I was going over the entire Morale/Rally system with an eye on some of the comments that were made about the Jena game (basically French units' morale being lower than what most felt they should be) and here are some further notes on the entire issue:
1. Plentiful leaders adds to the ability of units to not rout in the first place. Without a leader the unit can rout easier. I felt that the presence of a leader makes that much difference for the French. They were an army where the leaders lead from the front and it did make a difference.
Potential conflict: some might say that with or without a leader horrific casualties would cause even the most veteran unit to rout.
Answer: yes, I agree but in the end the addition of many leaders added to the ability of the French to hang around longer.
2. The Leadership rating for most brigades at times is less than some of the morales. I am looking into this issue. For instance look at the French Guard in most of our games - the leader value is usually LOWER than the units in the brigade. Something I want to ponder for a few weeks.
This value is used only for the Rally function and plays no other part in the game. Thus if the French OG routs (!!) the presence of its own brigade leader plays no part in its rally since the value is so much less.
Potential problem: if I change the value to a higher number (8?) then the problem is that some folks may take this leader and use him to rally other units (militia). The usual gamey-ness of some of us ...
Answer: get John to code the units such that only a superior commander in their own chain of command (Napoleon on down to the brigade leader) can affect the unit's rally attempt.
The Command value doesnt impact the Morale/Rally functions so I dont discuss it here as the Notes.hlp file in Jena pretty much discusses the whys and wherefores of why I assigned the Command values to the leaders.
Comments?
Here is the section from the manual on Morale where it concerns Rally:
Recovery From Rout
At the beginning of a player’s turn, Rally Checks are performed on Routed units to see if they Rally. Routed units which Rally become Disordered and are eligible to become un-Disordered starting with the next turn. Again the Quality of the unit is the base value for Morale for the Rally Check. These Modifiers are applied to this value to result in the final Morale value.
· If the unit is stacked with a Leader of the same organization or a higher organization as the unit and if the Leadership rating of the Leader is higher than the Morale value, the Morale value is set equal to that rating. If the Leadership rating is already equal to the Morale value, then 1 is added to the Morale value.
· If it is a Night turn, then the Morale value of the unit is divided by 2 with fractions rounded up (for example 5 becomes 3).
· If it is a Day turn, then the Morale value may be affected by Corps and Army Leaders in adjacent hexes using the same process for Leaders in the same hex.
A random Die Roll from 1 to 6 is compared with the resulting Morale value, and if the Die Roll is less than the Morale value, the unit becomes un-Routed.
Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)
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