Slitherine

Please tell me if we have this wrong>>>

To try out the rules we did this scenario Two fresh average pike and shot units from the English Civil War face eachother at 5mu.We assumed the units can't fire salvo as it is not mentioned in the army lists. Stationary Parliament unit fires at the advancing Royalist. long range so 1/2 stands fire. Cant cause a Cohesion test as it needs three hits from two shot. There is a 50% change of each shot hitting (45or 6 on a D6) so averge 1 hit. The Royalist has on average therefore a 5 out of 6 chance (? about 88% ?) of passing his deathrole and strolling towards he waiting Parliamentarians untroubled. Now for the next round. We assume the Royalist missed and Parliament now have for shots again at 50% per dice giving an average of 2 hits and causing a cohesion test. The Royalist has an officer in command range cancelling out the POA for taking the 1HP3B so has a slightly better than 50% chance of getting away with it. He also has a 66% chance of passing his Deathroll too. Even if he fails his Cohesion Test this still wont effect his units performance in the Impact Phase as he would not be severley disordered.

Believe me we tried it. TEN TIMES! Of the SIXTY Royalist stand only four were "killed". Two of the ten units became disrupted (all the kills were at close range btw).

So what does all this mean. Well basically if the attacking player has not very seriously offended the Death Roll God we cannot see a reason why the majority of units advancing straight into the teeth of their enemy in a frontal assult should not largely get there effectively unscathed. In a time where, as it says in the rules intro, the proportion of shot was steadily increasing, (presumably because it was increasingly effective,) this seems a little odd.

Please let me know where we are going this wrong

For Parliament and The Cause!
Rook

T start with you backed the wrong side in the ECW Don't forget that superiors still re-roll 1's for shooting, not just melee. I have managed to break parliamentarian curs from straight shooting, either they auto break from losses or fail their cohesion tests and run. It pays to try and get 2 units to shoot at one, the extra dice can make a difference. You will get more dice for impact and melee, in our last 2 games we had at least one turn where almost all our troops were locked in melee. shooting should not be overlooked. I have a tendency to roll 1's on my death rolls but can still hold the line with badly beat up units. trying experiments is one thing, run a full game and see how much death and destruction and mayhem you end up with

I dont think you have this quite right.

I'm assuming the units are standard 6 element Pike/Shot. When the Royalist reaches 5" he is shot at in his turn by two dice from the parliamentarians. If they both hit (a 1 in 4 chance) this is a cohesion test (2 hits per 6 bases, the required 1per 3). This is repeated again in the parliamentarian players turn. In the Royalists next turn he advances to close range and as a result before he can launch an impact in his third turn again faces 2 rounds of shooting, this time with a much more effective, 4 dice (assuming his own fire hasn't damaged the parliamentarians).

I have only played a handfull of games so far but have found these sort of match ups tend to be resolved (often very quickly) by shooting. Often people only seek out impact when they are losing the firefight.

Martin

Rock, Marty has it right. Page 128 states 'Cohesion tests are caused by shooting... in the following circumstances:... At least 1 shooting hit per 3 bases (1 HP3B)'. Unless you have support it is very rare for Average 6 base ECW Pike and Shot BGs to contact without becoming disrupted in the circumstances described. I recommend running the simulation again.

Thanks folks. Getting to grips with the rules. And as for picking the wrong side in the ECW... grrr!

Alas in our last game the dastardly Parliamentarians shot my poor Royalists to pieces and broke most of my troops without even having to close into melee. More bad death rolls and too many rolls of double 1's on cohesion tests than any super strategy moves on the part of Cromwell and company. Sometimes you can be your own worst enemy

Or the other side's best friend!