shooting at tercios in combat

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:10 pm

Something came up in our game today that I thought needed a bit of a clarification, I had a later Tercio fighting to its front. The unit is 3 deep but only the 2 front rank bases actually get dice in combat. The rear most bases don't get any combat dice. Uphill behind this melee was the enemy artillery, as luck would have it the only unit of mine still in its arc was the Tercio. Blathegut wanted to shoot at the rear bases as he thought they were not in combat. I said the unit was fighting to its front so could not be shot at.

My understanding is if a unit is in combat but there are bases that are not frontally engaged and are not an overlap then you can shoot at them. Think of a pike and shot unit that charges in but only hits with its one shot end, the shot and pike are engaged the shot at the other end are doing nothing but can shoot or be shot at. Since the Tercio had all its front bases fighting the rear bases which don't get dice (and can't shoot to their front) still count as being in combat and can not be shot at.

Who was right? I won the discussion

and the artillery did not get to shoot at it, but thought we should put it out there to see what others think.

Looked something like this:
P= Protestent (pike and shot)
C= Catholic (Tercio)
PPP
PPP
CCC
CCC
CCC

Could rear of C be shot at by artillery uphill and off a bit to left behind P?

quackstheking · Post by **quackstheking** » Sat Sep 24, 2011 10:36 pm

simple answer - yes!!

Blathergut · Post by **Blathergut** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 12:05 am

Ha! Game was a draw!!!

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:29 pm

no it wasn't, that Tercio had taken no hits before your pike and shot broke and ran off, then I captured the guns by pursing into them.

viperofmilan · Post by **viperofmilan** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:06 pm

Don't have the rules handy, but I don't think the artillery could fire. In the overhead fire section there is something about a gap (3 inches sticks in my head) that must exist between friendly units in the artillery's arc of fire and the target enemy unit for overhead fire to be allowed. So, if I am remembering correctly, artillery could not fire into an enemy unit in actual contact with a friendly unit when the friendly unit is positioned between the enemy unit and the friendly artillery. Hope that makes sense.

Kevin

Scrumpy · Post by **Scrumpy** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:22 pm

Even if the artillery had a clear line of fire to the rear of the Tercio ?

quackstheking · Post by **quackstheking** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 8:04 pm

Having read the original post again, much depends whether the shooting by the artillery was overhead or not.

If Overhead - then the base cannot be shot at by virtue of page 109 3rd point which says that artillery shooting overhead can shoot over friendly troops - the rules don't cover shooting over enemy troops by overhead shooting - possibly in need of an errata or clarification?

If Direct - then the artillery can shoot courtesy of page 110 2nd bullet which only stops shooters from targeting the 1st and 2nd rows of troops in combat not the 3rd onwards. To be direct both corners of the shooting base must be able to trace a clear line of sight to the target base.

Looking at your picture again if the artillery is sufficiently off to the left then the answer is yes - it can shoot at the base!.

Don

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:58 am

I had been thinking about the whole LOS thing myself today. The guns were on top of the hill and we were fighting on the slope just below them. One of the guns was blocked by their own pike and shot unit that was within 1MU of the gun base, but was arguably on the downward slope of the hill. Overhead shooting says if there are friends within 1 MU you can't shoot over them so down to 1 gun only could shoot.
The guns were at about a 30 degree angle to the pike and shot unit, off to their right on top of the hill. The gun that was clear was off to the Tercio's left and a bit in front of it. We were fighting on the hill kind of across the slope, but I don't think the second gun could trace a line of sight to the rear base of the Tercio without crossing one of the front two bases that were engaged.

Like I said in my pursuit I moved about 1 1/2 MU or so and contacted the guns, whose former defenders were the pike and shot unit that I had been fighting. You get the idea of how close the guns were to whole thing.