3 x 3 Redux

Last year I made some unsatisfactory experiments with the 3 x 3 system. I shelved the concept at the time but now I have come back to it. In my most recent MicroBattle game, I noticed that the battle essentially devolved into left, center, and right sectors. Just like 3 x 3, I thought.

I did a little more digging into 3 x 3 and found some variants where they allow flank marches. So effectively it becomes like a 5 x 5 grid. I decided to try it out.

I'm doing a generic horse & musket battle. The armies, let's call them France (blue( and Austria (white), form up on a 3-square front.

I allow troops to move into the edge squares, expanding the field to 5. I don't have reserves for this test so I don't have a reserve area.

By now, France has the upper hand.

But the Austrians advance on the left.

At this point, I stopped the battle. I used a variant of my MicroBattle rules designed to make combat more decisive. The problem was that it wasn't - the sides kept making saving throws so combat kind of ground to a stalemate. I wanted something more fast-paced than standard MicroBattle, but this version wasn't delivering. So back to the drawing board.