Disorder Penalty

[zedeyejoe]

Good one HobbitMiles. So seems the trick is to force the infantry into square whilst you bring up your own artillery and infantry to slaughter them. Works for me and historical.

[howayman]

on page 69 it states that units can fall back even if it is disordered. so just fall back.

[Cubster]

I've always felt that cavalry is the hardest arm to use properly. On their own they are only really effective against other cavalry, isolated guns and skirmishers. I reckon the trick is to move them about, force your opponent to react to them and use your artillery and infantry to take advantage. Frontal assaults are risky.

I never learned how to effectively use cavalry by the way.

[ScottWashburn]

To Scott: Page 48-9. Disordered units cannot receive any kind of order or act on thier initiative. As a unit can only move upon receipt of an order or on its initiative a disordered unit can't move - unless forced to do so by a break test as Al said above.

Wow, I missed that (probably because it crosses over two pages). Fortunately the BP rules allow you to change anything you want so we will certainly change that one Frankly it's a silly rule and totally at odds with historical accounts. I'm looking at the Civil War mostly and there are thousands of examples of troops who have been disordered, moving and charging. Considering how many battles took place in wooded terrain, you couldn't expect anything else. I can also draw on personal experience as a reenactor. I've commanded regiments of four hundred men and I've observed how well-trained men can regain their order in a matter of seconds and keep moving.

Of course, the rules are also talking about disordered caused by enemy fire which a slightly different matter. Perhaps disorder from that needs to be handled differently.

[Big Al]

on page 69 it states that units can fall back even if it is disordered. so just fall back.

I already mentioned that! You can only do that after your disordered unit has won a combat. The section that comes under is Victorious Units, hence why only Victorious Units can do it.

[Big Al]

To Scott: Page 48-9. Disordered units cannot receive any kind of order or act on thier initiative. As a unit can only move upon receipt of an order or on its initiative a disordered unit can't move - unless forced to do so by a break test as Al said above.

Wow, I missed that (probably because it crosses over two pages). Fortunately the BP rules allow you to change anything you want so we will certainly change that one Frankly it's a silly rule and totally at odds with historical accounts. I'm looking at the Civil War mostly and there are thousands of examples of troops who have been disordered, moving and charging. Considering how many battles took place in wooded terrain, you couldn't expect anything else. I can also draw on personal experience as a reenactor. I've commanded regiments of four hundred men and I've observed how well-trained men can regain their order in a matter of seconds and keep moving.

Of course, the rules are also talking about disordered caused by enemy fire which a slightly different matter. Perhaps disorder from that needs to be handled differently.

The thing is, what the disorder is trying to represent and the way that you think about disorder. The time scale is probably ony a few seconds and the units have just taken a hit, which has caused a little confusion in the ranks. As a result, the officer and sergeants are trying to sort the men out and overcome the mild panic, so they are incapacitated briefly. This is why you can't issue an order to them or why they can't act on initiative. Disorder only lasts for a turn and is lifted automatically at the end of your own turn, even if the disorder is caused during your own turn. The only people who complain about that last bit are the opponents who have not been able to take advantage of the disorder before it is lifted. But people often complain about it when it happens during their opponent's turn and they can't do anything to get their unit out of a troublesome spot, much like the situation GuthRoth has mentioned. You don't get complaints about it in other situations though. Now other rules systems either force you to withdraw disordered units or take a morale test to remove disorder, sometimes both. BP removes it automatically. Other rules systems don't have you issuing orders to your units before you can do anything with them either. BP does, which tends to remove some of the Godlike view of the battlefield that other systems allow!

[HobbitMiles]

Shucks guys it was nothin' (one has to do something whilst taking one's morning ablutions).

I actually really like the disorder rules as they stand. I would like to be able to disorder a unit with my fire just before a charge hits them, but I'm loathed to start messing around with the turn sequence and so on.

What I like about it is that it forces players to make decisions about wether they carry out a planned attack with only part of the forces available to them or postpone an attack until everyone has recovered their order. I'm sure we've all read lots of historical accounts of units becoming fragmented and attacks going in piecemeal - but how often do our games reflect this? Not very often. Personally I feel that BP gives the best representation of the ebb and flow of musket era battles that I've seen and manages to do so with a beautifully simple and elegant system. Occassionally something doesn't quite work out right, but I'm willing to accept that for how often you get a good game that plays quickly.

As to re-enactment - well, I've commanded quite large re-enactment units too, and the difference is that you aren't wiping Fred's grey matter off your tunic, while looking for the drummer to convey the orders and suddenly realising that you don't have quite as many limbs as you did when you took breakfast this morning. I spent 20 years re-enacting and have the utmost respect for all aspects of it, but it ain't real war.

BP Disorder is a temporary, but more or less complete, breakdown of command and control within that unit - it may represent a sudden loss of officers and the time taken to re-adjust the chain of command. It has temporarily ceased to respond to orders. It isn't just taking a minute or two to sort out the ranks and files - that is represented by things like movement penalties.

As Big Al has said many times, BP is about command and control and to play about with disorder and the way it works would, in my humble opinion, utterly change the feel of the game. Morale within BP is represented in several different stages - disorder, stamina loss and "shaken" staus and the break tests - I feel that these are nicely balanced as they stand, and to alter one would require a major reassessment of how they all work. I think perhaps people are confusing what disorder represnts in BP whith what it represents in other games. I keep accidentaly calling it "disrupted" rather than "disorder" - perhaps it is because in my mind I see the unit as having been completely disrupted (not in the Klingon sense ) for a short while.

[Big Al]

Actually, Disrupted might have been a better term. You are absolutely right about the situation, though. I never thought of disorder in quite the way you describe it, probably because I have never been in any form of re-enactment at all. I know that many men were promoted in the field mostly because the vacancies appeared because of casualties. This loss of unit command will cause a certain amount of disorder, or disruption, until the junior officers or sergeants realise the situation and regain control. How long does that take? How long does a turn take (in game time)? On average a game turn is considered to represent around 6 seconds of real time. When you take that into consideration, disorder doesn't last a great deal of time. Also, there has to be some kind of game mechanic to represent these things and I feel BP deals well with it.

[HobbitMiles]

Curious what different impressions people have, for large scale games I've always thought of a turn as being more like 30 minutes or an hour, but elastic, so some turns where little happens may be a few minutes, others much longer. Whilst that may seem extreme I tend to think that not everyone is doing everything to the max all of the time, more the 99% sheer boredome, 1% absolute terror. Reading real history I am always astonished at how long it seems to take to relay orders and the like. I recently read an account where a group of officers stood for 10 minutes in utter disbelief that the enemy were unlimbering their artillery in a commanding position before it occured to anyone to do anything about it!

[ScottWashburn]

As to re-enactment - well, I've commanded quite large re-enactment units too, and the difference is that you aren't wiping Fred's grey matter off your tunic, while looking for the drummer to convey the orders and suddenly realising that you don't have quite as many limbs as you did when you took breakfast this morning. I spent 20 years re-enacting and have the utmost respect for all aspects of it, but it ain't real war.

No, you are certainly right, it is not. However it's the closest thing you'll ever find to it. You can learn a lot by reading books, but you can learn a lot more by reading the books and by also doing it with live troops over real terrain. No real bullets, of course, but the mechanics of trying to lead troops through smoke and noise and over difficult terrain is pretty much the same. It's an extremely valuable experience for anyone trying to understand what went on.