Chimeraguard
We do deserve to exist.
True...but I think this would be something where we need to set up some new mechanics for what happens in a retreat phase.
Like, going off of my earlier idea, let's say that when a retreat happens, the victor would have a certain amount of "points" that they can use to achieve results during the retreat. Maybe equal to drill, maybe equal to Drill -5 (so under normal circumstances under-drilled armies don't get to pursue the enemy in any organized fashion.)
And those points can be spent on things like getting off a round of attacks on an enemy infantry unit, or capturing enemy guns, or looting the enemy baggage train.
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Another possibility could be to not make additional Influence gains as tied to direct captures. Instead increase the amount of Secondary Objectives we get during a battle and we get awarded Influence for achieving those.
EDIT:
Oh, another revision we might want to consider for cavalry.
IIRC Horses have become a set of Equipment that we need to give to our cavalry. But one thing I noticed in this battle was that our casualties were very disproportionately heavy on our cavalry, but recovering from manpower losses isn't much harder for cavalry as it is for infantry, because Horses are Equipment, not soldiers. Now, a lot of this I think was just because we didn't have enough infantry, a problem that we should be solving this coming March, but still.
I wonder if it would be better to make Horses a Soldier that needs to be combined with Kin manpower to replenish casualties. It would also help with some decisions made in the last March, where cavalrymen cost twice as much for their manpower to acquire as infantrymen. We could give our reserve an equal number of Horses to the amount of Cavalrymen we had, plus a chunk extra from capturing that one unit of enemy hussars and the whole baggage train from von Wachenheim.
EDIT2:
Okay hmm, setting up my proposal for a revision to the retreat mechanics in more detail:
Points
So the idea behind this would be to make Retreat something that's resolved in a single turn and not as complicated as what we have now. You have a set number of Points, and those Points are spent on actions like:
-Attack an enemy unit (probably must be Infantry; Might even be randomly selected): Could be a single attack, could be 3 AP worth of attacks. Probably more damaging than normal melee attacks because you're striking an enemy that's running away rather than trying to defend itself. Enough attacks might cause an enemy unit to scatter or surrender.
-Seize an enemy gun battery: More expensive than attacking other enemy units given the results. Gets an attack off against an enemy artillery unit, giving a chance of seizing the guns. Horse Artillery would be much more difficult to capture.
-Loot Enemy Baggage Train: Yoink a random amount of supplies and munitions from the enemy! Maybe lucky rolls can steal horses or other surplus equipment as well?
Points would be acquired from an army's Discipline score, representing how less disciplined armies are more likely to not retain the coherence needed for organized pursuit. Additional points might be acquired from having uncommited cavalry units (especially light cavalry) that can mount an effective pursuit after the battle because they're still organized and not worn out. Having units in direct contact/melee with the enemy might also give an additional Point for each one, since that makes it harder and messier for the enemy to withdraw. Could see Rapid COs and Loup-Garou units in general also giving Points due to being faster and more able to chase the enemy.
Retreat vs Rout
In this idea, it would probably be important to distinguish between a retreat and an army-wide rout. A retreat might be something where the enemy command, depending on their number of relatively intact and un-routed cavalry units and their own discipline score might be able to mitigate some, or in some cases all of an enemy's Points due to being well-disciplined enough to withdraw in an organized fashion.
So I think this system would need a way to distinguish between a Retreat and a Rout, where the whole enemy army has disintegrated. And for that, I think we can use the Momentum score. Maybe there's a certain level of Momentum where the whole enemy army automatically collapses into a panicked rout. It would probably be a pretty high value, especially for armies whose baseline troops are Regulars or Professionals rather than Trained.
But a Rout means the enemy has no way of reducing the enemy Points value, which means they can get pretty badly mauled in the retreat. This encourages enemy forces to cut their losses early rather than gambling and possibly losing most of their army.
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@Photomajig Do you have any thoughts on this? Apologies if it's presumptuous, but it's a brainworm that got in my head and I wanted to suggest for the purpose of making the whole retreat system simpler.
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) would be a direct assault, but if we're just defending a small bridgehead there's no real way for them to maneuver around any fortifications that we've built.
