What is the point of stress in Landwar and why is it done this way?

Stress as a mechanic plays an important role in the design philosophy of LANDWAR. From the start, we adapted Battletech's heat mechanic. The notion that some net-negative accumulates over the course of a battle creates an interesting gameplay space. Another component was the original Critical Hit system. Like Battletech:Alpha Strike, TANKS, X-Wing and so many other skirmish wargames, we had a critical-hit table. A list of bad things that could happen; 1/2 movement, 1/2 firepower, bog standard stuff.

As we played though, we found ourselves questioning why, realizing that the critical hit tracking bogged the game down. Keeping track of so many different effects on top of unit stats, special rules, etc was too much mental load. We wanted some form of crits, but this style was not for LANDWAR.  We settled on what we ended up just calling Stress, a catch-all mechanic to represent exhaustion, critical hits, ammunition expenditure, weapon overheating, etc.  Keeping this mechanic in also adds another soft-damage channel to your opponents army regardless of points differentials, or unit composition. A Unit might have fantastic armor, or high damage...but that's negated by the random stresses of combat.

Every unit has a max 'bucket' of 6 stress, and all units can 'sink' that 1 first point of stress that builds. However, once there's at least 2 points of stress, no matter the source or how good the target unit is - the pressure is on to see if they crack. Maybe it was a lucky hit, or the Unit being attacked had a moment of paralysis, regardless, fate determines if the Unit breaks in the moment.

If players explore the TAGS system, there are tags that play with Stress. Several tags will allow Units to deal more stress, and many will try to mitigate the effects of building stress. The spirit of the system is for a bit of authenticity buried in abstraction. There are records of elite military formations getting hit at just the wrong time and they break. In other instances, military units that have every reason to run but for some intangible reason they hold their ground. We hope that the Stress system in LANDWAR simulates some of that historical chance that makes history engaging.

Remember though, LANDWAR is open-source

We encourage players to play within the printed rules but only to a certain extent. If you find this approach bad, uninteresting, or poorly executed; by all means replace it with what you find fun! LANDWAR at its core ethos is about the fun of wargaming and less about being super specific on rule particulars.

happy gaming!

Subject9x