Chain of Thought: Fatigue in Chainmail

 Amidst a blog post documenting the first part of a play-by-post Chainmail battle, 

How to Play Chainmail: A Play-by-Post Experiment

 Purple Druid posited a question:

There is no rule for what happens when Fatigued beyond "-1 level of Troop type", do y'all have any ideas?

Me being me, I went straight to the rules in Chainmail, 3rd edition 

I responded on the blog entry, suggesting there is nowhere in the rules that suggests fatigue is a one time process, and that units could cycle through the steps over and over. This would mean ever increasing penalties until the unit in question rests. That was how I thought it.

Later on while I was in the shower (why do these things always happen in the shower where paper and electronic recording are not recommended?) I realized, the rules do not say anything about *rest*.

For some time I've seen those posting, blogging, and viding (?) about Chainmail struggle with combining the effects of steps 1, 2, 3, and 4 above. What if a unit moves 4 turns and then melees 1 round? What about moving once, charging, then meleeing twice? How exactly does 3 melee rounds = 5 moves?

But changing the mindset from resting (no activity at all) to not moving potentially clears up some things. Points 2 and 3 are no longer connective tissue to aid wargamers in mixing and matching all variations of melee and movement. They are special cases being specifically addressed in the rules. They stand alone, only used in those 'corner cases'.

Now the thought process for fatigue is: Did a unit move five turns in a row? Did it melee three rounds? Did it meet one of the specific cases? If the answer to all three is no, that unit is not fatigued. A unit moves on four straight moves and then is engaged in turn five in melee action. Unless it is forced to move due to morale failure (or fight two more rounds of melee for those that advocate multiple rounds of melee in a turn) that unit is not fatigued.

And I just realized while typing this, there's a word that is not present in point 4. The word "consecutive" is not there. Three melee rounds = fatigued, regardless of timing. I think that makes things even simpler. Now there is even less need to worry about the math of movement + melee when figuring fatigue other than the specifics of points 2 and 3.

This really leaves me with only one question, and then I think I could adjudicate fatigue under any circumstances. Does a unit that hasn't yet engaged in melee but is fatigued, does not move in a turn, engages in one round (or two if doing multiple rounds in a turn) melee, and wins (not forced to move due to morale failure) lose their fatigue? Logic says no (melee is stressful), but a straight reading of the rules says yes.

Okay, two more questions (dang stream of consciousness): Do fatigued archers that do not move in a turn, but fire ranged attacks lose fatigue at the end of that turn? Does shooting without moving incur fatigue as melee does? Going strictly by RAW, I would say yes for the first and no for the second.

For each of these three questions, a strictly RAW adjudication feels wrong. But what say you?

 

Edit (about two hours after original publication):

RHampton on the Wargame Culture Discord responded there:

 After reading his comment, I've changed my mind about my questions on archers and fatigue. A RAW interpretation of how fatigue applies to ranged attacks makes more sense to me now than my initial misgivings.

Also, he has some interesting rules systems on Drivethrurpg so check those out.