Terrain and routing questions.

[iversonjm]

Hi,

Two quick questions that came up recently:

1. What happens when there are no legal places to put a remaining terrain piece, such as where it is impossible to place a piece in the rolled location without placing it within 4 MU of another piece?

2. Is it possible to charge routed troops? I know it says that routed troops don't fight in the normal sense, but how do non-pursuing troops clear away enemy routers that are blocking their front?

Matt

[davem]

Hi,

Two quick questions that came up recently:

1. What happens when there are no legal places to put a remaining terrain piece, such as where it is impossible to place a piece in the rolled location without placing it within 4 MU of another piece?

(DM) I believe if it cannot be placed and must be discarded.

2. Is it possible to charge routed troops? I know it says that routed troops don't fight in the normal sense, but how do non-pursuing troops clear away enemy routers that are blocking their front?

(DM) Now I've not played many games but on a quick scan through the rules I believe the following: Routers contacted immediately lose a base. They are less than Fragmented so do not roll any combat dice. Your charging BG rolls impact and melee dice as per normal for their type, but on a ++.
The result should be several bases removed and the enemy vapourised....I think!
I await with interest a rules Guru's answer

[rbodleyscott]

Hi,

Two quick questions that came up recently:

1. What happens when there are no legal places to put a remaining terrain piece, such as where it is impossible to place a piece in the rolled location without placing it within 4 MU of another piece?

(DM) I believe if it cannot be placed and must be discarded.

Correct.

2. Is it possible to charge routed troops? I know it says that routed troops don't fight in the normal sense, but how do non-pursuing troops clear away enemy routers that are blocking their front?

(DM) Now I've not played many games but on a quick scan through the rules I believe the following: Routers contacted immediately lose a base. They are less than Fragmented so do not roll any combat dice. Your charging BG rolls impact and melee dice as per normal for their type, but on a ++.
The result should be several bases removed and the enemy vapourised....I think!
I await with interest a rules Guru's answer

Incorrect.

You can charge routers. No combat calculation occurs and they lose no bases immediately. In the next JAP they rout again (using VMD). Your guys pursue (using VMD), and if they keep up with them then the routers lose a base (for each of your BGs in contact).

[davem]

Thanks Richard.
On the face of it, it's a bit of a waste to charge routers then?

[rbodleyscott]

On the face of it, it's a bit of a waste to charge routers then?

Not if you troops are faster than them and you really want to finish them off.

e.g.

a) Enemy BG of 12 bases breaks without losing a base. You charge it with a BG of 4 LF (Exculcatores) and hound it (removing one base from it in the JAP of each player's turn) until it autobreaks or routs off the table.
b) Same situation, you don't charge. The enemy BG routs two or three times, ends up outside 6 MUs of your troops and is immediately rallied by their army's Inspired General.

Note that if you don't charge them, but try to follow them within 6 MUs, unless your troops move twice as fast as them they will eventually get out of 6MUs of you because they rout twice in every pair of turns and you only move once.

[shall]

I have charged routers with LH a number of times to make sure they got down to irrecoverable levels. A good - and historical - use of such skirmishers in fact.

Si

[iversonjm]

Sounds like routers can turn into a road block then. Assuming that you can't get past them by contracting, you are stuck charging into them and waiting until the JAP to try to push through them. Do I have that right?

Matt

[rbodleyscott]

Sounds like routers can turn into a road block then. Assuming that you can't get past them by contracting, you are stuck charging into them and waiting until the JAP to try to push through them. Do I have that right?

Not really, you can't push through them until they are removed from the table - such as if they autobreak due to losses. The main reason to pursue them is to stop them rallying. It isn't that easy to rally broken BGs, but it is very frustrating to have to break the same BG again on the infrequent occasions that they do rally. If the enemy have an Inspired Commander their troops are more likely to rally and it is more important to hound them off the field.

It is an important decision. On most occasions you would be better off calling off the pursuit (requiring a CMT if the pursuers are still in contact) and using your troops against other unbroken enemy. Just occasionally, however, it is worth charging routers to renew a pursuit. It is certainly worth pursuing them with skirmishers if you have some nearby, as skirmishers aren't likely to be much good for anything else once the main battle lines are engaged.

[carlos]

You can also charge a routing BG that is relatively fast like Cavalry and then "ride it" to the enemy camp. Moving twice a turn (ie on both JAPs) is pretty nice! I once beat a Sarmatian Cav w/ some legionaries and soon I was going at 10" a turn towards the enemy camp (with some lucky VMD rolls). The Sarmatian BG eventually evaporated but by then I was right next to the camp.

[iversonjm]

We had somewhat of an odd situation where a cav unit had looped all the way around the rear of a battleline and was trying to charge a unit in the rear but couldn't, because an routing enemy unit was smack in its path. He was trying to charge through it to get at the good-ordered unit on the other side. I'm guessing that doesn't happen all that much.

Thanks for the quick response.

Matt

[shall]

There are 2 mechisms deliberately in the rules to get routers out of being in the way in most cases.

1. JAP phase. Effectively a routing BG moves 3 times for each move of the main army. This tends to get them out of tha way and reflects out phase of battle principle being applied.

2. Autobreaks mean that routers dissipate at a certain point so that they are no longer an obstacle. This sometimes means it is well worth prusuing or even charging routers to get rid of them entirely.

In other circumstances where mass routers get in the way we believe the obstacle is realistic.

In the example with the troops behind routers there isn't a big problem. Just charge the routers and they will flee away from you, often times through other troops causing them to drop to DISR. So you hit them a bound later but they are DISR when you do so.

Regards

Si

[iversonjm]

Got it. Thanks.