What Happens to Commanders When Their BG is Destroyed

[Onomarchos]

We had a situation where a BG of Roman Cavalry, with a Commander fighting in the front rank, was destroyed in the JAP because of autobreak. They were in melee at the time. What happens to the commander? Does he die because he is in contact with the enemy and alone? There was no other friendly unit in the area for him to run to. The rules talk about enemy BGs moving into contact with lone commanders, so I thought that would apply.

[WhiteKnight]

If the commander was with the enemy BG at the time of its autobreak and your BG was still in contact with it, the commander is "killed" on a roll of 10 or higher...p109

If he isnt killed, p50 suggests he is lost anyway as he has in your case no friendly BG within his 7MU movement allowance!

Martin

[Onomarchos]

The Commander had made his death rolls. We also thought we should apply the rule on page 50, but it is in the movement section and the BG did not break until the JAP.

[Montagu]

Once a BG is below the threshold for autobreak, they perform a route move. This occurs after the combat rolls (cohesion, death rolls, etc) of that impact/melee phase they were in. If the pursing BG contacts this routed BG then there is another commander death roll (I believe 10+ kills him) and that BG loses another base. So normally, the commander wouldn't be killed unless there were no other bases left for some reason.

[Onomarchos]

OK, there is the problem. I did not read the part about them needing to make a rout move when they autobreak. I knew that the BG was not removed until the JAP. Thanks.

However, you could have the situation where an enemy BG is in contact with a friendly BG with commander that is destroyed. Anyone have any ideas other than what is on page 50?

[MarkSieber]

We were looking at this in a game yesterday. I did not find a rule that BG's which autobreak must rout-move, so we were only rout-moving those autobroken BG's which also dropped the cohesion level by usual means.

The first instance was a Roman commander with the cavalry, which lost a cohesion test and broke, then took an autobreak loss at the death roll. The general was killed, even though he'd not been fighting in the front rank.

Later in the battle, a BG auto-broke but had not lost cohesion. We picked it up in the JAP where it originally stood. (Same story as above for a second general! Not safe to hang out with 2-stand Triarii...)

We did test units in range for seeing a unit break in both cases.

Could someone point me to the language which notes that autobroken BG's make a rout move? It makes sense, but I couldn't find it.

Thanks! --going blind on this one.

[WhiteKnight]

P 100 "Each newly broken BG makes an initial rout, which....happens at the end of the phase"

An autobreak is just a break which occurs due to base losses rather than simply loss of cohesion. Hence, whenever a BG autobreaks, it does its rout move and a rout move in the JAP, if it has any bases left! It's removed at the end of the JAP. If a commander is with the routing autobreakers (!) he does the first rout move with them. He can escape in the JAP if theres no pursuit in contact. If there is he does a death roll and if he survives he routs again with the BG. If the pursuit again catches the autobreakers the he will be removed when the autobreakers are removed. If hes left standing on his own because the pursuit didnt catch the autobreakers, and theyve now gone, whether he can now escape or not depends on whose turn it is next!

If you have an army with a few "poor" grade units in, you'll see this happen more often, like I have...

Martin

[SirGarnet]

I think your commanders are needlessly falling on their swords.

p109 mentions a single 10-12 commander roll by pursuers in contact at the end of any pursuit move. (Easy to forget - I've added a note on this case to the normal commander roll paragraph on p99)

p50 is in the Manoeuvre Phase section but says a commander not with a BG but within an enemy's move or shooting range must "IMMEDIATELY move (IN ANY PHASE OR TURN)" to a friendly group if in range [emphasis added]. This seems clear to me - at the moment the BG disappears the commander must escape to friendlies or perish (but this doesn't exempt him from the applicable commander roll he would have suffered anyway).

p101 says a commander with a BG when it breaks (whether front rank or not) must rout once with it (as well as not counting for anything else until the JA Phase).

So in the usual case you do a commander roll after the CT and death roll, then do the rout and pursuit moves, then the pursuers if in contact take another commander roll.

If autobreak happens on the death roll or in pursuit, remaining bases of the autobroken BG (or BGs down to 1 base) are not removed from the table until the end of the JA Phase (p116). The autobroken BG routs accordingly (with accompanying commander if any) (see p100: each newly broken BG makes an initial rout, with no exceptions made for autobroken) and is subject to pursuit and resulting base removal and commander roll. When the autobroken BG is removed in the JA Phase, the commander immediately moves to a safe haven if any (though since the commmander is able to move earlier in the JA Phase sequence of play, presumably he has already left the doomed BG).

[Onomarchos]

Mike, I think you have it exactly correct. There seems no reason for the commander to not move off from the BG in the JAP. Since the BG routed this turn, he can't try a cohesion test, so why not move away.

[MarkSieber]

Thanks Martin & Mike, very helpful & clear. Just finished playing my third game--my Carthaginians gave me ample practice with routs... four snake-eyes in a row for BG's testing to see each neighbor break--including one superior re-roll to another '2'!