Sub-commanders in normal 48pt Triumph

[Dekelia]

I have an idea for using sub-commanders in normal 48 point battles.

I've been playing a lot of Alexander the Great vs. battles (Greeks, Thrace, Persians) and one thing that is very difficult to represent is the way that Alexander typically led from the right wing. He would entrust the left wing to his general Parmenion. If played that way, the left flank quickly gets out of command and control, forcing you to play in a non-historical way which isn't satisfying to me. In Grand Triumph everything works great because of the sub-commanders.

I should say that I'm not a big tournament player so I don't know how this would play for that, I'm mostly interested in being able to play the battles in a historically reasonable way, so this is to support that intent.

I see this as a battle card for the army and could be limited to 1 or 2.

Sub-Commander:
Select a stand as a sub-commander (same criteria as Grand Triumph) and between 12-24 points of troops (inclusive of the sub-commander stand). Those troops are "in command" if, and only if, they are within 8" of the sub-commander(4" if out of line-of-sight). Note that they do not count as "in command" based on the main general.

Does this seem like a reasonable addition? Should there be a cost to this? It does offer flexibility, but has downsides as well and has to be thought through.

[David Kuijt]

I've been playing a lot of Alexander the Great vs. battles (Greeks, Thrace, Persians) and one thing that is very difficult to represent is the way that Alexander typically led from the right wing. He would entrust the left wing to his general Parmenion. If played that way, the left flank quickly gets out of command and control, forcing you to play in a non-historical way which isn't satisfying to me. In Grand Triumph everything works great because of the sub-commanders.

Except some of the battles where Parmenion was holding on the left flank and Alexander was attacking on the right looked EXACTLY as if the left flank was out of command control.

One of the great subtleties of Triumph is the command system. If you want to put your general on one flank, and allocate all your attention there, then the attention-starved flank will often get into trouble. It happened all the time historically. And I recall at least one time it happened to Parmenion. So you aren't playing in a non-historical way.

Regular Triumph is, of necessity, a non-detailed simulation. Having multiple commanders to ease the restrictions of the command-control rules... I don't think that's a good idea for regular Triumph. The hardest skill to master in Triumph is the command system -- I've heard people suggest using average dice and all sorts of other things, to make it easier. That's abandoning some of the depth of the rules.

Grand Triumph is a more detailed simulation, yes. As is unsurprising, given that it has more detail and complexity in the army makeup, deployment, and all that stuff. I love Grand Triumph. But I love it best for two or more players -- the control you speak of is a level of tactical control that is attractive to gamers (I wanna be able to control everything!) but was very rare in real world battles before radio. With two or three commanders, often times your left wing commander will NOT do exactly what you wanted him to do -- adding frustration and complexity.

[Dekelia]

I understand what you are saying but I don't think I agree that the current rules reasonably model it for this case. Usually Parmenion was fighting superior numbers in a holding action, not out of command and control. In Triumph terms, as I've seen you suggest, that is where the army is trying not to lose. Alexander's side is where it is trying to win. That is already modeled perfectly fine assuming you can reasonably keep them in C&C. The problem right now is, the only reasonable way to run it is with the general semi-central. Putting the general even on central side of the wing, is SO non-optimal as to be nearly useless. The army just doesn't function that way.

I'm not thinking every army has this ability, hence an army level battle card. Most armies did have a centralized command and control. Alexander completely delegated his left wing to a very experienced general in almost all of his recorded battles. I'm sure there are other armies that operated similarly.

[Rod]

I think this models better in GT where you have a much more zoomed in view of the battle.

For example in Grand Triumph you have the option to have different sized commands and also to give one commander a +1 bonus (Alexander) at the price of giving another a -1 penalty.

At the 48 point game, if you have a general more than 16MU from a group or unit, then they are really "out there" so I think the command penalty is realistic. Out of command does not mean they cannot move, it means +1 CP. Also, if it is a line that is holding or just advancing, they are in command if any part of the group is in command.

[Lembit Tohver]

I think this models better in GT where you have a much more zoomed in view of the battle.

For example in Grand Triumph you have the option to have different sized commands and also to give one commander a +1 bonus (Alexander) at the price of giving another a -1 penalty.

I am sure that Levy agrees (as I do) with this.

At the 48 point game, if you have a general more than 16MU from a group or unit, then they are really "out there" so I think the command penalty is realistic. Out of command does not mean they cannot move, it means +1 CP. Also, if it is a line that is holding or just advancing, they are in command if any part of the group is in command.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. We both are endeavoring to play historical battles at around the 48 point level of the Triumph system. As Levy points out, Alexander would be in command of the Right Flank. Since in a 48 pointish historical battle (as the ones that I have been posting), this puts him in a position that is too far from the left flank and thus very expensive (CP wise) to effectively oppose the opponent's attack on that flank (the formations will become disjointed quickly). Since historically Alexander had one of his Generals command that section, they would be responding to the attacker's efforts on that side. I personally like the suggestion that Levy has proposed (for Historical Battles) and think it should be considered as Scenario Specific rule. With Normal Triumph being basically a Tournament set of rules, this would not be applicable because you would have Alexander with his companions centralized for command purposes (unless you were trying to play the Macedonians historically in the tournament).

[Rod]

Obviously no reason not to try it on your own and see what you think, but I would encourage trying it straight up as well for comparison.

Remember my point about the line of pike might still be in command even if the opposite end is out of range.

[Dekelia]

I think this models better in GT where you have a much more zoomed in view of the battle.

For example in Grand Triumph you have the option to have different sized commands and also to give one commander a +1 bonus (Alexander) at the price of giving another a -1 penalty.

At the 48 point game, if you have a general more than 16MU from a group or unit, then they are really "out there" so I think the command penalty is realistic. Out of command does not mean they cannot move, it means +1 CP. Also, if it is a line that is holding or just advancing, they are in command if any part of the group is in command.

Understood about GT but as you said in the scale video you made, it should generally be able to scale up and down but in the case there is a gap in what can be represented - and maybe that's ok, a game can't do everything.

I think 16MU is really out there if you assume the general is in the middle of the field but if the general is set anywhere near a wing, that no longer is true. If the general is on the far left of the right section, the far right of the left section is out of C&C. You could certainly squeeze the all into the central section, but that doesn't really work for this case either.

Thinking through it, I think the issue is that Triumph only really represents one command structure - centralized. GT arguably only really represents distributed command structure, though as you pointed out, you can play with it a bit by changing the sizes of commands. I'm really just trying to find a way to represent the distributed command structure without breaking the game.

Maybe part of it is a reduced command radius for the general so there are still decisions about who is out of command and how to maintain cohesion, just different decisions. 12" and 8" would be about 2/3 the total area as a single 16". That feels pretty good. They get better command distribution but less total area. That might allow you to drop the restriction of which units can be commanded which is probably too much to track for a 48pt game anyway.

I really appreciate you opinion on this and I recognize you and David as the experts here. I also understand that as a tournament game you need to be really careful with anything throwing off balance so I'm not really suggesting that for this. I also recognize that you don't want to add rules for every army but I thought the genius on the battle cards was that you can make little semi-standard modifications to tweak the rules to give the armies their flavor.

I'll give it a try with the tweaks above and let you know how it goes. I definitely don't want to eliminate the hard decisions.

Obviously no reason not to try it on your own and see what you think, but I would encourage trying it straight up as well for comparison.

Remember my point about the line of pike might still be in command even if the opposite end is out of range.

I've obviously not played anywhere near as many as you have, but I have played probably 14 games or so using the normal rules with Alexander vs someone (many more if you count previous similar games). I can certainly make it work but it usually involves adding another Companion (Kn) unit to play the role that Alexander historically played and keeping Alexander's unit more central. It's playable, but it doesn't feel right.

[Dekelia]

I gave it a try with the 12MU general and the 8MU subcommander...and...it didn't make any difference, lol. Just happens that this setup and how the game flowed, everyone sort of stayed together. I'll have to try again and really force more of a division