You may be pleased to note that I am making rapid progress on this grid concept.
My two primary goals are:-
1) to mimic as closely as I can the movements when using a ruler to measure things,
2) and to do this in a such a way so it's as simple and easy as possible.
Item (1) is most important, as we don’t want troops on a grid to be able to do things that
would be impossible when measuring, as that could lead to learning bad habits.
The grid itself will be 20mm/½ BW squares in a chequerboard patten.
Each element will have its front-edge spanning two squares, so that things like multiple-facing
(where a single element pins two enemy with its Threat Zone), hard-flanking protection (where
the enemy is not beyond the line extending that side-edge), advancing in echelon (where the
refused element is aligned with the rear edge/corner of an adjacent friend, so still counts as
being part of that group), and choosing which enemy to engage when hard-flanking an enemy
column (see page 28 of the rules), are all still possible.
In the basic 90° only orientation, both front-corners plus the front-edge must touch an intersection
where the grid-lines cross. This is called a ‘node’. In the advanced 45° orientation system, only one
front-corner plus the front-edge needs to touch a ‘node’, allowing for diagonal positioning and moves.
The key method that works best is
not to count the squares themselves, but count the
nodes instead.
So you pick a node for the final destination of the furthest moving front corner, count the number of
‘Move Points’ (each MP is ½ a BW or 20mm) it will cost for that corner to reach that node, and if it
doesn’t exceed your current total MP/BW allowance then the move is legitimate and can be made.
Moving from one node to another along a grid-line costs 1 MP/½ a BW.
Moving diagonally to a node across an open square, without using the grid-lines, costs 1½ MP’s.
And if you end the move with ½ an MP left over, it is lost, as there is no way to spend ½ an MP.
This system of node counting works surprisingly well, with very few distortions.
The only real problem when using the 90° only orientation is when a line wheels.
In the real game, if you don’t have enough movement to wheel a full 90°, you can at least make a ½ wheel,
and finish the full wheel next bound. But when using the 90° only orientation, if you can’t wheel this bound,
then you won’t be able to make a 90° wheel next bound either, or ever!
The way out of this problem is to approximate or ‘simulate’ the position of a ½ wheel on the grid...
...but it is a distortion
(fortunately, the advanced 45° orientation method largely solves this issue, and gives
a much truer representation of half-45°-diagonal wheeling).Now that I have a workable system, I just need to present it properly in a document, with lots of examples.
I’m doing that now...should take about a week.
In the meantime, here is a quick sample of the front cover:-
fanaticus-dba.fandom.com/wiki/File:Grid_front_cover.gif