Slitherine

Do broken units get one 'free' recovery attempt on their own outside of a commander's 4MU? Or do they need to be within 4MU of a commander and that would be his one attempt to recover a unit that Recovery Phase?

I believe it is the latter.

Rallying from broken is a recovery test (ie a CT), so requires a commander within 4MU. The only difference is that broken troops need to roll 6+ to pass, rather than 5+.

so if you don't have any commanders about you can kiss the boys goodbye as they are destroyed for not being able to attempt a rally. Egads, big chunk of the Austrians went for a run in one turn, front guys broke and passed by at least 4 other units causing a test
They were mostly wavering etc and so had to keep checking for seeing the original routers then seeing new routers, had about 4 routing units and only 3 generals about so guess one of them should have just gone poof, which I think is what happened.

Artillery who are within 4 MU of a unit that routs or breaks also have to test, and if they fail they drop cohesion?

so if you don't have any commanders about you can kiss the boys goodbye as they are destroyed for not being able to attempt a rally. Egads, big chunk of the Austrians went for a run in one turn, front guys broke and passed by at least 4 other units causing a test
They were mostly wavering etc and so had to keep checking for seeing the original routers then seeing new routers, had about 4 routing units and only 3 generals about so guess one of them should have just gone poof, which I think is what happened.

Yes - That is exactly what happens. Everything seems fine for a while, until cohesion losses start to mount up - too many for a commander to recover in one turn. Then one unit breaks and the whole pack of cards collapses.

Artillery who are within 4 MU of a unit that routs or breaks also have to test, and if they fail they drop cohesion?

Yes - just the same as any other unit.

Can only active players attempt to rally troops in the recovery turn and if so should the unit be from the inactive player do they get a chance to recover in their recovery turn.

Hope that makes sense

Dave

Bottom pf page 71:
• Broken units must attempt to rally during the first Recovery Phase after it becomes Broken. If the Broken unit either fails to rally or doesn’t attempt to rally then it is destroyed and removed from the table.

Broken units get 1 and only 1 attempt to recover, and that will always occur during the owning players first recover phase after the unit is broken.
If the unit is broken in his opponents turn it will make a single move towards it's rear edge during the players movement phase.
It will not burst through other units as part of this move.
It must then attempt to rally or be destroyed.

So burst throughs only occur to the active players units, got to keep that one in mind. Broken units don't keep running during the opponents turn either then. Got to try to keep all the FOGs straight...

So burst throughs only occur to the active players units, got to keep that one in mind. Broken units don't keep running during the opponents turn either then. Got to try to keep all the FOGs straight...

Not quite correct - Burst throughs only occur in the player-turn that the unit breaks.

We decided that with a game turn of 20mins, having a unit routing for more than 1 move would effectively destroy that units fighting capability anyway, so we only allow them 1 turn of routing. Note that even IF a routed unit is rallied, it remains "spent" for the remainder of the game.

OK got it only turn they break so anyone out back after that is safe, well except for seeing the poor blighters running away and causing a cohesion test