Making contact

[bryan]

What are the rules for making contact?
Is there a free slide type thing to make contact?
Do whole BG's have to conform or elements?

[rbodleyscott]

What are the rules for making contact?

You make any contact, you fight.

Is there a free slide type thing to make contact?

Not necessary, troops do not need to conform to fight.

Do whole BG's have to conform or elements?

Conforming is not required for troops to fight. (For tidiness sake, conforming happens after the initial impact if there is room, but if not they carry on fighting unconformed).

There are no "bunged up" positions in AoW.

[bryan]

That is music to my ears!

Thanks, Richard.

[babyshark]

That nicely eliminates the single most annoying form of cheese in DBM. But, does it open up a new set of potential advantages? For instance fiddling the movement of your BG so that it just contacts the end of opponent's BG. Or however the odd advantage could be gained.

Of course, one could say that this would be a good thing as it would allow the fight--with its attendant risks--to occur, giving an advantage to the most clever (or lucky) side, instead of preventing the fight from happening at all.

Marc

[shall]

The whole BG doesn't fight in such circumstances so not much cheese to be had...cheese elimination has been one of the primary principles of AOW development:

Aims were broadly ....

• Historical feel/accuracy
  Little cheese
  Fast moving
  Fun to play
  Strategic skill counts
  Rule lawyer skill doesn't
  Skill a big factor but not so much that top players dominate
  All armies playable if used well

Basically we wanted a game where if you imagined yourself playing Alexander or Hannibal at AOW they would probably win as they are great generals and that would count.......even if they didn't know the rules......whereas we would all thrash them at many other rules by invoking page 36 that they unfotrunately have never read!!!

Si

[neilhammond]

That nicely eliminates the single most annoying form of cheese in DBM. But, does it open up a new set of potential advantages? For instance fiddling the movement of your BG so that it just contacts the end of opponent's BG. Or however the odd advantage could be gained.

Essentially at first contact the opposing units fight an equal number of bases (elements in DBM terms). There are no overlaps at first contact. So if someone tries to clip the end of a BG then it will result in a 1 base vs 1 base combat. You can't contact, say at an angle and have two of your front bases touching the corner of a BG and claiming two bases onto one.

During subsequent rounds of melee the overlaps will apply, so whoever has greater numbers/overlaps will start to gain a benefit.

You can expand in a melee. So if a smaller unit facing a larger unit tried to line up to contact one end of the line to achieve a "one element each in contact and one element overlap each" situation in order to negate the other unit's larger numbers, the larger unit will eventually be able to expand out into the overlap and bring superior numbers into play.

Neil

[rbodleyscott]

You can expand in a melee. So if a smaller unit facing a larger unit tried to line up to contact one end of the line to achieve a "one element each in contact and one element overlap each" situation in order to negate the other unit's larger numbers, the larger unit will eventually be able to expand out into the overlap and bring superior numbers into play.

Immediately after the impact phase in fact. BGs can expand by 1 base width in each (i.e. both) players bounds. The larger BG does not have to be deeper to do this, the bases moved to face the smaller BG's overlap can be taken from the unengaged end of larger BG.

xAAAA
xAAAA
BB
BB

would thus become

AAAA
AAAA
BB
BB

immediately after the impact phase, so B would get 4 bases fighting in the melee and A would get 6, despite B's "cunning" contact.

(x is a placeholder for a space. This board does not allow spaces at the start of a line)

[babyshark]

Immediately after the impact phase in fact. BGs can expand by 1 base width in each (i.e. both) players bounds. The larger BG does not have to be deeper to do this, the bases moved to face the smaller BG's overlap can be taken from the unengaged end of larger BG.

What, if anything, is the historical justification for that mechanism? Or was it simply created for better game play?

Curious,

Marc

[hammy]

Immediately after the impact phase in fact. BGs can expand by 1 base width in each (i.e. both) players bounds. The larger BG does not have to be deeper to do this, the bases moved to face the smaller BG's overlap can be taken from the unengaged end of larger BG.

What, if anything, is the historical justification for that mechanism? Or was it simply created for better game play?

Curious,

Marc

The way I rationalise this (it does seem a little odd at first) is that if it doesn't happen what are the other half of the larger BG doing? Are they just standing around twiddling their thumbs? I would imagine that in a situation like this real BG's would probably rotate slightly and the overlapping portions would begin to wrap round each other. Essentially the unengaged troops would try to do something.

If you want to stop this king of thing happening you could always try charging both ends of the larger BG with two smaller ones, then the larger BG won't be able to do this.

Hammy

[ars_belli]

The whole BG doesn't fight in such circumstances so not much cheese to be had...cheese elimination has been one of the primary principles of AOW development:

Aims were broadly ....

• Historical feel/accuracy
  Little cheese
  Fast moving
  Fun to play
  Strategic skill counts
  Rule lawyer skill doesn't
  Skill a big factor but not so much that top players dominate
  All armies playable if used well

Basically we wanted a game where if you imagined yourself playing Alexander or Hannibal at AOW they would probably win as they are great generals and that would count.......even if they didn't know the rules......whereas we would all thrash them at many other rules by invoking page 36 that they unfotrunately have never read!!!

Si

Given all that, AoW sounds like it will be a real 'breath of fresh air' in ancients gaming! I will eagerly await further developments.

Cheers,
Scott k.