The Loose Association of Wargamers

No, I don't want to discuss modern events but the morale collapse of the Russians sparked my attention & suggested a possibly necessary mechanism for various wargames/periods.

The 'Little Wars TV' people use a device they call a Morale Clock in some of their games. I don't know exactly how this works but rather than have a set number of game turns, you stipulate a total, that falls after a table top failure & game ends when the clock reaches zero for one side who are then deemed to have lost & retreat.

I'm wondering if this is a mechanism you could bolt onto various rule sets we use - FoG, Gen.d'Armee etc.
After each turn, a quick discussion as to who lost the turn & on consensus, drop one's side morale number?

What do you think? Have you anything you can add to this mechanism?

donald

Chain of Command and Sharp Practice both use "morale clocks" (possibly other TFL rules, as well, but those are the two sets that I have played); this operates via a dice roll on the "Shit Happens" table when certain morale-sapping events occur.

Piquet and Soldiers of Napoleon both use Morale Points which are slowly whittled away until one side is left with zero.

I think I should try to work something out along these lines & give it a whirl.

donald

The "Army Morale" system from Clash of Arms' Battles of the Age of Reason games may be useful for ideas, mate. The primer, which explains the rules, is a downloadable .pdf on Wargame Vault https://www.wargamevault.com/product/14 ... BAR+primer for $18USD.

Stripped to the basics "Army Morale" is set by the number of battalions, regiments (not artillery or skirmishers), senior officers (ie the CiC and wing/column commanders) and objectives held. A point or more is lost for every unit (incl artillery) removed (captured/wiped out/dispersed), senior officer casualties, units that rout and lost objectives. Points can be regained by destroying enemy units and capturing objectives (objectives may be relevant to both sides or only to one). The system is set up so that eventually one army's morale will reach zero.

If you want to add fatigue into it then just reduce the army morale for every n game turns.

A lot of the rules we use (BKC series, Carnage & Glory) have much the same thing, where cumulative losses & in CAG's case fatigue (which it monitors, being computer moderated) lead to morale failure, AKA 'Run Away!!" rules. More generally they can be as complicated or simple as you want to make them. BKC also have the 'command fumble' mechanism, which are a little more random, but which can have much the same effect.

With CAG, we rapidly learnt not to push units too far or for too long, otherwise they start to do various awkward things, from uncontrolled charges, to standing rather than advancing to combat, to retreating to the full fledged running for their lives. Such a rout can easily spread throughout the army. Even the best units can break if pushed far enough.

“La Garde recule. Sauve qui peut!”

So it's not just me who has renamed the Bad Things Happen table....