RULES FOCUS

On Bloody Ground has a selection of core rules at the heart of each book which makes swapping historical periods very easy. To highlight these rules, we’ve decided to do a series of articles that will focus on and take an in depth look at each in turn.

FOCUS ON: MOVEMENT

One of the areas that we knew we needed to get right during the initial design process was how units are able to move around the battlefield. This might seem like a fairly simple thing to do as it’s been done thousands of times before, but it’s an area that can be overly complex and unnecessarily restrictive.

To offer movement rules that are simple to understand, restrictive where necessary and flexible enough to allow variations for historical formations that might require them, we introduced a system of pivots to accompany our two standard options, which are manoeuvre and march.

The Pivot Rule:

“To pivot, first determine the central point of the units movement tray. A unit may be turned to face in any direction when pivoting, but must not move from this central point”.

Pivoting during a turn.

At first glance, pivots may seem to provide the potential for extreme and unrealistic movement options rather than gradual changes of direction along the lines of staggered wheels. In reality, the combination of pivots and straight movement offers very similar end results and restricted choices for a units movement, whilst speeding up play by avoiding tedious staggered movement, which can itself result in an extremely abstract final position, due to slight variations each time the unit is moved by a player.

The Manoeuvre Rule:

“To perform a manoeuvre, a unit may first pivot then move up to its maximum available manoeuvre rate in a straight line, then may pivot again”.

Manoeuvring during a turn.

Movement throughout the various game turns will quickly become an important part of every players battle plan. By using the flexibility of a manoeuvre, units can be moved into position to allow a march move during their following turn, or even a reposition that will bring an enemy unit into line of sight for a potential charge.

However each player manoeuvres their own units during a battle, the method of ‘pivot/move/pivot’ makes the process quick, simple and accurate, whilst providing a sensible end result for both players.

The March Rule:

“To perform a march, a unit may move up to double its maximum available manoeuvre rate in a straight line, then may pivot”.

Marching during a turn.

When marching, further restriction is added by only allowing a unit to move in the direction it was already facing, with an optional 360° pivot at the end of the move. This vastly restricts the choices available, whilst rewarding forward planning during previous game turns, and at the same time avoids an unrealistic facing at the end of a march move.

The Shift Rule:

“A shift is a 2” move either to the left, to the right, backwards or forwards in a straight line. A shift is not affected by terrain modifiers”.

Shifting during a turn.

A shift can be a very useful movement option for any formed unit, as it doesn’t combine with a pivot, yet allows a unit to make a move in any one of four directions. Shifting is a great way to move out of a difficult position, for example, when a unit is very close to a terrain type that cannot be pivoted through before performing a manoeuvre. Also, depending on the weapon being used, troops making a shooting attack are able to shift after they have made their attack, thus allowing them an option to shoot and move, without suffering any movement penalties to their attacking rolls.

FLEXIBLE OPTIONS:

When we included pivots in our movement rules, we knew that we would need flexibility within this simple mechanism. After all, many units in history had developed very specific moving and fighting styles, and we would need to be able to reflect this within our army lists in a way that both felt right to the players and provided realistic end results for the units in question.

The Expert Horsemen Rule:

“Expert horsemen are able to pivot both before and after making a march move”.

The Wedge Formation Rule:

A formed unit making a march move is able to manoeuvre twice instead of making a standard march move.

Flexibility is key.

As you can see from both the ‘Expert Horsemen’ and ‘Wedge Formation’ movement rules, by adding insight variations to the standard movement choices, we are able to design units that are able to effectively represent their historical counterparts on the table top, without the need to create abstract rules that might otherwise directly conflict with the core movement rules of On Bloody Ground.

TO SUMMARISE:

Whilst we fully accept that there are many different options regarding how troops could move in reality, and by extension how they should be allowed to move on the table top, we feel that our movement rules, just like each of our other core rules, provide gamers a ‘sensible’ and ‘realistic’ outcome during a battle and that they avoid unnecessary rules lawyering and confusing, or even worse, situations that simply don’t make sense!

We hope that this insight into this particular part of the On Bloody Ground rules has been useful, and as always, welcome any questions or feedback from the growing band of players!