3rd Rank LF in a mixed unit

[imanfasil]

We've always dismissed buying a 3rd rank in a HF unit of LF, but now I am reconsidering it.


1) How does losing 1 dice per 2 from LF in melee or impact work as part of a mixed unit? Assuming I have a unit of 4 bases of HF Swordsmen + 2 LF Bow in melee and take a stand loss. I remove one of the front rank bases and now have one base of LF in the second rank. My Melee POAs do not change and I still roll 4 dice as my LF fall into the same 'other troops' category that my HF do.

If I lose another base and now have a front rank of HF and a second rank of LF do I still roll 4 dice? Or do two of my dice now come from LF and I would lose one of those to have 3 dice?

2) Are these formations effective? Does anyone use them when not forced to by a list? (I dismissed them early becuase 2-3 bases of LF cannot produce any effective shooting and don't even get support shooting against foot. As a cheap way to make a unit of 6 a unit of 9 harder to effect with shooting and cheap fill-in melee dice it seems like it might be a good investment.

Thanks,
James

[petedalby]

1) How does losing 1 dice per 2 from LF in melee or impact work as part of a mixed unit? Assuming I have a unit of 4 bases of HF Swordsmen + 2 LF Bow in melee and take a stand loss. I remove one of the front rank bases and now have one base of LF in the second rank. My Melee POAs do not change and I still roll 4 dice as my LF fall into the same 'other troops' category that my HF do.

That is my understanding - yes.

If I lose another base and now have a front rank of HF and a second rank of LF do I still roll 4 dice? Or do two of my dice now come from LF and I would lose one of those to have 3 dice?

Again - yes I believe so. They still count as LF so you lose 1 dice per 2 - unless you're fighting LF or Fragmented opponents.

2) Are these formations effective? Does anyone use them when not forced to by a list? (I dismissed them early becuase 2-3 bases of LF cannot produce any effective shooting and don't even get support shooting against foot. As a cheap way to make a unit of 6 a unit of 9 harder to effect with shooting and cheap fill-in melee dice it seems like it might be a good investment.

The only time I've ever used them is for Dailami. You get 4 Armd Sup MF & 2 LF for 64 AP or 6 Prot Sup MF for 60 AP. Personally I'd prefer to be Armoured - better in melee and also harder to hit against most shooters. The additional support shooting dice when charged by mounted can also be pivotal should you hit - especially if you get to re-roll. The downside of course is that if LH get on your flank they will always elect to charge the LF base.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

[Jilu]

Also if there is no big risk in the area you can use the LF to give an overlap?

[elysiumsolutions@fsmail.n]

You are correct in your description of dice for the LF in the 2nd rank. You only lose a dice if you have 2 LF in the 2nd rank.
The main benefit of them IMO is not suffering the cohesion penalty of 25% losses when you lose a base. Work best supporting expensive troops like legionaries when a unit of 4+2 costs less than a hypothetical 5 . They dont work well behind spears as you lose the bonus for 2nd rank spears. A further point is it can be a problem if you get charged in the rear although if this is by skirmishers you dont drop a cohesion level as LF as part of a mixed unit arent skirmishers.

Paul

[Polkovnik]

Are these formations effective? Does anyone use them when not forced to by a list?

There was a dicussion about this recently on the FOG 2.0 section of the forum. Here's my take on it (copied from my posts on there) :

In my experience they are useful when they are cheap compared to the troops they are supporting, for example 6 point LF supporting 14 pt legionaries, but not so useful when they cost nearly as much as the troops they are supporting. For example, 3 pt LF supporting poor def spear at 4 points each. In this case you would be better just taking more bases of def spear.

There are three main uses of supporting LF (in order of significance IMO):
1) Increase the BG size for HPB and autobreak level
2) Filling in for removed bases and fighting in melee (half dice but counting as front rank for POAs)
3) Support shooting vs mounted at impact (half dice, normally needing 5s or 6s to hit)

In 1 and 2, the better the main troops, the better the support (as it counts the same as the main troops), so the more expensive the main troops, the better value the support. For 2, the support is not so good for spears because they lose POAs when there is only one rank of spear.

[imanfasil]

Unless I was asleep when I looked.... your point #3 is flawed. They don't support shoot at half dice. Each support shooting base is 1 die regardless of what kind of base it is... and the lose 1 dice per 2 for being lights is only in impact and melee.

Thanks for reposting that from the 2.0 Forum... I actually noticed it there a few days ago and meant to read it... but something shiny distracted me!

[berthier]

His #3 is correct. See p.98 bottom of page right hand column, last bullet under Support Shooting in Impact Phase

[imanfasil]

OK.... I guess the LF lose 1 dice per 2 'in impact' would apply becuase support shooting is part of impact. I was wanting it to be considered shooting which it isn't.

Thats what you get for looking at a QRS instead of reading the rules!

Thanks,
James

[ShrubMiK]

>(I dismissed them early becuase 2-3 bases of LF cannot produce any effective shooting and don't even get support shooting against foot.

Just thought I would point out, since your choice of words (distinguishing between "shooting" and "support shooting" suggests you might not have realised that supporting LF are also not allowed to do normal shooting - they *only* shoot in impact phase, and then only against mounted.

In answer to your question : I don't think supporting LF are an obvious decision either way. They are not obviously always a good use of the points. and they are not obviously always a waste of points. I guess overall I take them around one game in 3 with my late Romans, and generally only against opponents with a lot of shock mounted. And following that same line of thought, I generally only take them with legionaries, not auxilia, because I'm usually not planning on having my MF fighting serious mounted frontally in the open. And if the mounted is silly enough to come into terrain, I don't need the LF to stiffen me.

[TERRYFROMSPOKANE]

The two options I am considering for my Neo-Assyrian Guard Spearmen are: 8 Armored, Superior, Light Spear/Swordsmen @ 96 points -or- 6 of these with 3 Superior, Unprotected Light archers as a third rank @ 90 points. The archer option saves 6 points, but does not stretch the Auto Break point. After combat losses, it does allows cheap troops to fight in the second rank with front rank POA's.

However,

It is a challenge to maneuver the Heavy Foot BG with archers to a position where they are likely to fight mounted troops and get their 1 extra die shooting at impact.

It is easier for the enemy to overlap a 3x3 than a 4x2 BG. The 3x3 can expand to match but will then begin to fight with "1 die per 2 base" troops. This situation mitigates the value of the extra Impact Phase shooting die. (assuming it was even a factor at impact)


A charge from the front aimed at the third rank of the 3x3 will expose the archers to combat on unfavorable terms.

Personally, I would rather have the 4x2 all Light Spear, Swordsmen BG.

Terry G.

[gozerius]

A charge from the front aimed at the third rank of the 3x3 will expose the archers to combat on unfavorable terms.

Personally, I would rather have the 4x2 all Light Spear, Swordsmen BG.

Terry G.

Another flaw of the current impact phase combat procedure. If all frontal charges contacting non front rank bases were considered to contact the front rank base of the file, instead of treating each base in the file as an individual base for combat puposes, such cheesy maneuvering would be eliminated.

[imanfasil]

Agreed. By definition, if it is a frontal charge it should involve the front of my unit not the rear rank.

[philqw78]

Another flaw of the current impact phase combat procedure. If all frontal charges contacting non front rank bases were considered to contact the front rank base of the file, instead of treating each base in the file as an individual base for combat puposes, such cheesy maneuvering would be eliminated.

They are considered as contacting the front. If you hit a thrid rank archer base as a frontal charge and the front spear base both are treated as if on the spear and the archer gets to support shoot twice, unless LF, then his dice get halved.

[ShrubMiK]

Yup.

I thought we'd argued this particular one at least twice in the past year

[Polkovnik]

I generally only take them with legionaries, not auxilia, because I'm usually not planning on having my MF fighting serious mounted frontally in the open. And if the mounted is silly enough to come into terrain, I don't need the LF to stiffen me.

But that line of thought is based on the LF only having one use, support shooting vs mounted. But supporting LF have three benefits to the BG, and support shooting is (IMO) the least important of these.
If you take the auxilia as Armoured Superior (in the later Roman lists) the supporting LF are useful because they are cheap relative to the troops they are supporting.

[gozerius]

Another flaw of the current impact phase combat procedure. If all frontal charges contacting non front rank bases were considered to contact the front rank base of the file, instead of treating each base in the file as an individual base for combat puposes, such cheesy maneuvering would be eliminated.

They are considered as contacting the front. If you hit a thrid rank archer base as a frontal charge and the front spear base both are treated as if on the spear and the archer gets to support shoot twice, unless LF, then his dice get halved.

Just because you are comfortable with that interaction, doesn't mean it is the best at modeling what is happening. I for one am not comfortable with chargers being able to get a quasi-flank charge benefit by aiming for a non-front rank base. This goes back to the discussion of POAs applying for ranks of spear and pike if the back ranks are in bad terrain. Why do we argue only the front rank applies for one situation and then say, no, it's per base in another?Internal consistancy is prefered here. The Impact combat table says only front rank bases and their support shooters roll dice in impact. It is logical that unless a non front rank base is contacted by a flank charge (thereby becoming a de facto front rank base) it should not factor into the dice thrown in impact. Instead your argument is that any base contacted becomes a nominal front rank base, while retaining it's non-front rank base status (the double dip).

[ottomanmjm]

Another benefit of a third rank of LF is that it aids manoeuverability. A 4 base HF or MF BG deployed two bases wide will turn 90 degrees and form a one base wide column. A 6 base BG with 4 bases of HF/MF and 2 bases of LF deployed 2 bases wide will maintain its formation when turning 90 degrees.

This and the extra benefit from shooting (HPB) and staying power (more death rolls before auto break) make LF support a good option.


Regards
Martin

[Three]

Can I clarify a couple of points please?

1) a 9 base BG 3x3 with LF as the 3rd rank is charged to the front. If it is contacted on all 3 front rank bases it gets six dice from the front rank bases plus 2 from the supporting LF, that is 3 dice, halved because it is LF but rounded up?

2) same BG gets contacted during impact on only 2 front ranks bases, it gets 4 dice from the front rank bases and 1 from the supporting LF - that is 1 from each LF base in the files contacted, halved to 1 because they are LF?

[kevinj]

It is easier to play this as written as that avoids confusion caused by terms like "half" and "rounding up/down". So:

In Shooting, LF get 1 dice per 2 bases, i.e if there's only one base you don't get a dice.

In Impact, you count 2 dice per base for troops fighting, or one per base for support shooting. LF then lose 1 dice per 2 (unless fighting other LF) i.e. in example 1 above the LF will get 3 dice and then lose 1, retaining 2.

[hazelbark]

Can I clarify a couple of points please?

1) a 9 base BG 3x3 with LF as the 3rd rank is charged to the front. If it is contacted on all 3 front rank bases it gets six dice from the front rank bases plus 2 from the supporting LF, that is 3 dice, halved because it is LF but rounded up?

2) same BG gets contacted during impact on only 2 front ranks bases, it gets 4 dice from the front rank bases and 1 from the supporting LF - that is 1 from each LF base in the files contacted, halved to 1 because they are LF?

correct.