Chainmail Rule Question

[robertsconley]

Are are the benefits of the different formations in the Chainmail mass combat rules?

[coffee]

As far as the actual rules themselves go, the only advantages are for line and square. In each case, it allows more figures to fight.

For instance, for missile fire, two ranks can fire. If your troops are in column, that's not many. But if you deploy into a line, that could be all of them.

And in a square, you cannot be flanked; each side is a "front" of the unit.

You'd think there'd be a movement bonus for column, since that was historically what it was used for.

And I think that's the key: I think both Perrin and Gygax understood that players would at least attempt to play their side historically (approaching as a column and then deploying into a line), without trying to game the system.

Anyway, that's my two coppers.

[Matthew]

For landskecht definitely (p. 40), for other units not so much, unless extrapolating the rules from that point.