Slitherine

Lance and I played our Rome vs. Carthage rematch last night. 800 AP 15 mm.

As before we found the terrain, scouting and deployment extremely straight forward. I particularly like the terrain. It is totally random and there are few opportunities to construct a position.

Lance deployed an infantry wing and centre, anchored on a vineyard, and then a cavalry wing. Had I kept my elephants as my last unit in my OB I could have deployed them opposite his cavalry for maximum benefit. I think there should be some restrictions on deployment as previously noted.

The first few turns fairly rattled past - we'd had 3 bounds each after an hour with both armies keen to get stuck in. We're both coming to the conclusion that although the rules appear complicated at first reading they are in fact fairly straightforward and the key concepts are easy to grasp. Even 'POAs' are now in our vocabulary - and the factors couldn't be simpler. In combat it's either 3, 4 or 5!

Most of the time went on impact and melee resolution. Out of the 26 BGs fielded only 3 didn't actually end up in combat - it was great! A 5 BG a side combat went on for 4 bounds - a real shoving match which ended with 2 Roman BGs in rout for the loss of 1 BG of Africans, Elephants, and Gauls. Fortunately the Carthaginians were more successful on the flanks and at game's end Lance was down 11 APs to my 10.

As before we have a few queries & comments.

LF vs. LF ended in a Rout. The routers passed through Medium Foot. The pursuers appeared to have no option but to pursue into the MF. This didn't seem quite right? Did we miss something?

A BG went Fragmented due to Shooting. In the next Impact phase it was charged and failed again to Rout. But it still had to stand and take the charge? An immediate rout move was what we felt should happen but there appeared to be no option for this.

Cohesion Test for Rout. 'Only BGs that are in range at the moment the BG broke .....need to test. Broken BG(s) then make an initial rout move.' So if the routers subsequently go within 3 MUs of a new friendly BG - that BG doesn't have to take a Cohesion Test?

We had an unusual combat situation which we weren't sure how to resolve.

AA..BBDD
CCC

BG 'C' is overlapped by enemy BGs 'A' & 'B'. BG 'D' wishes to charge 'C' but is not eligible for a flank charge. Where does it go? Can it join the melee at all?

In the same example 'C' is Impact Foot. When it is hit by 'D' it still appears to get its ++? This seemed a little generous.

Target Priority.

Shooters have 2 enemy BGs directly in front of it. One is just within range. The other is at 1 MU. Both are in arc of the shooters. But the TPs appear to make the shooters split their fire - and fire at the enemy base straight ahead. Again, this didn't feel right? And the shooting could never be effective. I would have preferred to fire at the nearest enemy in arc.

Work commitments mean there will now be a short pause but our next outing will be Ottomans vs. Hungarians.

All the best

Pete

I appreciate that there's been a big increase in feedback traffic recently which combined with Simon's sojourn in Spain has made it harder to keep on top of all of the queries.

Lance and I are playing again on Thursday. Any chance of some guidance on the points we raised please?

Thanks

Pete

Hi Pete,

Sounds like a cracking ebb and flow clash of arms from the description. I am rather attached to Hannibals army...

Herewith answers wher possible...

LF vs. LF ended in a Rout. The routers passed through Medium Foot. The pursuers appeared to have no option but to pursue into the MF. This didn't seem quite right? Did we miss something?

See changes since last rules posting and also latest circulated version IIRC. Skirmishers do not pursue into non-skirmishers so the victorious LF would stop 1 MU from the MF. Other troops do pursue into contact.

A BG went Fragmented due to Shooting. In the next Impact phase it was charged and failed again to Rout. But it still had to stand and take the charge? An immediate rout move was what we felt should happen but there appeared to be no option for this.

A good point in that it is a little mis-expressed. There is no combat in this situation. The unit makes a rout and the charger a variable charge move at the end of the phase. If the charger makes contact then the routing unit will suffer losses automatically in the interbound. Otherwise it will just run away again. We need to tighten the wording on this.

Cohesion Test for Rout. 'Only BGs that are in range at the moment the BG broke .....need to test. Broken BG(s) then make an initial rout move.' So if the routers subsequently go within 3 MUs of a new friendly BG - that BG doesn't have to take a Cohesion Test?

Correct they just force a test when they break. This seems to be enough of a viral spread through the army. Its more a question of game balance than anything else.

We had an unusual combat situation which we weren't sure how to resolve.

AA..BBDD
CCC

BG 'C' is overlapped by enemy BGs 'A' & 'B'. BG 'D' wishes to charge 'C' but is not eligible for a flank charge. Where does it go? Can it join the melee at all?

In the same example 'C' is Impact Foot. When it is hit by 'D' it still appears to get its ++? This seemed a little generous.

Interesting one and I cannot give you a 100% answer - best shot as follows. DD can charge if it can wheel to make contact with the flank edge of C - so it depends on distance and speed and having no enemy to intercept. You can only have a maximum of 2 dice on each side and I think the wording in the overlap section in the glossary covers this. So you will gain DD as a charge but lose the overlaps for B at the same time. For the charge it just touches them at an angle. In the next movement phase they would align. Now we will have t give that one some thought as I am not totally sure where they would gg, but it looks like we would make it in front of BB and aligned as an overlap.

It may seem generous that C gets its Impact Foot + but in reality what this charge would mean is some part of C spreading out to fight back normally to front as it hasn't got far ewnough round to cuase real trouble. Also if you don't do this it makes for much cheese in wrapping troops up and trying to engineer such charges. Now if you do get far enough round to hit them in the flank......

Target Priority.

Shooters have 2 enemy BGs directly in front of it. One is just within range. The other is at 1 MU. Both are in arc of the shooters. But the TPs appear to make the shooters split their fire - and fire at the enemy base straight ahead. Again, this didn't feel right? And the shooting could never be effective. I would have preferred to fire at the nearest enemy in arc.

Ok one for us to mull over. You are correct as far as I can see. It is there to force some splitting of fire once troop get close to the front of bases. One we will kick around in general. There have beena few comments aboiut maybe needing a little more choice within arcs of fire, however it might lead to too much ability to focus fire which would be a bad thing on the game overall.

Work commitments mean there will now be a short pause but our next outing will be Ottomans vs. Hungarians.

Ok look forward to the next one. Glad to hear you found the mechanisms easy at the second attempt and had fun.

Si

All the best

Pete

See changes since last rules posting and also latest circulated version IIRC. Skirmishers do not pursue into non-skirmishers so the victorious LF would stop 1 MU from the MF. Other troops do pursue into contact.

OOps!! Missed that one - thanks!

A good point in that it is a little mis-expressed. There is no combat in this situation. The unit makes a rout and the charger a variable charge move at the end of the phase. If the charger makes contact then the routing unit will suffer losses automatically in the interbound. Otherwise it will just run away again. We need to tighten the wording on this.

What you describe is how it felt we should have played it. We'll know for next time.

Interesting one and I cannot give you a 100% answer - best shot as follows. DD can charge if it can wheel to make contact with the flank edge of C - so it depends on distance and speed and having no enemy to intercept. You can only have a maximum of 2 dice on each side and I think the wording in the overlap section in the glossary covers this. So you will gain DD as a charge but lose the overlaps for B at the same time. For the charge it just touches them at an angle. In the next movement phase they would align. Now we will have t give that one some thought as I am not totally sure where they would gg, but it looks like we would make it in front of BB and aligned as an overlap.

It may seem generous that C gets its Impact Foot + but in reality what this charge would mean is some part of C spreading out to fight back normally to front as it hasn't got far ewnough round to cuase real trouble. Also if you don't do this it makes for much cheese in wrapping troops up and trying to engineer such charges. Now if you do get far enough round to hit them in the flank......

That's pretty much how we played it so it's good to know we were on the right track.

Ok one for us to mull over. You are correct as far as I can see. It is there to force some splitting of fire once troop get close to the front of bases. One we will kick around in general. There have beena few comments aboiut maybe needing a little more choice within arcs of fire, however it might lead to too much ability to focus fire which would be a bad thing on the game overall.

There will be a lot more firing in the next game so we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for filling in the gaps for us.

Pete

No problem Pete. Looking forward to the next report. Terry and I are hoping to refight the ancient British/Roman game this week.

Si