but if a unit's morale starts to slip, it can start to snowball until the unit routs. Seeing nearby units rout can make other units' morale to slip.

Scutarii from Hoplite Research uses a declining system where damage to a unit represents some casualties, fatigue, and to the unit's willingness to continue fighting. The usual result is one sides morale collapsing and the army fleeing the field. This can be seen in the battle report for Asculum

link

very simple system. Units acquire disorder points for morale and disruption marked by small pebbles on the table. They can recover by remaining stationary or by a leader's intervention. Pebbles easily removed or added and do not mar the visual effect on the table top.

Smacdowall, I have always intended to try legio VI, both the Macedonian and imperial versions, but have never gotten around to it.
I'm really bad at learning games from paper, I usually have to be taught by someone else… but legio VI is still on my to-play list!
I actually really like your concept of Death disorder and desertion.
very cool.

Thanks
Austin

Actually as for morale it should be wildly variable.

I actually really like your concept of Death disorder and desertion.

Thanks Austin. Although I would love to claim credit, the concept was actually conceived by Andy Callan several decades ago for his Loose Files and American Scramble rules. It is a beautifully simple but effective system which has translated well across different scales and time periods. I now have adopted it for all my rules.
link
Simon