Reply To: Rules that offer historically accurate movement rates – are there any?

[Shecky]

What ‘makes sense’ in this case? That is both a game and a historical question if that is the basis of ‘making sense’ of a unit or group of unit’s movement

In my example, from a historical perspective, it doesn’t seem correct that in a well regulated brigade there would be many instances where two units in the same brigade with the same terrain restrictions would have such a movement disparity. This applies mostly to the horse & musket era and less to the modern era. There may be instances where you can cite such an event occurred but I would see it as an anomaly and thus something which could be excluded from a game. From a gaming perspective, as I said, if you have to dice 20 times to move your 20 units in a turn, it tends to slow down the game.

Personally, of the hundreds of rules I’ve read and the fewer that I have played, I have never dismissed a rules set because of the movement mechanic – whether is adheres strictly to historical examples or not. I have, however, dismissed rules because of basing standards, figure requirements, overdrawn combat mechanisms, lack of command rules, cumbersome command rules, poor writing, use of odd dice, ability of players to control too much, lack of player control, etc. In fact, the only rules I know where I even had a problem with the movement rates being too slow, I dismissed because the combat and initiative system was not to my liking.

But then again, people think I have strange wargame tastes as my current shiny object is gridded wargames!