Midgard and The Problem of Peltasts

       Having played well over a hundred games of Midgard in the past eighteen months our group has run into a number of questions that cannot be properly addressed within the letter of the rulebook. Primarily the way that the rules group troops into only two types of order; close order and skirmish order. Either packed shoulder-to-shoulder or scattered in a free-flowing cloud. The sort of dispersed order that many historical formations employed to move rapidly, or cope with rugged terrain, can't be properly modeled. Thracians, Celts, Spaniards and the specifically organized peltasts from the Greek military tradition cannot be reflected within the rules. After trying various tweaks we gave up and decided to step outside the letter of the rules and concoct a new troop type. 

        To try to make a unit that behaves the way that the historical prototypes did with the attendant abilities and limitations. They should be terrain insensitive, but still have the ability to fight close-formed troops with some hope of success. To model the lower number of troops in the space their stamina would have to be lower. We struggled to make as few changes to the rules, and to use existing rules as much as possible to model the abilities of these troops. After play-testing we decided to modify the points as well. In the end we came up with the following.

       First reduce the points cost by two. Then reduce the stamina to three. Last endow them with the Agile trait, but only in the forward movement aspect (see sketch below). You can enter this as a trait in the  Midgard Force Builder software by using the Settings and  entering the Custom Unit Traits with the Trait of Peltasts a point reduction of two and the entering the Description of "Gain Agile, lose one Stamina".  Please note that you will have to manually modify the printout of your list because there is no facility in the Force Builder to reduce the Stamina to three. Each troop type keeps all its available Traits such as armor upgrades or characteristics like Brutal or Drilled

  

       These troops use the Agile trait when moving to the side or forward, any movement behind the rear of the base is restricted and use the 1/2 Spear-throw move stick. They DO NOT have the ability to Evade and cannot pass through formed units. They shoot at the end of the turn with the other formed troops.

 

      We have found that these changes effectively model the behavior of the historical troops without any major overhaul of the rules. The unit can maneuver over terrain, still posses significant fighting power and lack the staying power of denser formations. Observations and feedback are welcome.