HCON Prep: The Objective Marker

There is still one "unit" that needs to be painted up for "To Catch a King" - the objective marker.  In this case, it's King George and his Royal coach.  The miniatures are from Old Glory's Blue Moon line and are superb - here's a link.  I'm looking forward to painting this up and will try to do a decent job - not my normal slap-dash efforts.

As a reminder, the objective of the game is for the British to convey the King across the battlefield, onto a ship and then off the far end of the board.  The table is shaping up to be 12 ft of land and 6 ft of water.  Of course there will be some grumpy frenchman attempting to impede the progress of his royal highness.

Just to cause headaches for the British player (which is always a fun thing to do), I'm figuring out some rules that have a bit of randomness in them.  It needs to be simple like a die roll.  Perhaps the following:

D6:

6 Lightening Fast - full movement of 18 inches and +1 on next turns movement roll

4-5 Coach moves its full movement (coach moves 18 inches)

2-3 Something caught his Majesty's attention (Coach moves 9 inches)

1 The King calls a halt to adjust his wig (coach stops)

There will be an override rule that allows the coach to always move to at least 12 inches aways from a French unit it it can.  Games that are lost on a single die roll aren't the most fun.

The British CIC will also be able to allocate one of his precious command dice to have the coach move an extra 6 inches.

For reference - calvary moves 15 inches per turn, infantry in column move 9 and line formation moves 6.  There are ways to modify those movement rates

I need to the coach to be able to get across the field in 6-7 turns.

Awaiting the King near the shore will be 2 frigates from the Royal Navy and a fast Barbary pirate Xebec which has been hired on as a mercenary.  It's a good thing that Barbary Pirates are renewed for their trustworthiness and adherence to contractual covenants.  Annoyingly, there will also be some nautically inclined Frenchies attempting to spoil the day.

How to capture the King?

While such a thought is preposterous, I suppose if a French unit was to make contact with the coach and without any British unit to contest, then the King would surrender (he really isn't made of stern stuff). It would then be up to the French to convey the king off their table edge at a fixed rate of 9 inches per move.

Historicon Countdown:

21 days, 10 hours, 18 minutes