Tactical Combat based on 'Marching Order'

[chronoplasm]

There are elements of 4E I like and elements of OD&D I like. For a while, I've been trying to come up with a set of houserules that would merge these elements together. I feel that these houserules may come together into a 'house system'.

I feel that 4E has really dynamic combat. I like all the effects that involve pushing, pulling, sliding, and shifting to affect the position of units on the field. However, I'd also like to be able to do such tactical combat without the use of miniatures on a grid.
One idea I have involves the old 'marching order' mechanic.

Marching Order:
When moving one at a time through a narrow corridor, it may be important for the adventuring party to decide the order in which they go through.
Generally, you will want the thief in front to scout ahead and disarm traps. Then you will want a heavily armored fighter in front to serve as a 'meat shield' protecting everybody behind him. The more vulnerable members of the party will want to go behind the meat shield.

I would like to use marching order more abstractly to represent the idea of battlefield placement in general. I'm also thinking of merging it into the initiative mechanic, so that marching order also determines turn order. Then I would like to build up a more robust set of rules for combat that involves the use of pushing and pulling to affect the opponent's marching order.

Questions:
You get hit by an attack. This attack knocks you back, pushing you behind your friend in marching order, exposing your friend to attack and causing your next turn to be delayed.
Is your suspension of disbelief broken in anyway?
Are you annoyed because your turn is constantly getting delayed?
Are there any other problems you can see?
What house rules might you implement to fix the above problems?

[Callan S.]

Hi Kevin,

Is it a gamist game?

I'm also thinking your still working with a grid, it just has only a few squares - ie, a front square, some middle squares and an end square.

Also slightly off topic, what comes to mind is you could deal cards instead of having a battle grid - there could be a 'moved around to flank' card, or a 'clear and free for archery' card, etc. Players get a hand of these and the cards played give you an idea of movement on a battle grid, without the grid.

[chronoplasm]

Is it a gamist game?

At this point I think so.

Also slightly off topic, what comes to mind is you could deal cards instead of having a battle grid - there could be a 'moved around to flank' card, or a 'clear and free for archery' card, etc. Players get a hand of these and the cards played give you an idea of movement on a battle grid, without the grid.

I like that. I see cards being placed down in stacks to indicate marching order, with the cards on bottom representing characters at the back and the cards on top representing characters up front.
Seeing that lead me to see this:
Players take turns putting a card from their hands face down onto a pile of cards.
Once everybody has placed a card down, the cards are turned face up, starting with the card on top and going down to the bottom, to resolve a sequence of events.
That's a bit of a tangent, I know.
There was this other thing I was thinking about, though I'm not sure it would work with the card stack idea. I was thinking maybe some characters could stand in the same space in marching order/initiative count. In this way characters would stand side-by-side and act simultaneously.