Terrain:

By and large, the landscape over which your troops will fight, will have little bearing on your games, until you start to introduce items such as woods, buildings, rivers etc.

These will effect both movement and firing, and the following factors apply to troops moving through these terrain types or firing at targets within them:

You may wish to develop further modifiers for unique alien terrains that your troops may find themselves fighting across. This is perfectly acceptable, providing the effects apply equally to both sides, and both players agree to their use.

Visibility:

If you can draw a straight line between your figure and the enemy, then your figure can see him. Given the developments of night vision equipment etc., night and smoke will have no effects on reducing visibility. Should you wish to play a game whereby visibility is reduced somehow, then we suggest you enforce a minus modifier to the firing to hit percentage base chance. Again effects should apply equally to both sides, and both players agree to their use.

Morale:

This is an optional rule and we suggest you only use it once you've played a few basic games without it.

Morale provides a realistic mechanism that ensures your Fireteams do not comprise purely of John Wayne type characters, who will blindly follow your every order (no matter how stupid) regardless of their own personal safety, whilst their comrades die in droves around them. Soldiers are not robots, and despite their job, hope to be alive at the end of it. Sometimes the desire to remain alive overrides the training to follow orders, and they will break and run.

As High Crusade is a science fiction set of rules, however, you could say that all the troops on the table have been pumped full of artificial chemicals that suppress their natural emotions and result in them fighting to the last man. If you want to say this, then fine - just ignore the rules for Morale.

If on the other hand, you'd like to see if you can command a force, that is subject to its own natural emotions and desires, then please use the following rules:

Morale is worked out upon, and applied to individual Fireteams. You will need to test for Morale, whenever the following circumstances occur:

First time the Fireteam is fired at.

Fireteam ambushed (see Ambush rules in Part Six).

First casualty suffered by Fireteam.

Fireteam strength falls below 50%.

To test for Morale you roll one D10 for the Fireteam and modify the score as follows:

You should apply all appropriate scores. eg. A Crusader Fireteam is ambushed by Shia Khan Orcs and suffers its first casualty although it has previously been shot at earlier in the game, so it needs to test for its Morale. The Free Companies player rolls a D10 and scores 5, he adds 2 to this because his troops are Crusaders, but then has to deduct 4 because the Fireteam has been ambushed, and then a further 2 because it has suffered its first casualty. The modified score is 5 + 2 - 4 - 2 = 1.

If the modified dice roll is 3 or higher, then it has passed the Morale test and continues in the game as normal. If however it scores 2 or less (as our example Crusader Fireteam has), then it must immediately make a full "Advance" move towards its own table edge. It will continue to do this every move, unless the player attempts to rally his unit, by issuing a Regroup order in the orders phase.

If the player has issued a Regroup order, after both sides use any Electronic Warfare Jammers that they may have, the player attempting to rally his troops throws one D10 using the modifiers above, but only applying those applicable at the time of the Regroup order is issued. To continue our example Crusader Fireteam, they still get the + 2 because they are Crusaders, but now get a - 1 for the casualty they have suffered, but as they are no longer being ambushed and have suffered their first casualty in the previous move, these modifiers do not apply.

To successfully rally the Fireteam, the player requires a modified score of 5 or higher. If he scores less, then the attempt to Regroup has failed and the unit retreats another full "Advance" move to its own table edge.

A successfully rallied unit, will remain Static for the remainder of this move, whilst it reorganises itself. During this move it receives the benefits of being regarded as a Static target for the move, but cannot fire any weapons during a Regroup move. Next move it can be ordered around as normal.

If during a Regroup move, the enemy inflicts further casualties on the Fireteam, then it will automatically rout, and make a full "Advance" move towards its own table edge.

© Wessex Games 1994, 2000