Slitherine

The word is drill. Soldiers train by using drills. When one is involved in an ambush one will carry out the drills in respect to situation and position etc. To the left and right, or vehicle fronts and rear troops will also be carrying out drills. In training this will be practised to ensure that the drills run smoothly, and yes having been in real situations with real enemy and real bullets carrying out the correct drills work and one does not worry about what else is going on until the initial drils have been carried out and it is time to reform, reorg and take stock of the situation.

Are we saying that soldiers were not trained that they did not understand that "Lancers are very tasty against infantry not in square" and that their only defence was to form square? That the facing Coy would be unable to prepare, a drum roll, orders, front rank kneels, 2nd rank prepares or whatever the drill dictated. The good old Quatra Bras example seems to be troops getting rather confused
because of contradictory orders rather than bad drills.

Yes there will be a time and distance factor but the nice clean wargames statement that the facing coy - "Probably stand there worrying that the other sides of the square will not be formed in time and they will all be cut down like dogs" does not ring true for trained soldiers carrying out drills that they have practised. If we spent our time worried that the left flanking multiple was not going to be in position in time to give support then we may as well go home.

Cavalry assaulting squares works as follows:

If the infantry are alreay in square they get to fire as the cavalry approach
It the infantry choose not to form squre they also get to fire.
If the infantry choose to form square, they will do so - but MAY lose a cohesion level if they fail their test.
* If the cavalry chare from within 2MU the infantry immediately and automatically lose a cohesion level whether they choose to form square on not. This is before testing or firing.

Both sids use the "all other troops and situations" for calcualting dice numbers.
Rear and flank support applies to the cavalry
Only flank support can apply to the squares. (they have no rear support because they have no rear)

REsult:
If the cavalry end the combat 'Steady' they pass through.
If the cavalry end diordered or worse they retire
The square nver retires from combat with cavalry - It can Break....

On the face of it, it does loook as though squares aren't too good against cavalry, but unless they break (very unlikely unless they start off at least disordered - and even then it takes 4 hits on a 5+) the cavalry will break off or pass trhrough - and probably be spent. The infantry will then get at least one attempt to recover before the cavalry get to charge again - this time with less dice due to being spent.

terrys wrote:Rear and flank support applies to the cavalry

Only rear (no flank) support for the cavalry I think.
Page 56 "cavalry to the flank do not provide support dice against enemy Squares or enemy defending an obstacle"

If the cavalry end diordered or worse they retire

Although disordered cavalry can instead elect to CMT to pass through (page 66 "Disordered cavalry may may [pass through infantry] if they pass a CMT...")

This raises a clarification. If both the square and the cavalry end the combat phase disordered, then we move to the 2nd-to-last line in the Combat Resolution table (pg 61). The non-active square will retire (retire move is a 'Halt' as per the Outcome Moves table), and the cavalry will 'Halt - No pursuit'.

Do the disordered cavalry still pass through in accordance with p66, notwithstanding that they don't get a pursuit?

Cheers
Brett

Hi,

This happened today in a game.
If the Cavalry assaulted and the result of the combat is that both Cavalry and Square are Disordered, then:
1. The Square will retire, but outcome move is "Halt", so the square stays put.
2. You then move to the next line on the COMBAT RESOLUTION table, which says for the Active player (the Cavalry in our example) "Retires unit in contact and Disordered." So the Cavalry makes an outcome move of D6+2.

The Pass Through only counts when you have worked down to that line on the table (see p.66 PASS THROUGH).

1. Which makes me wonder how you can possibly have Disordered Cavalry in contact with Infantry at the end of a Combat round?

2. When exactly is the "end of the combat round" - I would assume after all results have been applied and all outcome moves completed, but before 2nd round of combat is commenced?

Cheers,
John Shaw

Only rear (no flank) support for the cavalry I think.
Page 56 "cavalry to the flank do not provide support dice against enemy Squares or enemy defending an obstacle"

You are of course correct.

1. Which makes me wonder how you can possibly have Disordered Cavalry in contact with Infantry at the end of a Combat round?

2. When exactly is the "end of the combat round" - I would assume after all results have been applied and all outcome moves completed, but before 2nd round of combat is commenced?

1) It is very rare - Basically infantry defending an obstacle. For example a river-line shallow enough for cavalry to assault across, or a wall/hedge etc.
If the infantry retire less than 2MU, the cavalry 'occupy' the obstacle by moving into the position previously occupied by the defenders - which will put them in contact with them....As I said, it is very rare.

2) You assumption is correct. After all result and retire/pursuit moves have been carried out, but before 2nd combats have occured.

Thanks Terry,

Regards,
John Shaw

It might be worth noting that in the 100 or so playtest games I have seen, I only recall combat going to a 2nd round once (excepting in a Waterloo re-fight where we stuffed up the rules for Hugomont

Hi Brett,

I was curious how you used these rules for Hougomont, as it is a small asymmetric battle within a battle. I tried it with Lasalle, but found the scale off, I did do La Haie Sainte with Black Powder which worked well, but I can not really see how a Corps level set would work for these small battles.

Thanks,

john

Hi John

It actually happened during a Waterloo re-fight we were doing, in which Jerome was throwing multiple regiments of his division at Hugomont and we didn't realise at the time that the defending British unit should be rolling 4 dice in hand to hand against each attacking unit. We were playing that the defenders threw 4 dice overall, splitting them between attacking units.

Consequently Hugomont fell much more easily than it should have.
oops.

Cheers
Brett

So if 2 cavalry units charge home into a square, they get 4 dice each & the square gets 4 dice v each opponent ?

Hi Scrumpy

The cavalry get 4 dice each, but the square only gets 4 dice in total and has to split them between the two enemy units.

Combat against defended buildings has different rules (see pg77) in which the defenders get 4 dice against each enemy unit.

The built up area rules in FoGN give really good results. In most sets of rules you can clear a town by massing attacking units and overwhelming the defenders. You can do this in FoGN, loading up the dice against the single defending unit, however you will also take serious casualites right across the assaulting formations yourself.

In the Hugomont example, from memory Mike was throwing 4 regiments of French against a single British Guards unit defending. Under the building rules as published, The French would roll 16 dice needing 5+, for an average of about 5 hits - 1 cohesion loss against the Guard defenders.

The Brits would however would also roll 16 dice (4 against each attacker), re-rolling 1s and 2s for being superior guards, for an average of 7 hits in total.

When we played the Waterloo game, we were only giving the Brits 1 dice against each attacking regiment. Even if they hit with all of them, this would not cause any cohesion losses on the French (you need a minimum of 2 hits to cause a loss).

Because defenders don't get evicted from a building unless they are broken, in our game the Brits would sit there, as would the 4 French units who had suffered no cohesion drop.

We actually useda special rule in the game, making it a 6+ (rather than 5+) to hit the defenders of Hugomont and la Haye Sainte. The net result of our special rule and playing it wrong was about 5 rounds of continous combat...

Cheers
Brett

I couldn't even make it into a village that French lights were occupying. I kept taking 1 hit that meant I had to CMT to close with them and I kept failing, took about 4 or 5 turns before I finally passed and chased the little buggers out.

Can you shoot out of a building if you occupy it, I keep thinking you can up to 2MU but only artillery can shoot back at you, is that correct?

Can you shoot out of a building if you occupy it, I keep thinking you can up to 2MU but only artillery can shoot back at you, is that correct?

Buildings block line of sight, and therefore stop units firing into or out of them at all ranges. the only exception is that artillery can fire at units 'occupying' buildings.

Units defending buildings are considered to be lining the edges and therefore can see and be seen.

Some other questions about buildings.
If you have a village which is composed of more than one buildings (in our first try our village had 3 models in it) and a player has it occupied and decides to defend a building. Do they move into all the buildings or do they pick one building model and are considered to be defending it only?

For shooting purposes page 77 it states that occupying troops are counted as in cover when fired at (artillery only)
Infantry defending a building it says "in cover when when fired at."
So you can shoot at defending troops with anything but occupying troops can only be shot at by artillery? Defenders still can not shoot out of the building then?

Hi,

In the rules Buildings is actually best thought of as Building Area. You are not defending a single building, but a building area. The number of building models is irrelevant - it is just for show. It is the same as having a base area representing a woods and placing a few trees on it. The trees are just representative of the terrain piece.

Buildings can be a small area - this would be such as a hamlet, or a farm with outbuildings.
Buildings can be a large area - this would be a small village.

It is possible to have Building areas end up next to each other. This would represent a larger built-up area. Each of these areas would be treated as a separate "Buildings" under the rules.

It is usually best to use a base that represents the built-up area. That way you can move the building models out of the way when needed to place the troops. It also clearly defines lines of sight, as the building area blocks line of sight.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
John Shaw

I was thinking of each building model representing a single building area or terrain choice, which is how we ended up with a 3 model village. So you defend each area separately, so in our case you would end up having to choose one area to move into and defend.