Trying it on

After much fiddling about yesterday, I have spent some time writing up the new Gathering of Hosts which is now available again at the left, under links.

Gratuitous shot of the Greco-Bactrian left and center. 

As any who also follow Battle Game of the Month may know, I have been pondering command control mechanisms. Partly because I find rolling for each group tedious in bigger games, partly because it it too easy to forget. My thought is that to be a successful game mechanic, there has to be a carrot as well as a stick so that players will want to make the roll. I tried a DBA type PIP system which rewards players by letting them do something, a modified order check with a bonus d6" on a 6 and various other ideas.  At long last I decided that the initiative system, which allows occasional double moves, is enough friction for me.

The armies advance.

I had to tame missile fire a bit, decided to restrict the movement of close order troops a bit more, re classified the unit types closer to the original list and did plenty of other tweaking then tried them out.

The Persian battle-line tries to maneuver around a wood. Can they complete the move and reorder before the Greeks get past the skirmish screen? 

The armies were once again Greco-Bactrian vs Iranian-Bactrian aka Proto-Sassinid, but a little larger, 20 units a side instead of 12 (deep pike units counting as 2).  I ran out of time to finish but apart from finding it tedious to track hits  on 40 units, it felt like what I was aiming for. There seem to be several possible ways to get around tracking so many hits: use fewer but bigger units to keep the figure count up, get more markers and some sticky stuff to make it easier, use single figures on sabots, reduce the number if hits and the number of dice rolled, or something else. Since I like the option to have a small number of units or a larger number, twice this many for a full battle, and like the way units can stand up to a slow trickle of casualties but can disappear quickly in melee, especially if caught by pursuit, for now, I'm going to leave it as is. I'll get some sticky stuff to hold the dice on the stands as they move and making sure I have enough markers. 

 Second choice, make piecemeal attacks maybe the elephants can break the phalanx. yes? yes..no, not quite! STAND CLEAR!