"Best brigade morale and army breakpoint" Topic

Imho, it all depends on which rules that you are using. For example many rules do not use a break point which in the olden days referring a rout status.

I think it would depend on other parts of your game. Are you counting casulaties, removing figures, tracking how long a unit has been engaged? I combine morale/fatigue/casualties into a single number called "effectiveness" this is similar to what Sam Mustafa does in Bluecher. You start at a number and once you reach zero through fatigue, casualties etc, you are gone. It doesn't mean everyone is dead, but the unit can't fight anymore.

I'm with Rudy. In general terms, though, the principles are usually that either

A. Better troops take more damage before they check (or break.)
B. The better troops get a plus on their check.
C. The better troops roll a bigger die. OR
D. The better troops roll more dice.
Not sure where I'd place the Charles Grant system under which some units start with more or fewer officers and the number of officers remaining is a plus to the morale roll.

Generally, I don't like mixing systems within a game. If close-range fire means rolling more dice, I'd rather elite morale tests involve rolling more dice. If militia roll smaller dice in melee, I'd rather they did it for morale. Only complicate rules when there is an advantage in doing so.

Alfie, it's "morale" that keeps your unit from running away. "Morals" are what keep you from using loaded dice.

But I am lost by the question. I do not understand what is meant by "allowing brigade quantity to collapse morale." Could you rephrase, please?

I'm not so sure about brigade morale.
If 50% of your brigade is running or destroyed then I should think the rest are going to be headed home.

Units dug in for defence have a higher break and run point.
Units in assault are pretty much guaranteed to break by 30%
Routing tends to spread.
A routing unit is likely to trigger morale failure for friendlies seeing it rout.
This is far worse if the reason for routing is unseen and unknown.

Don't overlook getting flanked. A unit in good order with almost no causalities that all of a sudden is flanked may panic, especially if they don't know the size of the attacking force.

Also, causality rate is important. A unit could still be a fighting force with 80% causalities over a 2 week period. However, that unit, if at full strength, took 10% causalities in 2 minutes would most likely start to seek safety.

Fog of War causes fear even in elite troops.

Wolfhag

I've never understood these kinds of rules.

Did soldiers really identify so totally with their brigade that they'd run away if other units in the brigade suffered too many losses, regardless of what the rest of their army was doing? It makes for some dumb game situations. For example:

111 222 333 444 aaa bbb ccc ddd eee

The "numbers brigade" and the "letters brigade" are deployed side by side. The "numbers brigade" is getting really hammered, and 4th battalion breaks. But the "a" battalion next to them says, "eh, whatever, no worries, not our brigade".

But if "e" and "d" battalion break, then suddenly "a" battalion says, "Holy crap, we're outta here!" ??

In other words, they're not worried about the big hole that just opened up beside them, but are terrified about the loss of men they probably can't even see or hear? All because they're in the same brigade?

That stuff doesn't make sense to me.

Army morale can be a useful way to end a game quickly, and not drag it out miserably for the losing side. Depending upon the game system and scenario, army morale can also be linked to taking objectives or game length, or weather, or other things besides casualties.

I like randomized army morale, too, so it's not predictable like, "I just need to kill one more enemy unit, and I win." You have to wonder why sometimes an army hung on despite horrible losses, and other times they broke and ran despite rather low losses.

But whether the rules have army morale or not, the game ends if/when one say concedes, right? If your opponent says, "Crap, I'm finished, you win," then you're not going to force him to stand there and keep playing, are you?

So in a sense, "Player Morale" is the most important thing.

If there's 2 battalions in a brigade.
One is rendered ineffective, fails morale and routes.
That's half the player's force.
Gone.
You're suggesting the other half just shouldn't care?
Because somewhere around here is some other friendly force.
Can't see em.
Not part of our organisation.
But in theory there's another brigade or two out there somewhere.

Real soldiers don't have that gods eye point of view.

If there's 2 battalions in a brigade.
One is rendered ineffective, fails morale and routes.
That's half the player's force.
Gone.
You're suggesting the other half just shouldn't care?

No, the opposite.

I'm saying they'd care very much about friendly troops breaking near them regardless of which brigade those friendlies belong to.

But it doesn't make any sense to me that your troops would care specifically and only about friendlies from their brigade breaking, especially if they can't even see them.

This something I have struggled with in my home brew ECW rules. I'm happy with the morale rules for individual units what I am trying to create is a mechanism for creating "Cascade Failures" or a "Domino Effect".

This for 2mm blocks so no figure removal. Instead my rules measure a loss of confidence in the individual units. I'm working on the basis that before a unit breaks and runs they loose the will to advance but might still be prepared to defend or stand in the second line. What I'm looking for is a way to show how having a proportion of the higher echelon's (brigade) component units switching to only being capable of defensive action change the Brigade's ability to take offensive action with any units which might have some fight left in them. I then need to do same up through the next echelons until the army has to withdraw.

I'm coming to the conclusion that I just have to set a number of subsidiary units which will trigger a collapse in the higher echelon. What I want is a mechanism that forces a player to consider the use of reserves to keep a formation in combat, but that still forces them to have to accept that the Army can't fight beyond a certain point.

I don't think any player likes to have his game ended suddenly by the breaking of one unit, followed by a few unlucky rolls. There might be some historical examples to back it up, but it doesn't make for a good game.

Far better, IMO, to apply some sort of penalty to the friendly uni(s) that are left behind, at least in that next turn – maybe a marker or whatever – to represent their shock at seeing friendlies rout. If the enemy can take advantage of that and attack them, then maybe he'll get lucky and create a cascade of failures and win the game. But if he's not in a position to take advantage by attacking them, then they'll recover from the shock and fight on (remove the marker).

I agree Garth which is why i am trying to create a system which allows the p;layer to mitigate that risk by pulling units out of the line before they trigger a cascade failure.