[House Rules] admittedly insane: adding chit-draw to determine activation

[broadsword]

Good topic.
It does seem -- at first glance -- a weakness of the PG system that a unit activates just as easily to move and fight on Turn 1 as it would after hours of combat on Turn 31.

But somehow I think adding that layer of activation "friction" could make the game agonizingly slow and throw off the whole system. Not sure. It seems like the existing limits on activation and types of activation put just enough brakes on being able to move any unit anywhere, so that we end up with simple mechanics and reasonable results.

I devised a house rule system for activation that uses leaders' morale ratings to set up their starting/maximum level of "action points" for the battle:

Morale 7 = 24 APs
Morale 8 = 27 APs
Morale 9 = 30 APs
Morale 10 = 34 APs
Morale 11 = 37 APs

To activate a leader, you'd pick the initiating leader (the one you want to start the chain of activations) and first have to roll D36 against their current number of Action Points.

If the dieroll is LESS than the leader's current number of APs...
Activation is successful. Rotate the leader counter 90 degrees to signify "activation attempted" status and subtract 1 AP from his total. If this leader was already on his "already activated" status, subtract 2 APs. This leader can now activate his stack, subordinate chain, etc., and those leaders activate automatically.

If the dieroll is EQUAL TO or GREATER THAN the current number of APs...
Activation fails. Rotate the leader counter 90 degrees and subtract 2 APs from his total. (You can now try to activate a different leader, but trying all these independent activations will burn up your APs faster than letting your more senior or better leaders activate their chain of command)

In the Marker Removal Phase of each turn, Check all leader counters for Action Point Recovery: Leaders that didn't attempt activation (the ones not rotated) regain 2 APs (but can't exceed their maximum level). Leaders who attempted activation (whether successful or not) don't regain any APs.

After all leaders' APs have been checked and adjustments made, restore all leader counters to normal (vertical) rotation.

This recovery rule rewards players for resting their units, but also puts them in a more realistic dilemma: Should I push that company to make one more attack before the opportunity passes, or will they be left "out of gas" later in the day, when I really need them to activate?

Tracking the changing totals of leader points in the physical PG game would require a track or bookkeeping. But I find it easy because I play only in Cyberboard (created a module for my own use), where I can write little notes about all sorts of things and attach them to counters, so they appear in a popup window when I mouse over the counter.

I've never tested this activation system in-game, so it may or may not work right and probably needs tweaking with the points and dierolls. I don't know whether leaders would burn out too fast, recover too little, etc.

But it's based on the "Headquarters Morale" rules that Joseph Balkoski included in his terrific battalion-level system for Saint-Lo (West End Games, 1986) and in that game the rules really add greatly to FOW, solitaire play value, and less-predictable game play.