couple of things from game tonight

[madaxeman]

1. the 2nd move section is in the wroooong place!!!! it should surely be much nearer the beginning of the move section,

2. rounding down rear rank shooters - is this done relative to the shooting unit or the target unit?

I had a line of bow shooting at cavalry who were in groups of 6 facing off against my 8's - so, for the targets my bowmen were counting 3 front rank and 1 rear rank shooter - so we lost one dice somewhere along the line.

3. flank charges that contact flank but do not count as "flank charges". Our Barker-charged DBM-senses picked up the inference in the 3rd or 4th bullet point about some charges that hit the flank "counting as" flank charges and so we assumed some charges that hit flabks do not "count" as flank charges, and then we found the relevant section later (in conforming into melee??) but it wasnt clear to any non-competitionists weaned on barkerisms.

[rbodleyscott]

2. rounding down rear rank shooters - is this done relative to the shooting unit or the target unit?

Target

I had a line of bow shooting at cavalry who were in groups of 6 facing off against my 8's - so, for the targets my bowmen were counting 3 front rank and 1 rear rank shooter - so we lost one dice somewhere along the line.

Correct. Which is why organising BGs of MF shooters in 8s isn't as much superior to 6s as some people think - because they won't always be engaging in a 1 full BG on 1 full BG duel. What really matters is not how many bases you have in each BG, but how many you can bring to bear on a particular target BG. Two BGs of 6 MF (2 deep) shooting at the same target get 9 dice, not 8.

[hammy]

2. rounding down rear rank shooters - is this done relative to the shooting unit or the target unit?

Target

Really?

I had always assumed it was like close combat where the total number of combat dice was calculated for a BG and then the shooter decided where the extras did or did not happen.

Running it by target means that advancing on enemy Bow cavalry in 2 ranks with BG's in column removes any benefit of the rear rank of the cavalry....

Hammy

[madaxeman]

2. rounding down rear rank shooters - is this done relative to the shooting unit or the target unit?

Target

I had a line of bow shooting at cavalry who were in groups of 6 facing off against my 8's - so, for the targets my bowmen were counting 3 front rank and 1 rear rank shooter - so we lost one dice somewhere along the line.

Correct. Which is why organising BGs of MF shooters in 8s isn't as much superior to 6s as some people think - because they won't always be engaging in a 1 full BG on 1 full BG duel. What really matters is not how many bases you have in each BG, but how many you can bring to bear on a particular target BG. Two BGs of 6 MF (2 deep) shooting at the same target get 9 dice, not 8.

1. mutter mutter hurrumpf hurrunmpf etc etc

2. if this is the case it needs making explicit somewhere, as its not intuitive - and as hammy says, may contradict what else is in the rules elsewhere.

[rbodleyscott]

Really?

Yes really. Hence the bit about making up a whole dice from two separate BGs - if it was done by each shooting BG this wouldn't happen, would it?

Running it by target means that advancing on enemy Bow cavalry in 2 ranks with BG's in column removes any benefit of the rear rank of the cavalry....

You're welcome to place all your troops in single base wide columns vs a cavalry army. You will need to avoid being overlapped to achieve the desired effect. So each BG of 4 cavalry can then face off 4 of your BGs and evade when they charge. I wonder what the other enemy BGs will be doing.

I had always assumed it was like close combat where the total number of combat dice was calculated for a BG and then the shooter decided where the extras did or did not happen.

Why should this be so? The rules you are referring to apply to dice lost due to disruption etc. , not to the original combat dice.

However, no doubt some clarification would be helpful.

[hammy]

[quote="rbodleyscott

I had always assumed it was like close combat where the total number of combat dice was calculated for a BG and then the shooter decided where the extras did or did not happen.

Why should this be so? The rules you are referring to apply to dice lost due to disruption etc. , not to the original combat dice. You have assumed something that is not written, which, of course, does not mean that the rules are not specific.[/quote]

Consider that I have a BG of 8 MF bow in two ranks, I am being advanced on by one enemy BG 4 files wide. I shoot, I get 6 dice.
If the enemy are two BG's, one in a single rank column and one 3 files wide when I shoot I get 1 dice against the single file and 4 against the other BG. Somewhere I have lost 1 dice simply due to geometry.

If this was a melee and I had 6 dice on a frontage of 4 bases (say because of disruption) I would still get 6 dice regardless of how many enemy BG's I was fighting and be able to choose where the odd dice went.

It isn't as if MF bow are that good to start with is it?

Hammy