press forward and charging second rank in frontal charge

expendablecinc · Post by **expendablecinc** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:13 am

gozerius wrote: I see no justification to allow a base to contribute more dice to an impact combat than allowed on the Impact Phase Dice chart. If a base is fighting another base it counts as a "front rank base". If it is in a second or third rank bow or crossbow armed, and not fighting, and it is behind a base that is, it may be able to contribute a die to the total of that BG's impact dice. Any suggestion that a base can support shoot for multiple bases, including itself, is NOT supported by the rules for impact dicing, and I reject it out of hand.

I dont think the suport shooting is doubled up. Its just that they fight as a frotn rank as well as providing some shooting dice overall.

eg

two bases of Byzantine HF (def spear + MF bow) are hit at an angle by arab cavlary so that both the front spearman and rear bowmen get hit.
I woudl expect 4 dice for the cav vs 4 dice + 1 support shooting dice for the Byzantines. I dont think anyone is saying there woudl be 2 support shooting dice are they?

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:22 am

expendablecinc wrote:Two bases of Byzantine HF (def spear + MF bow) are hit at an angle by arab cavlary so that both the front spearman and rear bowmen get hit.
I would expect 4 dice for the cav vs 4 dice + 1 support shooting dice for the Byzantines. I dont think anyone is saying there would be 2 support shooting dice are they?

I am. Otherwise an angled charge gains an advantage compared to a frontal charge.

If red charges straight down it is red 2 dice green three dice. In your assumption if he wheels it is red 4 dice green 5. Cheesy wheel to gain an advantage that should not be there.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:56 am

Remember that a BG is not representing a single rigid formation of troops. It is a number of 'unit' acting together.

The last thing you want it to introduce 6th and 7th edition style charges with wedges into the corner of an enemy unit to gain advantage.

ShrubMiK · Post by **ShrubMiK** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:03 pm

Or even worse, a wedge contacting only the general figure, claiming that therefore all casualties accrue on the general figure only, hey presto, battle won on what was pretty much the first roll of the dice!

I agree...if the charger in a particular situation gets double the dice by being cute about who the impact is made, the other side should get additional dice in proportion. If you want to engineer a large advantage, you need to put in the effort to get to a valid flank charge. Rolling dice for "hits" is already a huge abstraction, there is no fundamental reason that a base shouldn't be able to roll more dice in some situations.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:32 pm

Phil, shouldn't that be red four dice, green SIX dice. The support shooters are MF. They have one dice per base in contact.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:51 pm

rogerg wrote:Phil, shouldn't that be red four dice, green SIX dice. The support shooters are MF. They have one dice per base in contact.

Not in expandableCinC's example, as he believes that green would not support shoot against both contacts. In my thinking it would be.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:53 pm

We did all this on an earlier thread. I discussed it with Dave R in Derby earlier this year. The general agreement then was that the contact is resolved as if a frontal contact. This means a contact on two front rank bases, which implies two support shooting bases.
This is in the spirit of the rules. No advantage is to be gained unless it is a true flank charge.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:18 am

A battle group has a finite amount of combat power represented by the number of bases in it. Each base has a finite amount of combat power depending on its role in combat. In the impact phase each base in contact and paired with an enemy base counts as fighting in the front rank, with a combat power of 2 dice.The rules on support shooting specify that each supporting base rolls "1" die as part of that BG's impact total. To qualify as a support shooter you must not be in the front rank, and behind a base that is "fighting". You are worrying about angled charges to gain an advantage, and I am worried about bases rolling far more dice than the chart allows. You're interpretation gives a contacted second rank, bow armed MF base the impact capabilities of an entire file of troops! On top of any support for a contacted front rank base. Thus that base is now contributing 4

dice to an impact combat! Two close combat dice and two support shooting dice. So to discourage "cheesy" angling you whip up a fix, unsupported by the rulebook, that is even stinkier. Highly unsatisfactory. I would never force that interpretation on anyone.

nikgaukroger · Post by **nikgaukroger** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 9:16 am

rogerg wrote:We did all this on an earlier thread. I discussed it with Dave R in Derby earlier this year. The general agreement then was that the contact is resolved as if a frontal contact. This means a contact on two front rank bases, which implies two support shooting bases.
This is in the spirit of the rules.

I've always played it this way and I've never had any opponent query it or think it is wrong.

IMO playing it any other way is assuming that the bases we put our figures on also, somehow, restricts how the troops would be in real life - which is of course silly

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:00 am

I agree with Phil.

ShrubMiK · Post by **ShrubMiK** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:30 am

There are of course other situations where the number of bases and the number of dice are calculated abnormally - e.g. two bases contact one in impact, only one of them gets to roll dice, again in the interests of not allowing clever/cynical use of geometry to give an advantage. So no point in getting too hung up on the equation of one abstract representation of something tangible (bases) must always equal a non-varying amount of an abstract representation of something else that is not tangible (combat results).

Hmmm...thinking about this one a bit more I'm tempted to say that perhaps it would be "fair" for the charger to get some benefit. Okay they can't get in a legal flank charge so shouldn't get the full benefit of that, but if they were charging from a more frontal position (or perhaps specified charge direction and wheel differently) they would have an overlap which would be of benefit when getting to the melee phase. Getting 3 times the number of dice rolled is too much of an advantage though. Perhaps count only one file in impact, and allow the contact on second rank only to count as an overlap during melee.

Or maybe the answer is to just leave the rules untouched and say it is up to the charger to gain advantage by manoeuvering in advance for either a full flank charge, or a frontal charge with normal overlap.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:09 pm

gozerius wrote: I would never force that interpretation on anyone.

I would.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:22 pm

Well chalk it up to my reductionist nature. If a rule states that a base gets 2 dice if in contact or one die if support shooting from a rear rank, I assume that that means that a base does not contribute 4 dice. I feel sorry for those who think that the rules make perfect sense as written, only to show up at one of your events to find that the rules are best understood to be used as coasters for your beverages. "Don't believe what you read in that thing, listen to us."
Yes, I realize that I am not going to convince anyone of the logic of my arguments. You have already set precedent. Case closed.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 12:11 am

gozerius wrote:I feel sorry for those who think that the rules make perfect sense as written, only to show up at one of your events to find that the rules are best understood to be used as coasters for your beverages.

Well, read the rules. Its perfectly obvious that a base that hits a flank when not a legal flank charge counts as hitting the front of the file, whatever you think about dice a base can have.

The rules do not make sense to you as you are using preconceptions from other rules. Or even real life, but applying them at the wrong scale.

I would love the rules to work as you believe as I use a lot of cavalry, but I understand why they do not, mainly to stop me gaining adavntage.

The other thing is play a few more games. In one or two it may not make a difference. But in 40 or fifty it will.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 1:43 am

If we only counted files, we would not allow bases hitting behind a contacted front rank any dice in impact. But we do. Also angling a charge to gain a positional advantage is already part of the game. If I angle a charge to avoid the BG directly in front of me, or to reduce the number of bases hitting at an unfavorable POA, am I not executing a cheesy maneuver? IMO, the effect of contacting the side of a BG is perfectly modelled by the rules allowing the contacted base the POA advantages of the front rank base. If we allow a contacted back rank base to fight, then it cannot shoot, and no back rank base can shoot multiple times. That is double (or triple) dipping. The rules don't say that each contacted base gets a die of support shooting, it says an eligible base contributes one die of support shooting. By creating phantom files you are insisting that we play according to a standard that isn't reflected in the rulebook. Bases in contact fight. Bases behind bases in contact shoot. Otherwise why not let all contacted missile armed foot shoot in the impact phase?

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:43 am

gozerius wrote:Yes, I realize that I am not going to convince anyone of the logic of my arguments. You have already set precedent. Case closed.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 1:36 am

P57 "A charge which does not qualify as a flank or rear charge can still contact the flank edge of an enemy base, ......, and is treated as a normal charge on the enemy front"

Doesn't this mean that the charger is technically "in contact" with the front rank, and therefore NOT actually fighting the rear rank base, and if so the front rank base is doing the fighting, not the rear one? Isn't that the reason it conforms to the front of the file in the maneuver phase? If that is the case then why is the front rank being allowed to fight more than one base? And the rear rank allowed to support more than once as well?

I think that the desire to avoid giving the charger an advantage when charging at an angle is a noble one. I think that the way it's being handled (by allowing rear rank bases to fight AND support shoot) is the wrong way to do it.

I suggest that you consider forcing chargers not qualifying for a flank or rear charge to count all contacts on the side edge of a BG as fighting the front rank base only. That would limit the combat to just the front rank base dice, plus any attendant support shooting. A maximum of 2 dice per front rank base and no more than one die from support shooting. The charger gets to choose which base in contact with the file will actually fight.
This seems more in line with the rulebook than the current interpretaion.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 7:12 am

gozerius wrote:I think that the desire to avoid giving the charger an advantage when charging at an angle is a noble one. I think that the way it's being handled (by allowing rear rank bases to fight AND support shoot) is the wrong way to do it.

I suggest that you consider forcing chargers not qualifying for a flank or rear charge to count all contacts on the side edge of a BG as fighting the front rank base only. That would limit the combat to just the front rank base dice, plus any attendant support shooting. A maximum of 2 dice per front rank base and no more than one die from support shooting. The charger gets to choose which base in contact with the file will actually fight.
This seems more in line with the rulebook than the current interpretaion.

This is possibly a better solution, and more understandable. I like throwing more dice though as it speeds things up and more stuff dies.

ShrubMiK · Post by **ShrubMiK** » Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:36 am

I already suggested this

Rationalise it as too many attackers trying to get at too few defenders, and those nearest getting in the way of those starting from.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:05 am

We already have that when 3 bases contact the front rank corner base. Only one base gets to fight it, and it only fights the chosen base. It doesn't fight all three bases at 2 dice apiece. The others have to wait until conforming to get an overlap or full frontal contact on the adjacent base.