One of the first things I noticed in Chain of Command is that your movement is random and not a set amount. Depending on your movement choice, tactical, normal or all out, you roll dice to see how far you can move. This is modified for special terrain and buildings. I didn't know what to think of that until I played out a couple games and I really like the mechanic.
Most games I have played allow for infantry, vehicles, cavalry, etc. to have a fixed movement rate which is modified by terrain. That works just fine. So why do i like the random roll? In a narrative element, it takes into account things like your teams willingness to move forward, how cautious they are moving based on perceived threat or even just how much more unsteady the environment is. Let's take a look at terrain and how it can affect movement.
In most war games, movement for tanks is a fixed value based on tank. As you cross terrain, you subtract from the movement allowance until you have spent your movement. This will produce uniform results across the front of your vehicles and lends itself to a fairly stale representation of the actual ground. Since on a table you can only represent varied ground so far, stating that crops reduces your movement by 1 works in simple games mechanic process. But that would assume that all crops are uniform on uniform ground. That is not the case in real life.
Since ground in real life is vary diverse in terms of holes, hills, roots, soft spots, hard spots and all manner of hazards, this is impossible to replicate on a flat table. On our table, we have a wrinkled mat that shows those little imperfections in ground, but has no affect on game mechanics for movement. Unless stated, all ground is open, even if wrinkly to show those imperfections. So this is where CoC has overcome this issue by using random dice rolls to indicate how much more effort is needed to cross terrain, even open terrain.
The dice are not used to show any penalties to a set movement allowance, rather, they show how far you can move. This amount can be reduced by extreme changes in terrain. So you don't really need charts to show movement on plowed fields, crops, wheat, tall grass etc., you can just apply one terrain type and then say you can use tactical advances or normal movement but no running. You then roll the dice based on movement speed and voila, you now know how far that squad or team can move in relation to other squads and teams crossing the same field. It is a simple mechanic that takes into account individual soldiers ability to move with their loads of gear, morale, stamina and generally some troops finding better ground to cross than others. All that in a dice roll, no charts needed.
It's not perfect science and I'm not really thinking about those aspects when playing, I'm just rolling dice. But after the game and thinking about the mechanics, it just makes sense to me. Everyone will have their own opinion on the matter. For me though, when playing CoC, it just makes sense and doesn't really detract from the game. I actually makes you really think about your movement. Since you know that you can never be certain on your actual movement, movement then becomes a command to the squad, but the squad decides on the path and route chosen for movement.
To me, that adds just a little bit of realism as you can't simply look at the board, pre-measure distance and then decide on the best use of your precious movement allowance. Now, you can pre-measure distance, decide on the best use of cover as you can't be certain they can make it one go. Since the game is broken into phases, you can assume they'll get their eventually, but you're not certain how long it will take. That just adds some tactical concern when planning your phases that isn't always present in some games.
I hope this gives you some insight as to why I enjoy the random movement. Please share your thoughts.
Most games I have played allow for infantry, vehicles, cavalry, etc. to have a fixed movement rate which is modified by terrain. That works just fine. So why do i like the random roll? In a narrative element, it takes into account things like your teams willingness to move forward, how cautious they are moving based on perceived threat or even just how much more unsteady the environment is. Let's take a look at terrain and how it can affect movement.
In most war games, movement for tanks is a fixed value based on tank. As you cross terrain, you subtract from the movement allowance until you have spent your movement. This will produce uniform results across the front of your vehicles and lends itself to a fairly stale representation of the actual ground. Since on a table you can only represent varied ground so far, stating that crops reduces your movement by 1 works in simple games mechanic process. But that would assume that all crops are uniform on uniform ground. That is not the case in real life.
Since ground in real life is vary diverse in terms of holes, hills, roots, soft spots, hard spots and all manner of hazards, this is impossible to replicate on a flat table. On our table, we have a wrinkled mat that shows those little imperfections in ground, but has no affect on game mechanics for movement. Unless stated, all ground is open, even if wrinkly to show those imperfections. So this is where CoC has overcome this issue by using random dice rolls to indicate how much more effort is needed to cross terrain, even open terrain.
The dice are not used to show any penalties to a set movement allowance, rather, they show how far you can move. This amount can be reduced by extreme changes in terrain. So you don't really need charts to show movement on plowed fields, crops, wheat, tall grass etc., you can just apply one terrain type and then say you can use tactical advances or normal movement but no running. You then roll the dice based on movement speed and voila, you now know how far that squad or team can move in relation to other squads and teams crossing the same field. It is a simple mechanic that takes into account individual soldiers ability to move with their loads of gear, morale, stamina and generally some troops finding better ground to cross than others. All that in a dice roll, no charts needed.
It's not perfect science and I'm not really thinking about those aspects when playing, I'm just rolling dice. But after the game and thinking about the mechanics, it just makes sense to me. Everyone will have their own opinion on the matter. For me though, when playing CoC, it just makes sense and doesn't really detract from the game. I actually makes you really think about your movement. Since you know that you can never be certain on your actual movement, movement then becomes a command to the squad, but the squad decides on the path and route chosen for movement.
To me, that adds just a little bit of realism as you can't simply look at the board, pre-measure distance and then decide on the best use of your precious movement allowance. Now, you can pre-measure distance, decide on the best use of cover as you can't be certain they can make it one go. Since the game is broken into phases, you can assume they'll get their eventually, but you're not certain how long it will take. That just adds some tactical concern when planning your phases that isn't always present in some games.
I hope this gives you some insight as to why I enjoy the random movement. Please share your thoughts.
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