As the war trumpets sound and jingoist bombast reverberates throughout the Purple River Valley, little does anyone know of the perfidy, the treachery, the infamy that is about to be unleashed. That is to say: I determined which unit in either army shall be the spy, the turncoat, the shirker.
 |
| Redina Horse massed close by the River Purple. The significance of the blue counter will be soon revealed... |
1. Rolled for arm of service, using my standard method: 1 = artillery, 2-3 = cavalry, 4-6 = infantry
Note that neither force employed engineers.
Redina rolled a 2 => cavalry unit
Bluvia rolled a 4 => infantry unit
2. Having rolled for service, then rolled for the unit.
Redina has 4 units of cavalry, so a second roll of 1-4 identified the infidels. A roll of 4 identified the rear-most unit in the column!
Bluvia has 9 infantry units. As they were arranged in 'brigades' within the environs of the towns, it was easy enough to decide that:
1-2 => unit in and around Blueford
3-4 => unit in and around Cerulean City - the capital
5-6 => unit in and around Blueburg.
The roll was a '3' - so treachery lurked within the Capital City itself.
But which of the three?
3. The repetition of the process indicated the central unit to be the one to watch...
 |
| What treason lies deep with the Bluvian capital city? What indeed! |
4. As an aide memoire, I placed a blue counter beside the Redina Cavalry and a red counter beside the potentially renegade elements, as indicated in the pictures.
To be continued...
I've never tried using spy units - I'm keen to see how this works out
ReplyDeleteNot strictly speaking 'spy', you realise: but rather the potential for turncoatery. That the Bluvian unit wherein perfidy lurked happened to be the one Marshal Azurena was with, opened up the possibility of an assassination attempt!
DeleteYours in infamy,
Ion
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me! - Sorry, couldn't help it...
ReplyDeleteThe Army Commanders might have felt that way: both took some incoming, though neither fatally. General Sir Arthur Reddesley certain saw some action up at the sharp end. As for infamy: well, there was some of that, too!
DeleteCheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo,
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting idea and I’ll be interested to see how it works in practice.
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
DeleteWell, it did contribute something to the narrative...
Yours mysteriously,
Ion
My two-penn’orth - not that it really counts for anything - is that I would suspect the units identified as “spy” would probably most likely start off as lethargic (they receive orders, say, to move from A to B - but they either state they don’t understand the orders, or need clarification, or just march so, so slow or “cautious”. This may be because they have a grudge against one of their own senior commanders (who, rumour has it, had a dalliance with their fiancé, or maybe their rival now controls a particular trade route and thus deprives them of the income. Of course, just because a commander acts with undue caution is no proof of treachery. It may simply the that they aren’t a very capable commander.
ReplyDeleteIf someone is willing to act as an assassin then clearly their reasoning/logic would be more extreme.
Cheers,
Geoff
Geoff -
DeleteWait until you see what happened. I was operating under a tariff of possible actions should anyone went rogue. But I will say this: the unit in question would be under control of the Army Commander, even unto engaging the enemy, until, and if, a 6 was thrown (at the beginning of the turn). If a 6 were thrown for the unit in question, then there was a (not overlarge) range of options available to it.
I want to keep the actual events quiet for the moment until I write up the battle narrative. Gotta have some suspense!
Cheers,
Ion
Excellent stuff there Ion and a nice way to add some frissant to the game as well as the campaign etc:)!
ReplyDeleteIt added to the amusement, Steve.
DeleteCheers,
Ion