Rules Variant
by
David Gómez Relloso

First of all, excuse me for my English. I'm a Spanish wargamer and I've played several times the excellent game "Across Five Aprils" with some friends. We've detected some problems with the rules that have been also commented by other players in discussion forums.
Basically, the main problem is that attacking is usually very difficult, because the units have much greater defense factor than attack factor. The game system permits the automatic retreat of the attacking units to avoid combat, but this often creates a situation where there's no combat and the players just try to be lucky and use their units' defense factors in an offensive manner.

We've elaborated some rules modifications and have already playtested them. They work very well!!! So we recommend them. Just try and you'll see that attacking becomes more possible and the game gains in dynamism.

MODIFICATIONS IN THE COMBAT RESULTS TABLE

In the DEFENDER’S Combat Results Table there are some changes:
-          In the 2-1 column a die roll of 3 becomes “No effect”.
-          In the 3-1 column a die roll of 4 becomes “No effect”.
-          In the 4-1 column a die roll of 5 becomes “No effect”.

NEW ROUNDING OF COMBAT ODD RATIOS (Favours the attacker)

If the division of the attack strength by the defense strength (in its decimals) is bigger than or equal to 0,5 the odd ratio is rounded UP, favouring the ATTACKER.

Examples:
  3 against 2 = 2-1
  5 against 3 = 2-1
12 against 8 = 2-1

This applies the same when the attack factors are less than the defense factors.
Examples:
2 against 3 = 1-1
4 against 6 = 1-1
6 against 15 = 1-2

ARTILLERY BOMBARDMENT

When an artillery unit makes a bombardment attack, its attack factor is divided by two, but the fractions are rounded UP.
Examples:
Attack factor of 1 = 1
Attack factor of 2 = 1
Attack factor of 3 = 2

When several artillery units bombard the same objective, their attack factors are NOT added nor the total is divided by two. First, the attack factors of EACH artillery unit are divided by two (remembering the new rule mentioned before), and later those attack factors already divided are added.
Example:

Two artillery units with attack factors of 1 and 3 respectively bombard together. First, each factor is divided by two rounding up the fractions. The results are 1 and 2. Both factors are then added and the final attack factor in that bombardment is 3.

(c) by David Gómez Relloso