Slitherine

I just need to check this: on a simple reading of the rules, it seems that only the actual bases in disordering terrain suffer penalties in combat, rather than the whole BG. In a battle, if fighting to break into terrain, the front rank may be disordered while the rear rank is still in open ground and therefore in good order. So the front rank loses 1 die in 3 for disorder, while the rear rank has its full dice.

Now it might be argued that, in combat, if the front rank are disordered, the rear ranks can hardly be more effective than those most involved in the fighting, so I wanted to check that I haven't missed some odd little clause somewhere in the rules.

I'm betting that my initial reading is correct, because the authors didn't want to complicate the rules with exceptions or special cases.

Can someone confirm my reading, or, if I'm wrong, tell me what I have missed?

Thanks

Your reading is correct.

Dissorder is base by base.

However, since the rear ranks fight with the same POAs as the front rank, if the front rank were say, offensive spears, the entire formation would lose the "steady spear" condition in combat. And the whole BG counts as "disordered" when making CTs and CMTs.

Gozerius - thanks for the reminder about the POA bullet points relating to multiple ranks. I don't think I missed any of that in our game - it was specifically the number of dice to be rolled which I was concerned about.

Hammy - thanks for the confirmation. That's the way we played it anyway, but I think my opponent feared I was getting more dice than I should!

And what happens if we speak of pikes . The first rank is disordered, but not the 4th rank . Does the 4th rank give support ?

To be more precise : to give support in the open, should the unit as a whole be in open terrain or just the 4th rank .

I think we've been here before. It is the front rank that is considered. The rational is that the base depths are far too deep for the scale.
I suppose there is a slight anomaly in that rear ranks in disordering terrain may cause dice to be lost, but the state of the front rank determines the PoA.

According to the combat charts 4th rank in open terrain, sounds like it has to be in the open, gives a + POA. Those of us who run pike armies need to know these things as our dastardly opponents are always trying to clog up our open ground with lots of rough rubbish.

So what : does the first rank determine the support or the 4th rank ?

It is an 'extra' you only get if in the open and having a fourth rank. So it depends on the front rank being in the open and the 4th rank being present, it matters not if the 4th rank is in terrain or not.

Now we know for sure, glad that my not clear terrain pike paranoia is founded in some common sense. Now if only I can get Blathergut to stick his rough garbage really close together again....