Losing Shooting Dice

[spike]

Does the loss of dice apply only to those bases which are disordered?

No. The loss of dice applies only to DICE from bases which are disordered.

If a single die is from a mix of bases which are disordered and bases which are not disordered, then it is affected by the worst disordered of those bases.

If there are two ways to group "1 dice per 2 base" troops, such as a case with 3 bases shooting from a rear rank, the phasing player should think a moment before deciding how to group them.

This question has helped clarify that there is no such thing as half dice - just groupings of bases for shooting dice.

Mike

I can't see what the problem is here.

1- Determine which bases shoot at the target- use different colour die for quality or different weapons etc
2- If some are disrupted and some are not split the dice into 2 piles.
3- Remove 1 die in every 3 from the disrupted pile
4- roll the dice

[philqw78]

Remove 1 die in every 3 from the disrupted pile

When will the disrupted pile be that big. If part of a BG is disordered or part of total shooters are disrupted this will not work. For example a cavalry BG with 1 rear rank base in disordering terrain. It gets one dice per 2 bases rear rank, but is only 1 base so gets none then. Or can it add its one dice per 2 bases to the other rear rank base that is not disrupted. It will then get a dice between the 2 bases.

[spike]

Remove 1 die in every 3 from the disrupted pile

When will the disrupted pile be that big. If part of a BG is disordered or part of total shooters are disrupted this will not work. For example a cavalry BG with 1 rear rank base in disordering terrain. It gets one dice per 2 bases rear rank, but is only 1 base so gets none then. Or can it add its one dice per 2 bases to the other rear rank base that is not disrupted. It will then get a dice between the 2 bases.

4 examples then with 2 battle groups of shooty cav in 2x2 formation and one of LH in 2x2 shoot at 1 BG of Foot- All are in range and arc

Example 1
None are disrupted
Therefore there is a total of 8D (3 per BG of cavalry and 2 for the LH)
Example 2
The LH are disrupted but the 2 cavalry are not.
So there are 6D from the undisrupted Cav which stays as 6D, and there are 2 disrupted LH dice. As there is not 3 disrupted die none are removed so shooting is still 8D.
Example 3
Both Cav are disrupted but the LH are not.
therefore the 6 disrupted dice are down to 4 (removing 1 in 3) and the LH supply 2- Total 6D

What is complex is (same example as above) and the rules are not clear here (see P.90-91)
1 cav is Fragged, LH disrupted and other cav OK
DOES the spare fragged die then roll over in to the disrupted pile! if not then 3D Fragged group goes to 2D, the LH don't loose a die and therefore the total is 7D (if the die does then it would be 6D)
If the Fragged group and disrupted group were swaped over (the LH Fragged and the Cav were disrupted)- its easy as the shooters would only have 6D

[SirGarnet]

DOES the spare fragged die then roll over in to the disrupted pile!

I don't know what spare fragged die you are referring to - it's 3 down to 2 for the Cavalry. It would be a more intersting case if these were all 6 base BGs, since then you would start needing to combine 1 dice per 2s from different groups for dice (6LH and 5 Cavalry bases).

[hammy]

Has anyone ever had a situation even remotely like this in a game?

I recall a discussion with Terry about a particular phrase which is I think a leftover from a problem that really doesn't exist and his explantion started with "If you were fighting a 2 base BG and did 7 hits then it rolled a 1 for it's death roll so was completely destroyed....."

It is probably worth a set of guidelines to cover complex situations but only in the FAQ at most as things like this make all of our heads hurt.

[SirGarnet]

I don't think these are complex situations.

A lot of FoG is simple because it has a clear sequence of play.

If you start with counting bases and when necessary grouping together those needing 2 per dice, and only AFTER that start seeing which dice are affected by disorder etc., it turns out to be as simple as was intended.

[philqw78]

The problem is how and when the dice are grouped. And if disordered/disrupted bases are added to steady bases to make a dice all the bases in that group count disordered/disrupted/fragged etc.

[hammy]

I don't think these are complex situations.

A lot of FoG is simple because it has a clear sequence of play.

If you start with counting bases and when necessary grouping together those needing 2 per dice, and only AFTER that start seeing which dice are affected by disorder etc., it turns out to be as simple as was intended.

If you consider a situation where three BGs of 4 bases of 2 deep cavalry are fighting against three 2 wide BGs offset by one base where both end cavalry BGs are fragmented and the centre one is disrupteded then if you apply the disruption and fragmentation effects after you allocate dice to a target there will be no loss of shooting power which is silly.

these three BGs if steady would generate 9 shooting dice. With 2 FRG and one DISR they would only generate 6. There has to be some loss of dice and the rules say that the effects of DISR and FRG are applied to the shooting BG hence my earlier comments. Splitting the shooting dice to benefit from rounding errors falls into the cheesy category and should be avoided.

It is the one dice per N bases that realy causes issues though and I understand that.

I will raise this on the design team forum and get a definitive answer. I must say though that this situation is not something I can remember having happened much if at all in any of the 60 odd games of FoG I have played.

[rogerg]

We had something similar this Wednesday. 6 disrupted LH were splitting their fire 4 and 2 at different targets. If allocation is by target, then the 4 bases roll two dice losing none and the two roll one die (this was added to another BG shooting at the its target so did count). If the dice loss is by BG , this BG would have had only two dice because it was disrupted.

Personally I would favour consistency and have all shooting dice decided by target. What is lost on the rear rank rounding by target is gained on the disruption loss. Loss of one per three dice would occur if three (or parts there of) of the dice were allocated from disrupted bases.

[domblas]

problem comes with disordered troops not disrupted nor fragmented ones

as the two latest apply to the whole battle group, the rule says u reduce dices before spliting and u allocate at least one per target or ennemi in close combat. When its lost of dice for disorder, its more complicated as some bases of the same BG can be steady and other disordered. clarification is needed from rulers for this special case

[hammy]

Personally I would favour consistency and have all shooting dice decided by target. What is lost on the rear rank rounding by target is gained on the disruption loss. Loss of one per three dice would occur if three (or parts there of) of the dice were allocated from disrupted bases.

The problem with this is that in a situation where you have BGs of 4 bases in 2 ranks offset by a file then disruption has no effect whatsoever and shooting is still at full effect with no loss for rounding either.

[SirGarnet]

If you consider a situation where three BGs of 4 bases of 2 deep cavalry are fighting against three 2 wide BGs offset by one base where both end cavalry BGs are fragmented and the centre one is disrupteded then if you apply the disruption and fragmentation effects after you allocate dice to a target there will be no loss of shooting power which is silly.

these three BGs if steady would generate 9 shooting dice. With 2 FRG and one DISR they would only generate 6. There has to be some loss of dice and the rules say that the effects of DISR and FRG are applied to the shooting BG hence my earlier comments. Splitting the shooting dice to benefit from rounding errors falls into the cheesy category and should be avoided.

It is the one dice per N bases that realy causes issues though and I understand that.

Hammy, can you explain how you get to no reduction of dice since I laid it out and it keeps coming up 6 dice, not 9.

Starting from the side with the shooting overlap, 3, 2, and 1 dice on the targets respectively.

3: One and a half BGs shooting are 3 front rank dice at one per base and 1 back rank dice as one per 2 bases to start. 2 front rank dice and one back rank die are fragmented, reducing those 3 to 2, and the disrupted 1 die is not reduced.

2: The 1 per 2s in the rear rank are fragmented, so thats 2 fragmented and 1 disrupted dice, which goes to 2 dice ttotal.

1: One file is one die.

6 dice total in this situation.

[hammy]

If you take dissruption effects by target (which you don't according to the rules) then a FRG BG contributing one file will give one full dice and one rear rank base minus 1 dice for every 2 (and as there aren't 2 dice lose nothing) the disrupted BG will do the same and again loose nothing. The rules don't allow for combining fractional FRG and DISR shooting dice so the two rear rank bases will still generate a dice.

My example wasn't 100% accurate as the end BG does get shot at by 3 files so will lose some dice.

The rules clearly state that dice lost for disruption when in close combat or shooting are lost by the fighting BG not by the target. As a result a 2 wide 2 deep disrupted BG will only generate 2 shooting dice whichever way you look at it. The same is true for a FRG BG.

I can only repeat that I have never come across a situation anything like the ones people are trying to create in a real game.

[SirGarnet]

Hammy, I can't tell if you are agreeing with my math or not.

The rules don't allow for combining fractional FRG and DISR shooting dice so the two rear rank bases will still generate a dice. . . . The rules clearly state that dice lost for disruption when in close combat or shooting are lost by the fighting BG not by the target.

Are you saying that rather than grouping dice by target you first look at each BG and calculate the total dice output after disorder from that BG, then allocate among its targets, combine 1 per 2 dice etc. Or does the combining of 1 per two happen first?

Mike

[hammy]

IMO when shooting as the rules clearly state that dice loss from disruption is done by shooting BG you first calculate your raw shooting dice, then lose any that would be lost due to disruption then split the resulting shooting among the targets. It is not the same as shooting with steady BGs but it is what the rules say.