Is there a limit to how far a unit can be from its troop leader?

[galael]

I don't remember seeing anything in the rules about this. Could someone field a troop and then spread the individual units out all over the battlefield? It seems like their should be a range limit between a unit and their leader and penalties associated with being outside the influence of a commander.

 

Galael

[Stubbdog]

The current release of Warlord 2nd Edition is based on the idea of it being a Skirmish game played in a relatively small area. Therefore the entire game map is not too far away from the leaders and hence, no there is no current penalties for spreading out all over the map. Now, if you are playing on a huge game table, then I could see making up some house rules for such things. But, on the default table size, everyone is within proximity for purposes.

 

And from a development standpoint, one of Warlord 2's biggest selling points is how streamlined it is. Giving you complexity thru a wide range of options and strategies, not in rules bog down. The development team felt that cutting the bog down aspect outweighed the few options that it would have provided for this particular environment.

[galael]

That makes sense given the typical playing area size, thanks.

[WizardOne]

Back when WotC was its own company I remember their suggestion that the best compromise scale for miniatures—and any terrain used with them—was:

 

1 inch ≈ 25mm = 5 feet (. . . and consequently 30mm = 6 feet)

 

I thought it was a good suggestion.

 

[math=do]

Accepting this approximation as the 'scale', that would mean that a 4x4 foot table is 240 x 240 feet. (57,600 Sqr. ft.)

A 4x3 foot table is 240 x 180 feet. (43,200 Sqr. ft.) A 6x4 foot table is 240 x 360 feet. (86,400 Sqr. ft.)

For comparison an acre is 43,560 Sqr. ft.

 

Therefore a standard 4x4 is ~about~ 1.3 acres, a 4x3 is just barely shy of an acre. You'd need to add 7.5mm (one and one-half scale feet) down the long side of the 4x3 to get to exactly an acre. A standard 4x6 gaming (i.e. Warhammer) table is almost exactly 2 acres at this 'scale'.

[/math]

 

I know it isn't a precise scale and might not be the exact scale (1/60th?) that any mini mfg. actually uses but I think it was one of the better ideas WotC ever had. And it gives an idea (using math you can almost do in your head) of how small basic table tops really are.

 

For further comparison, some common sizes of American 'family' farms were 40, 80 or 160 acres (in the days of yore, before agri-business, when such things as family farms existed in the US).

[jdripley]

I've benefited from the "no cohesion rules" thing, actually. When I first got into this game I only had a handful of miniatures. One of the things I did was has just three archers in a troop with a sergeant. I would space the archers out all along my front line so that a single obstruction couldn't completely negate their impact, and so that they'd have to punch through my line three in separate places in order to get all of my archers. Now that I have enough models to field a serious screen for my ranged units this is less of a big deal, but the tactic is still somewhat valid - and in a game with cohesion rules would be completely impossible.

 

I play games where cohesion rules go both ways, and honestly I'm not sure it improves or devalues a game either way. So long as it isn't something like Warhammer Fantasy, that of course would get ridiculous without cohesion. I can say, though, that when playing Warlord I do enjoy the freedom to have every model do its thing all the time, regardless of where exactly on the tabletop I need it to do its thing.