You can have RANKS of Troops in a Card Game (Physical). Meaning you could have for example "3 RANKS" for let's say three (3) ROWS of Troops. So the cards played in ROW #1 (1st RANK) are Melee and make contact with the opposing player's own ARMY. Sure you can have Ranged units... But there needs to be some kind of PENALTY for having Ranged units in ROW #1.
Next in ROW #2 (2nd RANK) are Ranged units which can target either the opposing Melee units (ROW #1: 1st RANK) OR Ranged units (ROW #2: 2nd RANK).
Lastly in your ROW #3 (3rd RANK) are Support units which cannot directly attack ANYONE. They offer some kind of BOOST. Like it could be a Drummer who BOOSTs all Melee Attacks by +1 Attack (for example) or it can be a Wizard who BOOSTs all Magical Ranged Attacks by +2 Attack (for example)... Or a Champion who BOOSTs Morale and gives All units a +1 Defense Bonus.
This is similar to "Monster Keep" (MK), I have three (3) rows too. But there are restrictions on my rows (3 Monsters, 2 Monster and 1 Monster = BOSS)
In your case, you can build and design your ARMIES as you like: no ranged, only Melee and Support OR Melee and Ranged (no Support), etc.
And case you could have a ?D element with 3 RANKS that allow for 3 ROWS with different use case for each row.
I would THINK in terms of ARMIES vs. ARMIES. Not units vs. units. ARMIES are a composition of ONE (1) or MORE RANKS. Some ARMIES like a Melee Army may be MORE EFFECTIVE against a Ranged Army (for example)... But you can COMBO the two and produce more neutral armies (in terms of their effectiveness).
Additionally like in MK, Build Points (BPs) or something similar may be used to CONTROL HOW armies are built. Like 50 points for ? units to an ARMY. Like a Support unit could COST 10 BPs, leaving 40 BPs. Ranged could COST 2 BPs each meaning you could get 10 of them (20 BPs) and lastly Melee could COST 1 BPs each (20 BPs). So a mixed ARMY could look like that... Meanwhile a Melee-ONLY ARMY could be 50 Melee units (50 BPs).
Something like that. I'm just sharing some of what I am using. You are welcome to ADAPT it to what works for you... MK is not a "dumb" design... There is a LOT going on for just a SIMPLE "Card Game"!
Anyhow if you have other questions, please let me know! Cheers.
I have tried this before. But the thing is that having this effect requires 2D thinking.
Meaning that there is a limited room for this to be fair and logical.
After all, everyone could go melee only.
Let's say, we consider weapons to have an attack range. That this is the whole point of disuccsion.
In a board game with a grid. You can have these units attack from a distance. And thus getting an edge on some other units that still need to approach.
In order to prevent the other units to approach, some melee units can be used to blcok the other melee units.
This represents an RTS game.
And believe it or not, the space variant with fleet would still have this effect to some extent. Since I also would have some cover mechanics within the fleet.
The card game with ranks as you described. Would need a limit too. But now, the table is filled with cards instead of pieces. And the cards are limited to being "one" each. Meaning, the smaller cards are not going to be fodder. And will not really be used anymore. It simply doesn't work for my game.
My plan is to have each card contain chips. And these chips tell us how strong the card is going to be.
A chip of 9? The card represents 9 units. And the player could decide to use up to 9 dice.
A chip of 27 with a chip of 3? The card represents 30 units. And 30 dice are used.
Well, scrap the 9 and 30. The idea behind the chips would also be. The die roll represents the hits and misses. I think I allow a player to roll 1 or 3 dice for a chip. Where the 3 + 27 could be 3 dice of 1 each and 3 dice of 9 each.
Then, with the attribute [Ranged]. These cards could take cover behind a normal card. And the cards [Melee] could provide cover to a normal card.
[Ranged] could also provide a sure way to fire without return fire on [Defences]
Where [Ranged] obviously makes the weapon a bit more expensive.
I found my list of attributes for an earlier attempt. I am going to reconsider the attributes. How they where in the other game. And how they can be used in this game.
Also, if their weight calculation can be used.