splitting shooting dice

[deadtorius]

Although it is not specifically mentioned in the rules, I was wondering if when splitting shooting dice you should have to split the dice of a unit not including any attachment dice first. Then you can add your attached dice to the rest of the shooting dice.

For example if you have a small veteran unit shooting at medium range and you have an artillery attachment you would get 6 dice. If there are 2 enemy to your front would it make sense to have to assign the minimum of those reroll dice to each target, then you can split your remaining dice including the attached artillery die.

As I said the rules don't specify any such thing was just wondering what the authors intent might have been and what others think.

[BrettPT]

Hi Dead.

Probably an extra complication that wouldn't add to the game.

There was some discussion early during playtesting about splitting dice, I don't think your precise question came up though.
The original draft had dice splitting by a formula - I can't remember exactly how it worked - but I do remember it being a bit of a pain.

For simplicity, it moved to the current 'allocate dice as you see fit' - with the proviso that each target must get at least 1 dice (2 if lots of dice are being rolled) and the proviso that the primary target cannot be largely ignored (- the 'must allocate at least as many dice to the target most in front' rule).

As well as being simple, the move to 'allocate as you see fit' brought an element of player decision making into the shooting phase - a good thing.
Part of the decision is where to load the re-rollable dice and where to allocate the attachment dice.

For me, it is important that the rules give generally acceptable 'historical' outcomes. Within that criteria, the more decisions you can reasonably leave up to the player the better - so I am a fan of the rule as is.

Cheers
Brett

[deadtorius]

thanks for the reply, always interesting to get some background info on how it all came about. Guess we will continue on as is then.

[terrys]

Brett is correct - Simplicity was the order of the day - without making allowing a unit to concentrate all of its fire on single targets.
You should just follow these instructions for both firing and combat:
1) Start off with the number of dice allowed to the unit
2) Add or subtract dice as required
3) Reduce the dice due to cohesion losses
4) Allocate remaining dice to the enemy target(s)