Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
Indeed, my general impression with the tabletop battles is that they are decided before the first shot is fired - by numbers. The method of combat resolution tends to emphasise attrition rather than tactical brilliance (with FHs turn 4 at Bern being a jaw dropping exception), so that the battle is determined by who turns up with the better army.
Based on my experience fighting the Battle of Antiokheia I'd say there's also a big part of "He who makes the least mistakes, wins."
There are just too much things to remember to take everything into consideration when giving orders and trying to prepare for all eventualities. As such I think it simulates the role of army commander in medieval times quite well, you have to trust your lieutenants to take initiative and messengers for the overall picture.

For example, if woad&fangs had used his ram the western wall would have fallen and the whole battle would have been completely different, with most of the fighting mainly on the narrow streets. The whole southern sally would have been a sideshow, or it would have never happened if the southern ram had reached the gate before Bart & Tagaris. And at deployment I forgot to explicitly state that the troops should be positioned on top of the walls and not behind them and guess where GH put them Or committing my reinforcements I drew a map with a pretty arrow pointing towards the western gate, while in the actual orders only saying "gate". And guess where they went? Not west.


It would be a bigger workload for the umpires, but if there's another big (multiple generals on both sides) tabletop in KOTF I'd like us to expand on the "You only know what you can see or what your messengers tell you" -angle.
Basically all commanders receive a textual representation of the battle based on what they can see or what messengers tell them. This would require the overall commanders to stay on higher ground where they can observe the battle. Committing their reserve (which they would be commanding) would be a last ditch resort because their control of the battle would then be lost until they could extricate themselves from the battle again. Subordinate commanders wouldn't have the same overall knowledge of how the battle is going, only their immediate surroundings, even less if engaged in battle.