Card-driven Narrative Wargaming (3)

As I explained in my previous post, for my narrative wargame I also needed a quick set of tactical rules to govern movement, combat etc. for a unit.

The rules are below were quickly written - it always helps to have a bag of gaming mechanics ready ;-) The rules are inspired by the Battlecry/Memoir44 (Command and Colours) games.

Movement and combat should be self-explanatory, but perhaps the damage resolution system needs some explanation. I've become a fan of NOT removing toy soldiers from the gaming table to indicate unit status. I like the visual spectacle of having full units - after all - the visual spectacle of the game is what we're doing this for, right?

So, I need some other system of indicating "damage". I have a bag of coloured wooden chips (the actual chips are from a 80 year old boardgame, so they fit in nicely with the classic toy soldier look). Depending on the colour of the chip drawn, the unit loses some of its capabilities. So there is a gradual decline in movement, firing, or rallying. The bag has 10 tokens of each colour.

As a core, these rules worked really well. They are of course simple, but in my narrative game, they also weren't the focus, the narrative deck was the main mechanism to drive the game forwards, and I didn't want players to lose too much time pondering about all sorts of tactical options for each and every unit.

Note: there's still an error on the sheet - the Rally action is as stipulated by the Artillery for all troop types.