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Capped Leader Morale + Human Wave - vince hughes - 10-01-2014
Capped Leader Morale Bonuses
In the last couple of years, I have become increasingly frustrated by the amount of scenarios marred with what I perceive to be units whose morale, when combined with leader morale bonuses are simply too strong to ever be budged by relatively common DF attempts. These type of scenarios invariably turn into a town or entrenchment that sits there soaking up 20+ turns of fire and assault attempts with little fear of being removed. For me, it becomes a rather tedious exercise and reduces the PG system to the drab affair of trying to mass killer stacks and wait for the lucky roll just to inflict step-losses. The PG art of reducing an enemy's morale and will to fight dissipates in the face of this gaming ploy (and a ploy rightly used if the aim is to win or hold out for a draw).
Even when using the House-Rule where units can only have a maximum allowed of '10' for its morale, it makes them almost impossible to break down no matter what amount of fire goes in. In short, these 'Supermen' have actually spoilt a few scenarios for me. Such circumstances where this can be a common theme are the 7 hex cluster town with a '2' morale leader placed in the middle of the cluster and then imparting that '2' to the 8 moraled troops surrounding his hex. Worse still, if you do manage to even disrupt one of them and the leader helps recovery, they have the added bonus of +1 when recovering in a town hex. Also, even when on the attack, these 10 moraled troops are quite able to wash over all that attempts to stand before them.
For me, something that I have pondered on for some time now but have never acted on is the 'range' these leaders can impart their bonuses. In effect, each leader can influence his troops 300m either side of him for a total 600m spread. To use another game as a comparison, in ASL, each leader can only affect troops within a 40m circles so 15 times less distance. Quite a substantial distance really. I haven't read the rules of other tactical games and therefore can not say at what range other games allow leaders to increase their troops morale. There are other ex-servicemen here on the PGHQ and whether they would agree with me or no, I can not say. But when serving, if I was in a defensive position and under fire or bombardment OR even when attacking and being shot at whilst 300m from a senior officer or leader, I really doubt their presence at that range would have been inspiring me to greater deeds whilst I was concentrating on flying metal intent on ripping some body part from me. This would be even more the case in a built up area. In urban areas, the soldier would be cut-off completely from their inspirational commanders as streets, houses and even rooms all serve to cut-down the distance and environment the warrior has around him. Step outside your own house and have a look up your road, or in your town. Project yourself 3 x football pitches away and ask "Would a leader in this house here exalt me to braver things in that village position there 300m away. Look at all the buildings and clutter in between those two points. Add to that heavy infantry fire, explosions, bombardments and maybe even enemy aircraft bearing down. I very much doubt your commander is going to have any effect on your brave pills.
The other niggle I have seen from many players and much on the same subject is just how far down the league ladder Soviet leaders are from other nations in the system. I think most of us agree that as a historical stereotyping of Soviet small unit leadership, there were probably less officer class personalities than in most other armies, but given the bravery of the humble RKKA soldier, does this equate to a fair loss of morale due to lack of leaders? Are the RKKA fairly represented or have they, albeit perhaps accidentally, been overly hindered by their poor officer allocation and their morale modifiers?
Therefore, I have asked Wayne in our next 3 or 4 games to trial an idea that we may or may not adopt as a house rule. Its very very simple and will also help draw the Soviets closer but not close to the other nations. We are going to only allow leaders to add their morale bonus in the hex that they are located and not allow them to influence adjacent hexes. This is JUST the morale bonus and NOT the fire bonus (otherwise they could never string fire-groups together). Neither is it their ability to activate. This will also remain for Good Order leaders as all hexes adjacent (except when in assault of course).
Initially, you may think this renders them little better than a DISRUPTED leader. However I believe, or hope it is proved during play-testing that this will not be the case. My belief is that say a German force with its far higher preponderance of leaders in 41 etc will still be more operationally effective as it will still have the ability to activate more units AND still be able to form more command chains. I think leaders with modifiers would also be put at more risk in order to give their bonus. They would have to be in the hex where the bonus is needed and therefore come under fire and come under assault. The levelling for the Soviets I see as this. Most of their leaders, certainly until 1942 have a zero morale modifier. With the rule I'm going to try, all other nations leaders will be zero for adjacent hexes thus not having such a superior advantage over vaster areas of the map when it comes to morale. The Soviets will still be a less flexible force due to the leader ratio to combat units. By using this trial idea, I would hope to see the battles rely more on morale effects than I have recently experienced in some counter-mixes. It could be that it will be a glorious failure and if so, then that will be that.
Human Wave
I am currently trying to think of a new name for this so as to avoid a direct lift for a rules title from ASL. If anybody can think of anything else that conveys the tactic just as well please let me know.
Like all good rules, there are the odd exceptions. By using the Capped Leader Morale Bonus (Lets refer to it as the CLiMB here on), this would mean that the times when Soviets DO use a mass attack, they will find it hard to get a wave effect with '7' moraled units that are getting no leader bonuses unless in the leader's hex OR they would have to use far too many of their few leaders to spread out amongst the hexes. Therefore also play-testing at the same time as CLiMB will be the following (to the Soviets advantage).
A. Soviet FOOT units (excl.Mortars) may conduct attacks known as "Human Wave" attacks. At least 2 units must be declared to participate in a Human Wave Attack. The advantage of Human Wave attacks are that they allow leader counters to impart their Morale Bonus to qualifying units AND lower-ranking leaders IF they START the activation in hexes adjacent to the officer leading the Human Wave that are equally near or further from the target enemy than that officer leading the Human Wave . However, the amount of qualifying units allowed to participate depends on the leader's rank that has been activated to 'lead' the Human Wave. The maximum amount of combat units a leader can activate for the Human Wave is as follows:
Captain 3
Major 6
Lt-Col 12
Colonel 21 (no more can be stacked around him).
Lower ranking leaders activated by the designated leader for Human Wave may in turn also designate units within their activation range for Human Wave too, but only to a maximum the lower-ranking leader's rank allows.
Human Wave can not be used to assault (there is no need to as they will be in the same hex as the leader anyway).
B.
1. To carry out a Human Wave attack participating units HAVE to be able to reach an adjacent hex to the 'target' enemy position(s) AND start the activation as explained in 'A' above.
2. The 'target' hex must be one (or more) hex(es) that each contain at least one enemy combat unit.
3. Once activated, the leader must be designated as "carrying out a Human Wave attack" aloud .
4. The target hex(es) can either be pointed out to the opposing player or for more realism, written down on paper so that the opponent does not know until after the attack is complete.
5. The units he will lead in the attack are then designated aloud up to a maximum his rank allows. (Others units may have been activated by the leader but they do not have to participate in the Human Wave).
6. The owning player then moves his unit and leader(s). During the activation, any designated unit or lower-ranked leader may benefit from one Human Wave leader's morale bonus when either adjacent to or occupying the same hex as that leader.
7. Designated units MUST ATTEMPT to end adjacent to a target hex by the end of their activation. They can only stop moving towards target hex(es) if they either become disrupted or demoralised OR they actually make it to an adjacent hex.
Well that's it for now. The Human Wave rule may look long but I was attempting to cover all ifs, buts, maybe's and avoid anybody else trying it and then ending up disputing 'the spirit of the rule' as I had left out a potential happenstance or other. These rules are designed for my own delectation and are not a suggestion that others use them nor a claim to introducing better realism either. It is merely an attempt for my own sake to try and get back to a more morale based game as opposed to trying to deal with immovable game stacks under the leadership of supermen leading super-troops. I also want to at least get Soviet leadership a relatively better her enemies than it currently is. I to will report back with findings at a later date when some games using both rules are under the belt.
RE: Capped Leader Morale + Human Wave - plloyd1010 - 10-02-2014
Come Vince, turn to the dark side. (cue the breath mask sound) Ok, beyond that I do get the idea and the impetus for it. In fact I had to deal with it in my last game (HMG & uber-LT holding one last town hex), and maybe my current game too (don't look too good).
I think your rule may actually make the defense stronger because you often need the morale modifiers to press home the attack less than you need them on the defense. A couple playtest games should reveal that is a real problem. I did have one question: Is a leader's morale modifier still applied when activating adjacent units to rally?
I am less sanguine about the "Human Wave" branch. A major part of my reservation has to do with my aversion to chrome. Another part is that the rule seems to be more injected in the system, rather than drawn from it. My house rules are mostly creative reinterpretations of base system of whatever game I might be messing with.
I was wondering about the "Human Wave" activation limits. I assume firstly that units in a leader's hex are automatically "qualified" for a Human Wave advance. Is that correct? Assuming it is, would it not be more inline with your rule philosophy to extend unit qualification by hexes, rather than by units? As an example, a captain (now 3 on your table) would become a 1. That would mean he could apply his morale modifier to his hex and those units (and transports?) which he activates in 1 adjacent hex, while making his Human wave advance. (Note That I am using the word advance because it seems more relevant to the action.)
I suggest the Human Wave rule also be applicable to Japanese, Chinese & Korean units as well. Some other countries by special rule the Germans in some incedents at Kusk come to mind.
RE: Capped Leader Morale + Human Wave - waynebaumber - 10-02-2014
All this help for the Red Army and what is Vince and I's next scenario? Yep Brits v Germans from Liberation.
The Human Wave rules need some testing and may possibly work better as a scenario special rule than a new general rule, ASL has human wave rules which were expanded from a paragraph in 1st Edition ASL to almost a whole page in the 2nd Edition and they still cause issues in play.
We will need to play several Eastern front games to see how it all works out.