Slitherine

This came up in a tournament over the weekend, and seems like it will be a very common situation. It somewhat 'plagued' the most recent version of DBR.

Three units of Gothic horse, each 2X2 bases, are faced off by a bow armed skirmisher unit 3X2, roughly aimed at their center.
Can the bow somehow get 3 shots on one unit, either by angling or exactly lining up so that 'closest' means the guy off to the side as well as the guy in front of you, or something - or by definition do the target priority rules cause one of the three to waste its shot against a second unit?

Having looked at this situation with a few bases it is possible but you can only make it happen if the missile troops are at an angle to the cavalry and the third base of the light troops is pretty much exactly 4 MU from a base in the BG you want to concentrate fire on but more than 4MU from the BG that will be directly in front. It may not always be pssible to get to this situation and if the cavalry move then you will lose the exact position needed to concentrate fire.

I have struggled with the scenario where a clever player can decreasing shooting power by forcing you to lose 1.5 dice from an end file.

GGHH
GGHH

1234
1234
In this scenario 1234 are med foot bow in 2 ranks. It is clear that the front rank base in 1, 2, and 3 are all in front of GG while file 4 is in front of HH
When you get to the second rank you get a die for 1 and 2 but 3 only provided 0.5 dice towards GG (so 3.5 dice at GG)

File 4 provides 1 front rank die at HH and 0.5 dice from the rear rank. (RAW - Rear rank dice have same target priority as front rank bases)

So as the 2 "HALF" dice have different targets they cannot be combined to create a dice so a unit that would throw a total of 6 dice ($ front and 2 rear) against a single BG of 8 can now only throw a total of 5 dice AND 1 of those is totally ineffective.
3 from front ranks 1,2,and 3 and 1 from rear rank 1 and 2 against GG and 1 ineffective die from the front rank of 4 against HH.

I am unsure why 2 advancing battle groups should dilute the power of a BG but I agree that is how the rules are written.


Gino
SMAC

Gino, you're correct, having to split fire does cause you to sometimes lose a dice, particularly from back rank shooters. It's just an effect of the game mechanism, you can't really have half a die or half a hit.

Of course, as the owner of GGHH, you'd have to consider whether allowing 1234 to count 4 dice against GG was a worthwhile risk...

The short answer is "yes". Skirmisher LF or LH will always try and angle in order to concentrate fire on a single BG. Even though another opponent BG may be closer as the crow flies (say measuring to a front corner of the shooter), the target BG may be directly in front of the shooter and yet further away as the crow flies. Directly in front takes precendent over closer as the crow flies.

Squawk!

zoltan wrote: Directly in front takes precendent over closer as the crow flies.

Squawk!

Not necessarily. 'The nearest targetable enemy base in the arc of fire. If two are at exactly the same distance, shoot at the one most directly to the front.' - Tom

DrQuahog wrote:

zoltan wrote: Directly in front takes precendent over closer as the crow flies.

Squawk!

Not necessarily. 'The nearest targetable enemy base in the arc of fire. If two are at exactly the same distance, shoot at the one most directly to the front.' - Tom

This depends on the circumstances:

Priority 1 (1st Bullet P81) is an enemy base in effective range and at least partially straight ahead (i.e. directly to the shooter's front). If there's more than one, shoot at the nearest.

Priority 2 is the nearsest enemy base in arc.

So, in Effective range you shoot at the nearest base directly to your front if there is one.

Otherwise (including shooting at Maximum range) you shoot at the nearest in arc.

I just noticed that our avatar is tracking our FOG-PC Wins....outstanding.
I especially like that it does not say how many losses.

Now if we could just get a spell check.

Gino
SMAC