YES PLEASE DO KEEP IT COMING LADS AS I AM READING EVERYTHING!
Some thoughts to throw into the pot.
1. Shann1870 is 100% right on the logic behind not making groundscale a key feature. I adopted the opposite approach with R2E but in BLB I left it unspecified.
2. On rapid cavalry advances - surely chaps that is the wargamer's desire to get something into contact and rolling dice(why we play of course!) but it is not mandatory. Patience is a virtue that few wargamers possess.... The coordinated commander would hold his horse back until the infantry were close enough to engage. With little fighting in those first few turns they would pass very quickly! Just infantry moving at 4 inches... no shooting, no Horse melees and a few cannon popping off at each other. I would be very surprised if a turn including up to 25 units per side took more than 15 minutes to complete. The infantry are in action after 3-4 turns max, cavalry then thrown in as it should be... Just my twa' pennenth on how games in my experience run. We refought Malplaquet with about 80 battalions per side and the equivalent of 160 squadrons (80 BLB squadrons) per side recently. We had 12 players, the tables were reasonably complicated shapes but I think we still got about 30 turns done over about 10-11 hours of gaming which is roughly 3 turns per hour. We used unaltered move rates. Much of the 'moving up' was done in column, covered by cavalry to prevent a massacre of the columns.
3. None of you are wrong in your arguments and of course I as always, defer to you military gentlemen who have real experience of unit cohesion in the field whether in battledress or a re enactors outfit! Joe has it accurately summed up in the playability v realism argument. You just have to take a look at the so called discussion I tried to avoid having with the Pedant in Chief on TMP regarding movement rate versus time. In the end for me it is about painting minis, reading the history, getting the toys on the table, throwing some dice, having a chat with my pals and generally enjoying some human interaction. If I win it's a bonus, if I lose well, that's cool. My gaming philosophy sometimes does not sit too well with people but then again we are all different that's why I never try to defend a point unless I think the other party is simply being obtuse.
4. Another two ways to sort the problem: I introduce two levels of aggression in the orders with minimum move distances prescribed for each - works very well on the three level MOVE - ADVANCE -ATTACK principle of R2E.
OR
I allow players two different move tables... the 4 incher and the 6 incher
Terribly British I know.. compromise and all that..
OK so let's see if I have stirred up the Hornet's Nest here!!