Defending armies cannot retreat

My guess is it’s a balance issue. And also, let’s say Giant German Army in Slovakia-Hungary attacks Giant Russian Army in Eastern Poland. After 1 round of EVEN combat, Russia retreats to Bessarabia and grabs Romania and its IC from Germany the next turn, crippling Germany’s Barbarossa.
I agree it’s unrealistic, but I think it’s necessary for the game.

House rule:

Russia and Germany can opt to retreat (as defenders) from combat.  The defending country can only declare the retreat after the 3rd Round of attacking dice are cast.  Excluding casualties, the defending country can move half its units (rounded down) to a friendly territory it originally controlled at the beginning of the game.  All remaining defending units (including casualties taken on Round 3 of combat) roll to defend at a “1”.  Retreating units are removed from combat and are placed in a single adjacent friendly territory.

This allows Russia and Germany to retreat if it is under pressure in its own territory.  It forces multiple rounds of combat so that you can’t have a retreat conducted by small stacks that face big stacks of units.  It is tactical in that you can preserve certain units to live to fight another day by sacrificing the defense value of units that are currently defending.

An example would be Russia advancing on a big stack of infantry with 6 tanks in Poland post Sealion.  If the infantry survive 3 rounds of combat, you can sacrifice half of them (only rolling at 1’s) to send the other half to Berlin (where you have a stack of artillery).  Germany can counter on the next Russian move, or if it has tanks that it retreats, it can retreat them to Hungary to join a bigger stack and blitz forward into Belarus.

Another possibility:

Both sides have to stay for one complete round of combat.  Before dice are rolled for the second round, the defender can declare that he will try to retreat some or all of his units.  Those units that are retreating do not get to “shoot” in the second round, but can still be taken as casualties.

Example:  Germany attacks with 2 tac bombers, 3 tanks, and 8 infantry against a Russian stack of 7 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, and one fighter.  The first round of combat kill 5 Russian infantry and 3 German infantry.  The Russian decides to leave his 2 remaining infantry as a rear guard, and tries to retreat the rest of his units.  On round two, the German rolls for 5 infantry, 2 tac bombers, and 3 tanks, Getting 4 hits.  This destroys the 2 Russian infantry left as a rear guard, plus the 1 artillery and 1 tank that tried to retreat with the fighter.  The fighter successfully escapes.  The Russian rolls only for the 2 infantry left behind, scoring no hits.  He saved the fighter, but by trying to save the tank and artillery, he sacrificed the possibility that they would have killed another German infantry or two.

Here’s another idea: If a unit chooses to retreat, the attacker may (IT’S THEIR CHOICE) pursue the unit to where it is retreating. There is a limit of 1 or 2 pursues per battle per turn. This means that:
1. A reserve force is a decent idea
2. If a battle is going badly but you have your reserve force, you can change the tide by retreating.
3. But it doesn’t make retreating too overpowered as you are ceding a territory to the attacker.

Woohoo unintended benefits! I might have to try that one out…

my group plays, defender can retreat during the second round of combat. soo after the attacker has done its damage for the second round defender has an option to fight back or retreat

Hey techroll42,
I’m curious about the “pursue” option. So if the defender tries to retreat all the units in an attacked territory, then the attacker can follow and make a second attack on the territory that the defending units retreated to? Sort of like a very involved “blitz” of the first territory, right?
If so, does this include attacking infantry and artillery? That would be like basically giving them an extra movement point, wouldn’t it?
However, if the defender leaves a “reserve” force of even 1 infantry, that protects the retreating units and stops the pursuit into the new territory, right? Sort of like leaving 1 infantry for blitz blocking.
I think that would be good if you included the option where the attacking units get to fire on the retreating units with no counter fire if the defender leaves this reserve force. If the defender retreats ALL units, leaving no reserve, then the attacker doesn’t get this extra shot because they are either following the retreating units or simply consolidating their newly captured territory.
I could see the attacker not choosing to pursue if the defender retreats his units into a territory that already has a large stack of units and perhaps might be too big together for that attacking force to handle, so they must wait for backups.

Yes to the full retreat is like a blitz.
Same to inf/art and air units (perhaps we make them use a MP?).

Regarding the “reserve force,” perhaps we could let there be a blitzwall, or perhaps we could make it so that if the attacker 1-round pounds the reserve force they can pursue with tank/mech if they so choose.

Another rule I was thinking of is the Strongarm Blitz.

The rule would mean that tanks/mech can blitz as usual IF the attacker has 2 times the LAND UNITS of the defender.

OK. I will test this out vs. myself and then perhaps bring it forward for an Alpha+3.9 Global game between us.