"Three cursory rules questions" Topic

I just got my HC rules last week and have skimmed through it. It looks like an exciting and fun game. Nevertheless, I had a couple of questions regarding the rules.

1. The command and orders rules look as if they are one of the main features HC relies on. I understand the commander must be within 6" of a unit to issue commands and that makes sense to me. However, I was looking at my Romano-British and Saxons, and even the Late Romans I'm assembling and it struck me that they have musicians and horn blowers in the command group.

That got me thinking, surely trumpet and horn commands can be heard from more than 6" and cannot be confused! I mean, that the whole purpose for them in the first place!

I was curious if others modify that rule? While that makes a lot of sense to me it also seems that it has the potential to unbalance the game since the confusion from command roles is one of the main features of the game mechanics.

I was wondering what others have done about musicians if anything.

2. Sieges. While there are a few rules for buildings, I didn't notice anything covering sieges of fortifications. If someone was running a scenario, say a Pict raid on a Roman garrison in a miles fort, how is that handled? Related to that, what do others do about basing for such a scenario? I've put my infantry minis on 20mm x 20mm Rendara bases with the intention of making trays for formations. I imagine others have done the same but if there are four archers on a tower and six spearmen along the wall, how does that interact with the Pict war band assaulting the wall as far as the rules go. I understand basing is not a large issue in HC but it seems frontage is.

3. Lastly, has anyone used metric instead of imperial measurements and how did that work out?

Thanks for any input and assistance in advance.

In HC the Commander can be within any distance of the unit/s he is giving an order to – he just suffers a -1 penalty for every 12" of distance to he unit. It's p29 Distance Modifiers. The idea is that not only is the commander and his entourage using signals along the lines you describe, but also sending out messengers and runners where appropriate. So the musicians and standards are sort of assumed elements of the command and control structure really.

The 6" rule refers to situations where you want to give an order to two, three or more units all that the same time. When you do this, the units have to be within 6" of each other. So, say you have two units side-by-side, maybe separated by 3 or 4", you can give both these units the same order because they form a group or 'division'. On the other hand, if you have the same units with one on your right flank and one on the left separated by several feet of distance… well you have to treat them separately and therefore you have to give them separate orders. That's where the 6" restriction applies – it's the max distance between units forming part of the same division when giving orders.

There are no rules for sieges as such – but we often treat Roman fortifications as basic barriers rather than walls as this allows a game to be fought as a series of assaults. A watchtower or mile fort or similar would be a fortified building – so +3 to the morale save of the occupying unit and only a 'break' result on a break test will affect them – so pretty tough to shift! Warlord have a new supplement in preparation on Caesar's wars which includes an attack upon Roman fortifications.

The measurements shouldn't make any significant difference if you prefer to use metric and multiple by 2.5 (an inch is 25.4mm so this is close enough to be the same for gaming purposes. 1 inch to 2cm is easier to apply and would give slightly shorter distances – but won't give you any problems with the sort of unit frontages described in the rules. A more literal 1 inch to 1 cm would work for 15mm or smaller models and proportionately smaller frontages and tables, but would be hellish slow with the usual 25/28mm units!

Hope that helps – my only other suggestion is that Warlord's HC forum is very friendly and worth checking out and the FaceBook page is also quite busy. TMP good too though – surprising who you find here :)

Thanks Rick,

That answers my questions. Thank you very much. I look forward to the new supplement.

Thanks again