Terrain and POAs

[imanfasil]

I know that POAs are based on the bases fighting (it is your knights that need to be in the open not their opponent, etc)... that said I have some questions.

1) 4th Rank Pike POA - do all the ranks of pike need to be in the open or only the 4th rank or only the 1st rank?

2) POAs are based on the bases in contact, not supporting bases right? (example - front rank of 2x2 cavalry BG is in rough fighting MF. all 4 dice are rolled using the POAs based on NOT being in the open rather than 2 dice rolled each way?

(I understand that if it were one file of the unit in rough that it would be 2 dice each way)


Thanks,
James

[petedalby]

1) 4th Rank Pike POA - do all the ranks of pike need to be in the open or only the 4th rank or only the 1st rank?

It is the base claiming the POA that needs to be in the open - see P135 - last bullet point on the left hand side. So in this case the 1st rank.

2) POAs are based on the bases in contact, not supporting bases right? (example - front rank of 2x2 cavalry BG is in rough fighting MF. all 4 dice are rolled using the POAs based on NOT being in the open rather than 2 dice rolled each way?

You are correct on the POA. And of course the POA depends upon what your cavalry are armed with? Worth mentioning that disorder applies base by base. So in your example you would still get 4 dice even though 2 bases are in disordering terrain.

[lawrenceg]

Everything fights with the POA of the front rank, so in general it is the terrain that the front rank is in that matters.

[imanfasil]

Thank you very much... it was an odd situation that ALMOST came up in a game saturday that brought up the question. It is as we has assumed, but it seemed a little odd that with 3/4 of your pike not in open terrain you'd get the 4 rank deep benefit that requires open terrain. Being a 2 wide unit of 8 bases they would not even lose any dice from disorder as the 2 front bases were not disordered.

That is actually something I'd like to see a change to in V2.0 is that there is always a penalty for losing 1/3 of your dice. It seems pretty common that there is no penalty at all. (elephants in our games seem to always cost their opponents 1/3 of 2 dice for a whopping no effect.)

[ShrubMiK]

The justification/rationalisation of this is that the area occupied by the bases of the BG on the table is not very realistic. That BG of 8 bases of pike represents something like 2000 men, typically fighting 16 ranks deep, so with a frontage of somewhere around 125 men. Thus it is assumed that the men represented by the BG, especially when it is in contact, are in fact concentrated towards the front, i.e. within the area covered by the front base only.

Re. the occasions when no dice are lost for disorder...well I'm afraid that's one of the subtleties of the rules that introduces some interesting effects. It's not that common for it to result in no lost dice in practise though. One of the situations in which it commonly does result in no lost dice is when you have your own elephants adjoining your own cavalry BG - which is in fact arguably a good thing because it effectively represents your own cavalry being familiar with elephants and therefore not suffering bad effects from them.

How are your elephants not costing enemy horsey BGs lost dice? If you line up with your elephant BG in contact with 1 enemy horsey BG, that's a loss of 1/3 of 4 dice. If with 2 enemy horsey BGs, it's a loss of 1/3 of 4 dice each. Surely you can't be always fighting 2-base BGs of elite Companions?

[imanfasil]

Elephants being slow and clunky - and often tied to foot BattleLines they don't seem to be the ones initiating contact very often. Enemy cavalry will move into contact with the BG to the sides of the Elephants so only one of their files is disordered.

I do like that it protects your own mounted from disorder effects... we were surprised initially coming from Warrior, WRG, etc that our elephant armies didn't have any notes about elephant immunity.

[philqw78]

Enemy cavalry will move into contact with the BG to the sides of the Elephants so only one of their files is disordered.

Both files are disordered. But at impact it will have no effect. In melee that disordered BG, those 4 bases within a base distance, will only get 3 dice though. If it is fighting a different BG to your elephants with the other 2 bases it can choose which loses the dice, those fighting the elephants or those not. Strangely.

[imanfasil]

Ok I may have found something else we've been doing wrong (surprise surprise!):

MFMFMF
ELELMFMFMF
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Elephants next to a unit of MF are facing down fighting a unit of spear (2x3) and a unit of cav (2x2). I thought that only mounted troops within 1 base of the Elephants are disordered... so in this case that is only the left-most file of cavalry. By definition isn't the other file more than a base width away? (assuming all are lined up neatly)

Thanks,
James

[expendablecinc]

only 2 bases of Cav are within the disordering range of the elephants so losing 1:3 does not lead to any dice losses.

Ok I may have found something else we've been doing wrong (surprise surprise!):

MFMFMF
ELELMFMFMF
SpSpCvCv
SpSpCvCv
SpSp


Elephants next to a unit of MF are facing down fighting a unit of spear (2x3) and a unit of cav (2x2). I thought that only mounted troops within 1 base of the Elephants are disordered... so in this case that is only the left-most file of cavalry. By definition isn't the other file more than a base width away? (assuming all are lined up neatly)

Thanks,
James

[philqw78]

Elephants next to a unit of MF are facing down fighting a unit of spear (2x3) and a unit of cav (2x2). I thought that only mounted troops within 1 base of the Elephants are disordered... so in this case that is only the left-most file of cavalry. By definition isn't the other file more than a base width away? (assuming all are lined up neatly)

Thanks,
James

In your case yes. If however it was like this



__
__

Elephant, other friends, enemy mounted (not nelly)

All 4 bases are disordered, but they could choose where to lose the dice.

[rbodleyscott]

I do like that it protects your own mounted from disorder effects... we were surprised initially coming from Warrior, WRG, etc that our elephant armies didn't have any notes about elephant immunity.

We felt that this was a simpler and thus more elegant way of getting the same effect. It isn't accidental.

[philqw78]

I do like that it protects your own mounted from disorder effects... we were surprised initially coming from Warrior, WRG, etc that our elephant armies didn't have any notes about elephant immunity.

We felt that this was a simpler and thus more elegant way of getting the same effect. It isn't accidental.

But they still make your shock mounted more likely to charge off by themselves since the elephants do disorder them so give a -1 to the CMT when attempting not to charge wothout orders. Bad for Rajputs since they also move further than their elephants. So, move to 5 MU away and wait for them to fail. Get them with overlaps all over the place where they expected the elephants to be.

[rbodleyscott]

1) 4th Rank Pike POA - do all the ranks of pike need to be in the open or only the 4th rank or only the 1st rank?

It is the base claiming the POA that needs to be in the open - see P135 - last bullet point on the left hand side. So in this case the 1st rank.

This is the intention. The wording of the 4th rank pike POA in the Melee chart somewhat confuses the issue, but if a ruling is required for the IWF (rather than a persistent argument just for the hell of it) I would rule that it does count if the front rank is out of the terrain, even if the 4th rank is in disordering terrain. (For the reason stated by Pete, and because in reality all of the ranks are in the space represented by the front base, so in reality none are in the terrain).

[zoltan]

1) 4th Rank Pike POA - do all the ranks of pike need to be in the open or only the 4th rank or only the 1st rank?

It is the base claiming the POA that needs to be in the open - see P135 - last bullet point on the left hand side. So in this case the 1st rank.

This is the intention. The wording of the 4th rank pike POA in the Melee chart somewhat confuses the issue, but if a ruling is required for the IWF (rather than a persistent argument just for the hell of it) I would rule that it does count if the front rank is out of the terrain, even if the 4th rank is in disordering terrain. (For the reason stated by Pete, and because in reality all of the ranks are in the space represented by the front base, so in reality none are in the terrain).

Fine; but can we then have consistent treatment for all other situations where the front rank in in the open and subsequent ranks are in terrain?

i.e. In all matters (movement, POA etc etc), it is the position of the front rank base(s) only that determines whether or not the rule applies to a battlegroup, because "For the reason stated by Pete, and because in reality all of the ranks are in the space represented by the front base, so in reality none are in the terrain."

e.g. front rank of pike in open terrain and subsequent 3 ranks in disordering terrain = all POAs count, BG is not seriously disordered, movement is not reduced etc because "in reality none are in the terrain."

The danger with PD/RBS's "no the bases are not actually where they are on the table (for POA purposes)" approach, is either inconsistent treatment across different rules or a further nonsense of, "rear or flank charges must be measured to where the front rank base of the target is because "in reality none of the rear rank bases is actually where they are."

[fatismo]

Have to agree with zoltan on this I think, if all other rules talk about any part of the BG in terrain why should 4th rank of pike be any different. Sure know way i'd rule in a Tourney.

[sadista]

Take a mixed BG of MF Front HW, Back Bow.
Place the front bases in open, back bases in a forest.
No overhead shooting in a forest but the shooters are classed as front rank for shooting.
Is the back rank still classed as disordered for shooting purposes or classed as front rank still?

[imanfasil]

Zoltan said it well. If my pike are all really where the first base is then we should acknowledge the other 3 bases are just for looks and they should not exist for any purpose. Or if we want them there for looks and to be flank charged - they should be there for all purposes.

[zoltan]

Spot the difference?

[petedalby]

Have to agree with zoltan on this I think, if all other rules talk about any part of the BG in terrain why should 4th rank of pike be any different. Sure know way i'd rule in a Tourney.

A-maz-ing!

Please note that disorder is treated differently for CTs, CMTs, POAs and movement - this is deliberate to model different effects. Asking for them all to be the same is fine - but that is not how the rules work at the moment.

The rules - on careful reading - clearly show that POAs relate to the front rank base only. Unfortunately the wording for 4th rank pike is slightly different in the impact section versus the melee section - which creates doubt.

That doubt has now been clarified by one of the authors - and yet you would still choose to ignore both the rules and the authors view if you were running a tournament?

Do you ever run tournaments? If so please let me know which one(s) so that I can avoid them?

Thanks very much

[zoltan]

That doubt has now been clarified by one of the authors - and yet you would still choose to ignore both the rules and the authors view if you were running a tournament?

I think what a number of us are perhaps expressing is a disatisfaction with what appears to be an inconsistently applied rationale.

For the POA rule, ranks after the first are not really there - its just a quirk of the physical models. In reality, all the soldiers are in the area demarcated by the front rank. Deal with it!

For other rules, ranks after the first are precisely where the models are and are not in the area demarcated by the front rank. Deal with that too.

Well, OK, I guess they're your rules but the inconsistent treatment seems kinda dumb to some of us. Shame really.