Ever heard of Sgt York
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jon Thayer</i>
<br />I tend to think of house rules as being added to stop situations that the game engine allows but realistically would not happen. The original house rules came about I believe with the BG Napoleonic games. In fact the first one I recall was to give skirmishers a "leash" to their parent unit. The desire was to keep from having roving commando companies. This evolved in the HPS games with "embedded melee' to curtail "blitzkreg" tactics where one unit would melee and then others follow into the breach. With a two hex ZOC in these games it was very easy to run around behind defending units. These were issues that were just not realistic.
Yes, a one man unit blocking retreat is unrealistic and I would not do that because I feel like that would be using a shortcoming of the game engine to my advantage. I also think moving artillery up, unlimbering them in the face of an enemy to block retreat falls under that same category.
In general it goes back to other threads posted here and in the Rhine Tavern. There are two types of players, those searching for a more historically realistic game and those who like to play with with less regard for those characteristics. Neither is right or wrong but when they meet issues arise. There have been several threads lately regarding house rules and other issues along this line and they all are coming from issues that have arisen in several mulitplayer games. I cannot help but believe that this is due to the different opinions of how these game are to be played by different players on each team.
To address the original question, i think it could be solved much like the skirmisher overrun option in the Nappy games. In that a skirmisher will be eliminated if it attempts to block the retreat of a battalion. In the Civil War games perhaps a unit should have at least half the strength of the defender being displaced in order to block retreat.
Major General Jon Thayer
Old North State Divison
3/III
Army of Northern Virginia
jonathanthayer@bellsouth.net
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"