New BP vs Points System

BP?

You might consider using the point cost for the units involved to establish the break point. That is, when the units destroyed equal half of the initial cost, the break point is reached. This way large, high-value units that are destroyed or routed do more damage to the morale side than the loss of cheaper, more common or more numerous units. One attraction of the AQMF design was the simplicity and not having to fiddle with morale rules per se.

This does not add much to the record-keeping burden since you will have already calculated the cost of the units for your side. A running total on scratch paper will do it.

Further development has resulted in the following formula - Number of Units/2 = BP. BP-1 = number of Order Tokens. Remember that flivvers and lobototons do not count towards BP, so you have a BP being based on combat units. It would be easy to assign higher BP to special/large unit types (Goliath, LIC, Dominator, Overseer, etc). As an example, USA vs MARs forces each at 500 points would have a BP around 3, with 2 Order Tokens. But it all comes down to whats on the table after the smoke clears.

In support of boxholders idea, you could also adjust the break point by adjusting the percentage. Currently forces break at 50%. Using an all points system, you could shift that percentage to reflect the type of troops/situation the human forces are facing. Maybe British break at 60% instead of 50%. Maybe the out-of-state militia (being all the troops on the table, no locals or regulars) break at 40% or less. The Martians would stay at a flat 50%, although as an option, they might be crazy (Red Martian pod at 70%) or trying to preserve losses (low on Assault replacements, so force breaks on 40%). I like the simple application of this without the somewhat awkward unit count, break point, etc. Bravo boxholder - now needs some play testing out there.

Now to stir the mud in the water.....
I think Boxholder's idea that break point calculation should be based on total points is better than the BP number as stated by Morgan. It is also better than the current game's 50% rule because it takes into account in an indirect way the combat power / game value of individual units as well as the likely morale effect their loss would have on the force as a whole. The big issue becomes one of reworking the actual unit point values so they are closer to correct. We already know that some are ridiculously low and others are too high.

The second thing is avoiding a hard mathematically calculated line that tells when an army will break and pack up. This leads to unrealistic choices on the battlefield to force the enemy to cross the line or likewise to avoid crossing the line. An example of the first would be shooting at all of the units that are easiest to kill regardless of their actual combat abilities/effectiveness. For example, killing as many single element units as possible (specialty units like tenders, special tanks, anti-tripod guns, etc.) even when the biggest threat comes from 3 element tank units. Another behavior would be just killing the easy to kill units like infantry in the open, trucks, and other miscellaneous stuff. If I am in a pitched battle in a tank and you start blowing up trucks instead of tanks and I am happy that you are wasting shots on worthless targets.

Another thing with morale is that it shouldn't just be a hard mathematical line that says X casualties and the army collapses. Morale is actually a relative thing. Are you killing or being effective in your fire against the enemy? Are you taking unacceptable casualties without achieving your objective or inflicting comparable pain on the enemy? Armies don't just suddenly break...usually they waiver first, then either recover or break.

I would like to see morale expressed as a sliding relative scale that moves like a tug of war based on the performance of the sides. If it gets to far over to one side, that side starts to waver (maybe stops advancing, harder to pass unit morale checks, etc) and if not restored could lead to the army breaking. Essentially if morale keeps going one way a base chance starts to develop of the army failing morale. This chance would keep increasing if losses kept mounting unless they were "in kind" until the chance of failure reached 100%. Of course, the ability to roll a 10 on 1d10 would still let the force pass morale.

For me Army Break Points are a good and bad sort of thing. The good is that it makes it easy to set up a quick smash and grab type of game. The bad is that they are most useful (perhaps required) for tournament style games and consequently are a sort of artificial endpoint that needs to be imposed on the game to provide standardization. My favored scenarios are ones in which the players have tactical or strategic goals and these may be different for the two sides. Morale in the form of army break can enter in but is not the primary goal of the players. But these types of scenarios take much more effort to design.