Command & Control

ONE thing notably absent from Neil Thomas's rules, in Ancient & Medieval Wargaming and other books, is restrictions on how many units a player may move in a turn.

He argues that players make enough mistakes on their own without the need for extra uncertainty.

I am not sure about this, and for my mid-18th century rules, which owed a lot to Thomas's ideas on horse-and-musket wargaming, I eventually adopted the pip system pioneered by the Wargames Research Group.

Armies of the period were generally divided into two wings and a centre, and by allocating different dice - a 10-sided one for the centre, six-sided dice for the flanks - I restricted the number of actions, including moving and firing, that could take place in a single turn.

However my armies for refighting the War of the Austrian Succession contained many more units than are allowed in Thomas's rules.

In Ancient & Medieval Wargaming armies consist of eight units, and, as I have mentioned before, I think this works well for battles where numbers are a matter of much speculation.

My move-variation rule already adds some uncertainty to a battle, and I propose to add more by adapting an idea from Bob Cordery's ancient rules in Developing The Portable Wargame.

He has players rolling dice at the start of each turn, higher thrower moving first.

This means that, not infrequently, an army will get to have two turns, or two half-turns to be more precise, in a row.

I will slightly modify this by awarding a great general a +1 modifier, and a poor general a -1 modifier.

With any luck these additions to Thomas's rules will do away with the need for command & control, but, to borrow a common expression from chess when discussing new moves in an opening, tests are needed.