Fighting in Orb

[stevoid]

We had a situation in a game at ValleyCon which taxed our brains.

A BG of 6 Hypaspists went into orb: SF = spear facing forward, SR= spear facing rearward. The orb is two files wide with 1 rank facing forward and two ranks (at least half) facing rearward.

The orb is then changed in the front by a 2 wide BG of Cav and in the sides by 2 wide BGs of MF and Cav. The combat is occuring in broken ground.

CvCv
CvCv
MfMfSFSFCvCv
MfMfSRSRCvCv
SRSR

How is the impact combat adjudicated, i.e. how many dice are used against each enemy BG and how many do they get?

BTW - would it have been legal to have formed the orb like so:

SFSF
SFSR
SRSR

- 1.5 ranks facing forwards and 1.5 facing rearward, to satisfy the at least half facing to the rear?

Cheers,

Steve

[MCollett]

A BG of 6 Hypaspists went into orb: SF = spear facing forward, SR= spear facing rearward. The orb is two files wide with 1 rank facing forward and two ranks (at least half) facing rearward.

The orb is then changed in the front by a 2 wide BG of Cav and in the sides by 2 wide BGs of MF and Cav. The combat is occuring in broken ground.

Code: Select all

    CvCv
    CvCv
MfMfSFSFCvCv
MfMfSRSRCvCv
    SRSR

How is the impact combat adjudicated, i.e. how many dice are used against each enemy BG and how many do they get?

The Hypaspists get 1/4 of their bases rounded up fighting in each direction (i.e. 2). Half of these rounded up (i.e. 1 per side) count as front rank. The broken ground has no effect; each Cv BG would lose 1 per 3, but is fighting with only 2. So the impact combat has one base of Hypaspists pairing off against one base of each opponent; each side throws six dice total. In the ensuing melee, with second ranks counting, the net effect is the same as long as the Hypaspists haven't lost cohesion or a base.

BTW - would it have been legal to have formed the orb like so:

SFSF
SFSR
SRSR

- 1.5 ranks facing forwards and 1.5 facing rearward, to satisfy the at least half facing to the rear?

<shrug> It's only a mnemonic device anyway; it makes no difference to the combat.

Best wishes,
Matthew

[stevoid]

Thanks Mathew.

So the Hypaspists should get their POA for two ranks of spear in each direction and, as you say, the actual facing of the bases is merely a mnemonic.

What confused us is reconciling the impact/combat dice rules with the Orb rules, i.e. the attackers are each contacting two bases of the hypasipists and the impact rules start with bases when working out number of dice, but the Orb rules just talk about dice in each direction with no reference to attacker impact dice.

Your interpretation makes sense for the impact (well to me anyway), but why don't the Cav in the front get 3 dice in the melee?

Cheers,

Steve

PS - I'd really like to see a worked example of an Orb impact/melee in the FAQ...

[MCollett]

So the Hypaspists should get their POA for two ranks of spear in each direction and, as you say, the actual facing of the bases is merely a mnemonic.

Troops in orb never get the PoA for 2 ranks of spear.

Your interpretation makes sense for the impact (well to me anyway), but why don't the Cav in the front get 3 dice in the melee?

Troops in orb cannot be overlapped. Since there is only one front-rank Hypaspist in each direction, there can only be one front-rank enemy fighting in each direction.

Best wishes,
Matthew

[stevoid]

Thanks again Mathew. I think we gave the Hypaspists a rum deal in the game (although they would have succombed eventually). We were tired and it wasn't germane to the final result.

I think the key thing for me in this is that the orb only has to fight against one base of enemy in each direction. Interestingly this means that a 6 base BG could get 8 dice in melee if surrounded on each side!

If orbs never get POA for spear etc, then why does it matter that half of one quarter rounded up count as front rank?

Cheers,

Steve

[MCollett]

I think the key thing for me in this is that the orb only has to fight against one base of enemy in each direction. Interestingly this means that a 6 base BG could get 8 dice in melee if surrounded on each side!

I doubt it is the intention that you can claim more melee dice in total than you actually have bases (compare a recent thread here on surrounded battlewagons). If an orb of 6 were actually fighting in four directions I would expect the two available rear-rank bases to be assigned to the owner's choice of two directions.

If orbs never get POA for spear etc, then why does it matter that half of one quarter rounded up count as front rank?

Because that determines how many enemy they have to fight.

Best wishes,
Matthew