Initiative in "Tricorne Wars" --

On October 13th (see Archives), I explained about the various "personalities" of Generals and Brigadiers in my "Tricorne Wars" rules. Today I plan on discussing the various uses of "initiative" in my rule set.

When a "general" or "brigadier" is generated, besides being given a personality, an "initiative" value is generated by rolling 2d3 and taking the lower die value. This means that on average, each officer will have the following chance for each value:

• 56% will have initiative value of "1"
• 33% will have initiative value of "2"
• 11% will have initiative value of "3"

Okay, fine. But how is "initiative" used in "Tricorne Wars". Answer . . . in three ways.

First, if one C-inC has a higher initiative than his opponent, he gets the difference between the two added on to his d6 when they dice for the choice of going first or second at the start of each turn. Thus the C-in-C with more initiative will generally exercise more control over the battlefield.

Second, upon receiving a "change of orders", a wing commander or brigadier must die to overcome his "Inertia" before interpreting and acting upon his new orders. His initiative value is added to his "inertia value"; he then must roll this number or less before he may (interpret and) change his orders.

The "Inertia" value is dependant upon the officer's personality:

• Political personalities have an Inertia value of . . . 2
• Aggressive personalities have an Inertia value of . . . 3
• Steady personalities have an Inertia value of . . . 3
• Careful personalities have an Inertia value of . . . 1

Thus a Careful Brigadier with an initiative of 1 had better have been given orders that you don't want to change . . . because there is only a one-third chance of his responding to a change-of-orders each turn (inertia of 1 plus initiative of 1 = 2 or less on 1d6).

On the other hand, a Steady Brigadier (besides being the least likely to misinterpret a change-of-orders) with an initiative of 2 or 3 would be a good candidate for being given a command which might have to respond to changing conditions. (note that, since a "6" always fails, in this case there would be no difference between initiatives of 2 or 3).

The third way in which initiative is used is tied into the "command radius" of each officer (see October 13 for information on "command radius" value generation).

As with DBx, each subcommander must roll 1d6 to determine how many orders he can issue each turn (to units within his command radius). If he has an initiative value greater than one, he may choose to re-roll that d6 (once only if initiative is "2", twice if it is a "3").

However, if he chooses to re-roll, he doesn't get the higher of the two, he's stuck with the new roll. This includes the officer with an initiative of 3 . . . he has two chances (if he wants them) to re-roll, but if he decides to use them, any earlier roll is lost . . . thus he would be stuck with a "1" on his third roll if that's how it turned out.

All of these mechanisms are designed to further not only the "fog of war"; but to also force the C-in-C to consider how he will allocate his forces -- which officer will be given what orders. In short, it is intended to simulate some of the problems of command.


-- Jeff