Concept: Terrain/Enemy Affects Command Radius

Jungle Column, Samuel B. Alexander

Sandwyrm here. So far, we've said that you just measure the model and then place the rest of the unit within the leader's Command Radius. But this allowed high-Ld units to sandwich single-file lines of enemy infantry. So we instituted model coherency to fix that. But I don't like model coherency as then you're back to measuring everyone instead of placing a few at the extremes of the CR and filling the rest in however you like. So... how about this idea instead? Which also allows a leader's CR to interact interestingly with terrain.


Note: All miniatures shown are Games Workshop products from either their Imperial Guard or Tau lines.

Back to basics first. Each model in a unit must remain within the Command Radius of it's leader. The Command Radius is 2 x Ld, so a unit of Imperial Army with Ld 3 has a 6" CR.

I was content to let a model 'touch' the CR to remain in command, but that gets confusing when the leader's movement is measured front-to-front, but his men are placed front-to-back from him. Cheaters could take advantage of that to move the leader an extra base width against an inattentive opponent, so to keep everything consistent, I'm going to say the base of each unit model must remain entirely within the CR. That way everything is measured the same way.

So, here's a Ld3 Imperial Army unit with men arranged at the absolute limits of their CR. We'll name their leader Rico to make it easy to reference him.

Now, in testing, I found that terrain modifiers for movement don't make sense when you're only measuring the leader. Even if you had them, Rico could just move around them and avoid the penalties. So from his standpoint, all that really matters is whether he can be placed on a piece of terrain or not.

But terrain should still affect the squad in some way. So instead of movement penalties, let's have command penalties.

Here's a setup where Rico's CR is halved in the direction of terrain that's within his CR. Meh...

That's a bit too complicated.

So lets' just say that models can't enter terrain that's not within half of Rico's CR. That's easy and gets us a very similar effect.

Within 3" of Rico (half his CR), models can be placed anywhere that's not impassible.

But if Rico's actually standing on a piece of terrain, the CR penalty can be ignored for that terrain piece.

Another example. The soldiers to the left of Rico can only go 3" up the hill. Because he's not up there to supervise.

Ditto for woods.

But what if Rico is standing in the woods?

The woods are LOS-blocking, so I want to say that his men have to stay within LOS of him. LOS would be broken if the guys in the woods were outside of it. Unless Rico is standing on an edge, where guys could be placed at the full CR within LOS of him.

Is that too complex? Dunno.

There are two ways we could go with enemy units. Either half the CR in the direction of the enemy, or...

Just half the entire CR of the unit if the leader is within 6" of an enemy. I sort of favor going that way. But we can discuss it.

Either way, most units then can't 'sandwich' a single-file enemy unit. While Knights would be able to get just one guy across to shoot at whatever they're blocking. I can live with that. :)

And some terrain could give CR bonuses. Here's a Ld3 army unit (GW Tau models) where the road is boosting their CR to 3 x Ld.

Thoughts?