Regarding fatigue, I don't see any reason not to treat the fatigue process as a loop rather than just a single sequence. Say a group of armored foot move five straight turns to get to grips with an enemy unit. At that point the are fatigued and would fight as heavy foot with a -1 to morale value for each figure and morale dice rolls. If they then were engaged in a melee that lasted 3 rounds they would suffer a second set of penalties, now fighting as light foot and with a -2 to morale value and dice. The rules don't explicitly indicate fatigue is an endpoint for the process, nor do they direct the process to being continued. But I think a "rolling" process is logical continuation of RAW.
I think ultimately the morale effects of fatigue will force units to either fleeing the field or taking a turn to rally, at which point since they didn't move all fatigue is 'dispelled'.
I think it's great (1) that we can still debate the proper interpretation of an old set of wargames rules and (2) that we still do! It is unfortunate, however, when the discussion gets overheated. It's just a game after all, even if it is a diverse and wonderful hobby as well.
I would love to have figures enough for such large battles as your experiment, Stephen--and a large table to put them on! Wooden blocks would do, of course, cut to scale if possible, but unless we are 10 years old again with hard-floor space, the table is indispensable.
You may have seen my own Chainmail-familiarization game: the prelude to the Valormr campaign called Champions of Chaos. Instead of massive units, it exercises four out of five of Chainmail’s rule subsets in as many phases: skirmish, man-to-man combat, jousting, and fantasy combat. It comes with a complete scenario to hold them all together.
Champions of Chaos, an introductory wargame scenario
Regarding fatigue, I don't see any reason not to treat the fatigue process as a loop rather than just a single sequence. Say a group of armored foot move five straight turns to get to grips with an enemy unit. At that point the are fatigued and would fight as heavy foot with a -1 to morale value for each figure and morale dice rolls. If they then were engaged in a melee that lasted 3 rounds they would suffer a second set of penalties, now fighting as light foot and with a -2 to morale value and dice. The rules don't explicitly indicate fatigue is an endpoint for the process, nor do they direct the process to being continued. But I think a "rolling" process is logical continuation of RAW.
I think ultimately the morale effects of fatigue will force units to either fleeing the field or taking a turn to rally, at which point since they didn't move all fatigue is 'dispelled'.
I think it's great (1) that we can still debate the proper interpretation of an old set of wargames rules and (2) that we still do! It is unfortunate, however, when the discussion gets overheated. It's just a game after all, even if it is a diverse and wonderful hobby as well.
I would love to have figures enough for such large battles as your experiment, Stephen--and a large table to put them on! Wooden blocks would do, of course, cut to scale if possible, but unless we are 10 years old again with hard-floor space, the table is indispensable.
You may have seen my own Chainmail-familiarization game: the prelude to the Valormr campaign called Champions of Chaos. Instead of massive units, it exercises four out of five of Chainmail’s rule subsets in as many phases: skirmish, man-to-man combat, jousting, and fantasy combat. It comes with a complete scenario to hold them all together.
Champions of Chaos, an introductory wargame scenario
https://www.donjonlands.com/2021/07/champions-of-chaos/