"Basic Impetus 2 Questions/Comments" Topic

I am a newbie to these rules and have been reading through them and doing some sample combat resolutions in the last couple of days. So please keep this in mind. I have some questions/comments:

Is there any restriction on how far friendly elements can be from each other? I don't see any penalty mentioned for having your army's elements scattered all over the map except for the fact that your forces could be defeated in detail.

Is there any such thing as a countercharge allowed in the game? It appears that only the active player can charge and receive the impetus bonus in the ensuing melee. This can give the active player a decent advantage in most melees that he initiates with his fresh impetus possessing units. I could see disadvantaged opponents being reluctant to move into the charge range of their opponent.

Missile fire seems to be rather ineffective and probably would not force an opponent to close before his army is shot up badly. This kind of depends on how hot your firing dice are though.

The size of the playing area offers a LOT of maneuver room for the typical 8-11 element sized armies. The vast majority of the map could well be unoccupied.

The rulers in the back of the pdf do not appear to be properly sized when they are printed out. H is not 40mm on the 15mm ruler and H is not 60mm on the 28mm ruler. This is easily remedied though.

A unit of attacking dismounted men at arms with the general attached Army 28.1) will roll 9 dice in the melee. This sounds really scary (and it could be), but on average will only generate a couple of damage. It sure is fun dropping all of those dice to see what happens though.

Thanks to the author for this pdf being made available for such a reasonable price.

Thanks for any comments/input.

Basic Impetus is an introductory set of rules that familiarizes the player with the concepts and terminology used in Impetus,as well as the game mechanics.

In the full set of rules, Generals have various levels, and corresponding zones of influence. The better the commander, the better your army will respond and hold together. In BI, he is there to familiarize you with his always being attached to one unit, though in the full rules he can be unattached throughout the game.

Countercharges are in the full rules, and are one of the things that a unit can do if placed on "opportunity". In BI, your best bet is good planning, and the use of the "evade" move if your unit(s) posses it.

Missile fire can be quite effective, but that depends upon the weapon. Again, Basic Impetus is an introductory set. I happen to like rolling handfuls of dice.

I like BI as it allows me to build armies of different periods and see how they work. It's also a great game to introduce folks to not just ancients gaming, but historical gaming as well. You can build up two opposing forces easily enough, and then have one to hand for a player to try his hand with and see if he likes the game.

And yeah, the .pdf format is a great idea, and at an excellent price.

Best wishes to you and your new rules!

V/R

I think you could add a countercharge rule using a similar mechanism to the evade rule. For example roll 1 D6 and Heavy (CP) cavalry and warband foot countercharge on 2+; Medium (CM) can countercharge on 3 +; Heavy and Medium foot 4+; Light inf and Light cav can't countercharge. +1 if general with unit; -1 if disordered.