I was a D&D rules fan for melee warfare and there is an opportunity to include a rule that could add to the tactics of tactical combat in EWOM. I suggest we implement an Attack of Opportunity for units with melee attacks (that leaves out magic and archers). If the AoO event is triggered, it would ultimately just allow a melee attack on whoever triggered it, with no counterattack reprisal.
The trigger for an AoO can best be simplified to be: if a unit is already in an opponents “reach” (or range of their attack) and moves into another space within the opponents “reach”, then an AoO is triggered. (I say reach because this has huge ramifications if some creature has a melee range of 2 spaces, maybe larger creatures like orges or dragons should)
For example, you have a setup as seen below (M=melee, square = archers, and O = is opponent). O has 2 moves, starts at red, then to blue, then to green.
If the opponent moves from the red “O” to the blue “O” an AoO would be triggered, allowing one melee attack. In this case only the “M” below the blue “O” would get a melee swing. The “M” above the blue “O” doesn’t get an AoO, because the red “O” did not start in their reach. For the second move (from blue “O” to green “O”) both “M”s would get an AoO.
Imagine someone moving from in front of you, then moving next to you and continues toward the archers. You should get a swing or two on them as they pass by. Without AoO, it kind of defeats the purpose of having melee units holding the line. I think this would add another level of thinking and tactics to tactical combat. It also prevents your archers from being overrun without some kind of penalty.
