Slitherine

Where 'x' is a single BG of 6 Bosporan cavalry in two ranks and 'y' and 'z' are two separate BGs of Roman legionaries


xxx
xxx
-----------
yyyzz

Hits are as follows: Bosporan X gets 1 hit against Roman Y BG and 3 hits against Roman Z BG (4 hits in total against both Roman BGs)
Y Roman BG get 2 hits against the bases of X in front of it and Z Roman BG 1 hit against the X bases to its front (3 hits in total from both Roman BGs)

Is this correct: The Roman Y BG wins but the Y BG loses?

My opponent says overall the Romans lose 4 hits against 3 and therefore in calculating for potental hits, the Bosporans add 2 to their dice roll, i.e. two of the Roman hit dice are disregarded as they lost the combat.
Is this correct, as Roman BG Y did not lose the combat?

Win and loss is by BG in the combat.

The Bosporan BG inflicted 4 total hits and received 3 total hits so the Bosporan BG won the overall combat. The Bosporan BG will have a death roll of 1 (3 hits - 2 for winning).

Roman Y BG inflicted 2 hits but received only 1. So he did not lose. Since he only received 1 hit and did not lose he does not have a death roll (1 hit - 2 for not losing).

Roman Z BG inflicted 1 hit but took 3 hits. Roman BG Z therefore lost. He will have a death roll of 3 for taking three hits.

Ok thanks Berthier, so although Roman Y BG did not lose, it did not win either, despite 'winning' its part on the Bosporan BG in front of it? The Bosporan BG does not take a CT test then, because it does not count that a part of the BG lost, only that it won overall against the two Roman BGs? Seems odd that the Bosporans do not take a test as they lost against Roman Y BG. It seems therefore that the rules favour larger battle groups because they can count all of the hits they inflict across their full frontage?

What would the case be then if Roman Z BG inflicted 2 hits against the Bosporan BG, which then would result that the 2 Roman BGs combined inflicted 4 hits against the Bosporan BG, which is the same as the Bosporan BG inflicted combined against the two Roman BGs? This appears to be a draw but the Roman BG Z has lost (3 to 2), therefore would the Roman BG Z have to take a CT test, even though the combined hits on the Bosporan BG was a draw?

You are correct that the rules favor larger BGs. The Bosporan BG is in one combat. It does not disregard the damaged caused which is why it still has a death roll modified for winning the combat.

In the second situation, if the Bosporan BG inflicted 4 hits but took 4 hits, the combat was a draw for the Bosporan BG. Since he did not lose, there is no Cohesion Test. The Bosporan would still have a death roll but this time he would lose a base on a 2 (4 hits - 2 for winning or drawing the combat).

Roman BG Z would still take a death roll of 3 and a Cohesion Test. As said in my original answer, determining winning and losing is by BG in the combat. It can get convoluted and confusing the more BGs in the combat.

thanks Berthier, that has cleared it up and confirmed my thoughts that indeed the rules do favour the larger BG. I thought that there must be something wrong with my logic and that I had been calculating it incorrectly.

The rules favoured the smaller bg, the Romans lost overall but only half of them have to test. IMO

Yes, the Roman BG Z which lost the combat has to test but not Y which won. My issue is with the Bosporan BG which won against Roman BG Z but lost against Roman BG Y. The Bosporans do not take a CT test, ok, as they won overall, but take a death roll. According to Berthier above, however, they have a -2, because they won. But they didn't win against Roman BG Y.
The Bosporan's wouldn't take 2 death rolls, one for each against the two different Roman BGs with a different modifier depending on whether they won or lost against it?

BGs only take one death roll per combat. The death roll is determined by the total number of hits the BG received. If a BG won or drew the combat, there is a -2 modifier to the roll.

If you had a single 8 bas BG it would have lost and had a higher chance of losing a base, all 8 could also be disrupted by the CT. Good job you had 2 x 4
IMO

It was actaully 2 x 6BGs but that was not shown on the diagram I intially displayed becuase only those in combat were shown. Because of position they were in and terrain at the time of the charge some of the Roman BGs were in 3 ranks rather than 2.

The important thing to avoid confusion here is to have a look at the definition of losing a close combat (last thing on page 95). Which is total hits received from all opponents is greater than the total hits inflicted on all opponents.