The portable wargame: Preparing for the next tryout

My wife and I spent quite a lot of time today with my father-in-law in Herne Bay, Kent. We were trying to help him sort out the aftermath of his recent car accident, including sending the relevant forms to the DVLA in Swansea in order to get a refund of what remained of his unexpired Vehicle Excise Duty and to transfer ownership of the remains of his car to his insurance company.

This has left me little time today to tryout the latest version of the rules I have developed to use with my portable wargame. However, I did have time to place the Units on the board, and to set down some ideas as to how decide how many 'Risk Express' dice each side should have. (I use the 'Risk Express' dice in my solo battles to decide how many of each type of unit each side may move each turn.)

I took my inspiration from a comment I read about the latest in Richard Borg's COMMANDS & COLORS series of games, COMMANDS & COLOURS: NAPOLEONICS. I understand that in the rules for this new game, the British throw more dice than the French when they are firing and the French throw more dice than the British when in close combat. I decided that in my solo games the number of 'Risk Express' dice each side is allocated would be decided by the following formulae:

• European troops: one 'Risk Express' dice for every three non-Command Units (with any remainders being rounded up) plus one 'Risk Express' dice for the Command Unit
• Native troops: one 'Risk Express' dice for every three non-Command Units (with any remainders being rounded down) plus one 'Risk Express' dice for the Command Unit

For example, if a European force of eight Units (including a Command Unit) were facing a Native force of eight Units (including a Command Unit), the Europeans would be allocated four 'Risk Express' dice (7/3 = 2.66 [which when rounded up = 3] plus 1 = 4) and the Natives would be allocated three 'Risk Express' dice (7/3 = 2.66 [which when rounded down = 2] plus 1 = 3). This would supposedly reflect the superior discipline of the European troops as well as preventing the Native force from having far more 'Risk Express' dice than the European force.

In addition, the number of 'Risk Express' dice allocated to each side should diminish as Units are destroyed, and the loss of a Command Unit would therefore have serious consequences.

I intend to try this system out during the next play-test of my rules/tryout of my portable wargame, and to see if it improves the game to the extent that I hope it will.