After a bit more consideration (only have been musing about this for - months!) I have put together enough pieces of my puzzle and will start organizing the troops for Basic Impetus. There is enough flexibility in the rules to portray some of the unique aspects involved with Tékumeli battles - variable troop strengths and army set-up for example - without a great deal of complication. I have finally grown comfortable with the use of markers for the units; just need to decide on a final version. And, the rules are free at the Basic Impetus site.
I have quite a few ideas on making Basic Impetus a bit more Tékumel-like, and yes it includes pics! I just need to edit some and I will post them here shortly. There are several matters to contend with:
1. Magic - Battle magic on Tékumel is a bit different from the norm. You don't have one or two wizards trotting around blasting stuff. Typically, you have two teams of priests, offensive and defensive. The teams on opposing forces tend to cancel one another out until fatigue or bad luck occurs, with the results being catastrophic. I plan to amalgamate several different ideas from various other games for this and make for a hopefully interesting side game alongside the main battle.
2. Unit formations - In the official versions of Tékumel wargames, there are a great variety of unique unit formations that a cohort/legion could use. I intend to attempt to imitate them, with only the base sizes of Basic Impetus as a limit. I have some pics of these to be posted soon. I do not plan to give any sort of benefit to these formations, since once I make the unit it can not be changed (one bad point about the single large base style of BI). But, it will serve to give the battleground a slight hint of Tékumel.
3. Army formations - Again, there are several army set-up formations that could be used. Many of these are empire-specific, and I will translate them into use for BI. If you array your forces in a given fashion, your general could receive a bonus to his Initiative roll. A Player will not be required to do so unless you would like a bonus to your roll. There are some formations that are despised by certain armies, and will receive a negative factor!
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