[FMAB] FMA Brigade

Offlist, Andrae Muys wrote:
> I'm strictly a wargammer, so any ideas should be run-by one of the
> professional's available on the list,

*I'm* not a professional...well, I'm a professional at sales, often
known as
"sounding convincing despite not having a clue".  I gather I'm
succeeding.
:-)

>  but a concept I think might be
> useful for FMA Brigade may cohesion.

Yep, I was thinking something like "every day of combat drops you a
quality
die, which you can attempt to regain if you're in supply and spend time
regrouping".

> This would map into game terms as a units having (among other
> things) Strength and Cohesion.
>
> Combat results would result in loss of cohesion (for both sides,
> regardless of result, combat is messy).
>
> If the unit chooses to retreat permanant strength losses can be
avoided.
> Holding ground, or victor's pursuit can convert the temporary cohesion
> losses into permanant strength losses.

This is pretty much along the lines I was thinking of, glad I'm not
unusually delirious.

> A unit can spend time re-organising to increase cohesion.
>
> Leadership, Quality, Supply, and Casualties should all affect the rate
and
> limit of re-organisation.  (Low quality troops, or high quality troops
who
> have taken signifigant casulties will not be able to regain full
combat
> effectiveness).

One of my sticking points is to distinguish between "disorganized"
ineffectiveness and "casualties".  If your battalion is down to 125 men,
all
the reorganizing in the world is not going to bring you back up to peak
effectiveness, and neither will feeding in reinforcements
peacemeal....as
you just said.	But what I need is a graceful way to keep track of what
is
repairable in the short term and what takes a month in a rear area to
fix.

Possibly I need a "quality" die, which is repairable, and a "firepower"
die
which is not.  But then we have to figure out which one takes damage.

> Having written this much, it occurs to me that simply by renaming
> cohesion combat-effectiveness, you have an immediate target for any
supply
> rules.