Slitherine

I've been re-reading the rules again and have a few questions:

1) What are the exact rules for determining whether a shock unit will anarchy charge (apart from it being in charge range)? My understanding was that shock units wouldn't charge into a terrain hex, or against an enemy unit that was in a terrain hex, that would lead to a disordered combat (and I haven't noticed anything different in practice).

However, the rules say a Complex Move Test is applied to shock troops in the following circumstances:

FoG Rules wrote:- Mounted and the nearest enemy is in open terrain.
- Heavy foot and the nearest enemy is also foot.
- Medium foot in open terrain and the nearest enemy is also foot.

Am I right to assume the rules have just left out the wording that heavy and medium foot will only charge if the enemy is in open terrain? If so, does that mean medium foot shock troops won't anarchy-charge if they themselves are in non-open terrain (and so can therefore be used to hold a position defensively in these circumstances)?

2) Are these following cases the only instances where the facing of a charged unit makes a difference?

- if a unit is attacked in the rear.
- a unit with missile weapons will only get an advantage if it's charged in its front two hexes.
- if a unit is unable to face its attacker. So if an enemy unit is already in combat and you charge its side you get an additional bonus? This is the only case I can think of where a unit wouldn't be able to face its attacker.

3) Does how much better (or worse) armour an opponent has make any difference in combat apart from it being better (or worse)? For example, an unprotected unit would have the same armour modifiers whether it were fighting against a protected, armoured or heavily armoured unit?

4) What are the rules for determining whether a routing unit will disappear from the game upon being routed or whether it will retreat (and possibly interpenetrate and disorder friendly units)?

5) What are the rules for determining whether a unit will pursue a routed unit? It seems that shock troops always pursue, non-shock troops often don't? The rule book mentions CMT tests are involved. What are the details of this?

6) Can cavalry units catch evading enemy light horse? It seems that it should be possible per the rules, although I haven't seen it in action. Basically, is a javelin-armed light horseman able to fire against enemy cavalry and always be able to evade successfully on being charged by it (if there is space for it to do so)?

7) Is there a disadvantage in combat to the unit actually in a ditch, stream or bridge hex? For example, two medium foot are fighting, one in a stream hex the other on a clear hex - both are disordered and they are equal in advantages? Or does the one in the stream incur a penalty?

8) The rules are wrong about rear attacks in that they can be initiated from behind the line shown in the included illustrated diagram. Is there any actual difference to the rolls of a rear attack if the charge is initiated from the wrong side of the line the rules show?

9) Are both light and heavy chariots capable of anarchy-charging?

2) "- if a unit is unable to face its attacker. So if an enemy unit is already in combat and you charge its side you get an additional bonus? This is the only case I can think of where a unit wouldn't be able to face its attacker."
I'm pretty sure you don't get any bonus from that in the charge phase. So charging to a side is in fact equal to charging in the face. In the melee phase, being at the side of the enemy is advantageous on the other hand.

3) You can only get one + from armor, whether it's unprotected vs heavily armored, or protected vs armored, doesn't matter. So, the amount of armor doesn't matter, other than if you just have better armor than the enemy.

4) They will disappear if they don't have any retreat routes(possibly only the rearmost routes need be locked. By locking, I mean having an enemy unit "control" the hexes it would retreat through). So if you want an enemy to rout and go through it's own units and disrupt them, you should leave them an escape channel. You can aim the enemy with this as well, as retreating units never end movement next to an enemy. So by placing units correctly, you can force them to run through own units. On the other hand, if there's a thick enough wall of friendly units, it can't run through them as it can't end it's own turn in the same hex as another unit. Sometimes it's a good idea to have a huge wall of units behind your own soon-to-rout guys, since if they can't rout, they can't run through your guys(you'll have to be really careful about it and know how many hexes it will potentially go, etc, it's risky business).
All of this applies for the retreat rules for skirmishers as well, so if you master one, you master the other. (with the exception that a skirmisher in the position where a routing unit would disappear, it instead fails to run and is subjected to an automatic rear charge, including a free disrupt)

6) An evading unit runs it's move +-1 hex. Thus, light horses run 4-6 hexes on an evade. A cavalry unit pursues likewise 4 +-1(3-5) hexes. Thus, for a cavalry to catch up to a light horse, the numbers have to match. At least, this is how I think it works? Of course, units or terrain blocking the path of the LH will greatly influence the outcome. Evading units always succeed at evasion, in the sense that they will try it, the only way they can fail is if the pursuer catches up, which happens if they can't evade far enough compared to the pursuer. This is usually caused by other units blocking the path(which is why you surround skirmishers to prevent them from escaping, as they can't move through zones of control(hexes next to an enemy unit))

7) You can see the terrain effects from the help manual in the game. Roughly, all terrain effects units equally except for ditches, stream and hexes(and maybe a few other terrains? Plus of course if they're different unit types). MF don't always get penalties from bad terrain, where other units would. If a unit is in a lowercase letter "d" or "vd" terrain, it counts as disrupted or fragmented, while the attacker(if it's on normal ground) acts normally. If the letter is capitalized, "D" or "VD", both are affected regardless of if they're actually standing on terrain or in the open. I don't remember if a stream counts as - or d for MF, but if it's d, the unit standing on the ditch is at a disadvantage vs an identical unit in the open. If the unit on the open is disrupted from morale, and the stream unit is d from terrain, then they're equal(possibly for cohesion tests the unit on the stream is better, not sure?)).

In the most recent version of the game, units that rear charge beyond "rear charge radius" don't get an automatic disruption on the enemy, while units charging from within the radius get it. It's a massive advantage comparatively. Note, this is checked from the hex the unit starts in, so if you partially move the unit, you won't change anything.(in previous versions before it was fixed, you could abuse the system by partially moving a unit so it's in the radius and thus get an automatic disrupt, a move considered banned in LOEG before it was fixed).
The roll itself is the same for both cases, but the automatic disruption is in addition to anything else, which is why it's so great. It will disrupt even Elite units without a roll.

9) Only heavy chariots and scythed chariots anarchy-charge, regardless of weapons(doesn't matter if they have bow or LS). Light chariots never anarchy charge. On the other hand, light chariots can evade.

Thanks for the detailed reply, Tiavals. Further to your answers:

1) Unanswered.

2) Solved I think. Does this mean there's no difference in the impact phase in charging a pike unit in the front or the side (and I presume there isn't)?

This does lead me to another question: what would happen if two lines of otherwise equal units entered combat, where one line is facing forward (with both front hexes facing the enemy) and the other line with an oblique facing (with one front hex and one side hex coming into contact with the enemy)? The oblique line would be penalised come the melee stage?

3) Solved.

4) Solved. It does answer my slight puzzlement in a recent game against a top player who had his hoplites three units thick.

5) Unanswered.

6) Possibly solved. Yes, I understood the + or - one hex rule that would make it theoretically possible for the cavalry to catch the light horse but I can't remember it happening (unless, as you say, the evade route is blocked for some reason).

7) Probably solved. So to clarify, what would happen in these two circumstances:

- a MF in a ditch versus a cavalry in an open hex (a ditch doesn't disorder MF and disorders cavalry). There would be no penalties for either side?
- a MF in a stream versus a cavalry in an open hex (both units get disordered by stream hexes). The MF would be penalised but the cavalry would fight as normal?

8) Solved.

9) Solved. I guess this would also make bow-armed heavy chariots slightly less useful than the light spear-armed variety despite costing more.

2) Yeah, doesn't matter where you charge pikes(unless it's the rear), facing wise. Of course, if the pike is near terrain, that will affect things a great deal. Suppose a pike is sitting next to a forest. If you charge in the forest tile, you will absolutely crush the pikes, since not only will they be VD, but they will also lose ALL of their pike bonuses, due to being VD. Terrain is the bane of pikes.
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Yes, if you face 2 opponents, it's better to face them both in the front, rather than one front and one side, as when the enemy's turn is, he will attack your side with his other unit. If your whole line is front-side, and the enemy is front-front, you will be at a terrible disadvantage, since almost all of his units can hit you in the side. That said, you can always manipulate the facing of your unit, in this case by attacking the unit on your side, it will show the chances as being worse, but once you have fought the melee phase, your unit will change facing so you will be front-front from that point forward. Usually it's best not to charge into a position where your sides are to the enemy, if you can avoid it.

7)
- The cavalry is highly likely to be at a disadvantage at the charging phase, since you can't use a lance unless both units are in Open(I think?), and the only MF that is at a disadvantage against a LS cavalry in terrain is a bowman(or swordsman without LS). So, if the MF has no charge bonuses, it'll be at a disadvantage vs LS, if it has even a single bonus, it will be at an advantage. In the melee phase, I think neither should be disadvantaged. Even in charge phase, neither should have less dice(so 4 dice per unit).
- Same applies as above, except if the MF has a spear, it will be disadvantaged(in melee), since it's considered disrupted for the purposes of spear-steadiness(thus, a swordsman gets a + vs the spear. Has no effect during charge for this scenario). Of course, since the MF is considered disrupted, it will roll 3 dice vs the 4 of the cavalry(both melee and charge). Thus, it's likely that the MF will be at a significant disadvantage(supposing I remember the rules correctly. )

9) Yeah, bow heavy chariots are utter garbage. LS heavy chariots are awesome.
LS HC is the only unit to get an advantage vs IF HF in the open(and they're the best mounted unit vs non-steady spears in the open). The bow chariot is the only shooting unit that gets anarchy charges.(well, not the only one, there's a few others, but they're limited to byzantine and scottish troops, I believe)

Thanks for the additional replies, Tiavals. Here are a couple of more points:

1) I made a test scenario to try and work this one out. MF and HF shock troops wouldn't anarchy-charge against some units I put in a marsh. They would, however anarchy-charge against units in ditches and streams.

What I wasn't cognisant of before was that medium foot shock troops can be used to defend non-open terrain as they won't anarchy-charge out of it, which is very useful to know. They will anarchy-charge out of ditches and streams, however.

7) I made a test scenario with MF in stream, ditch and open hexes and different attackers in open hexes. Against attacking MF and HF the terrain had no effect on impact or melee stages whatsoever compared to fighting in the open. Against attacking light spear cavalry there was no difference between open terrain and stream but the cavalry were heavily penalised attacking MF in a ditch. So it seems that both units are affected by these terrain hexes, not just the unit in the ditch or stream (in similar fashion to other terrain types).

So that just leaves question 5 unanswered and I may try and figure it out in a custom scenario later.

the_iron_duke wrote: What I wasn't cognisant of before was that medium foot shock troops can be used to defend non-open terrain as they won't anarchy-charge out of it, which is very useful to know. They will anarchy-charge out of ditches and streams, however.

ditches and streams are not considered cover. mf shock troops have been known to anarchy charge out of forests if the target is not in a clear hex however.

fogman wrote: ditches and streams are not considered cover. mf shock troops have been known to anarchy charge out of forests if the target is not in a clear hex however.

I'm not sure that's correct. I just ran a test scenario with MF shock troops in woods and enemy MF archers in the following terrains: open fields, plantation, woods, ditch, gully, scrub, marsh, broken. There was no anarchy-charging at all. They also didn't anarchy-charge against them when the archers were in the open either.

if the target is in the open it won't happen for sure. I just reviewed game chats i had with batesmotel and maharg where it happened. it definitely happened because we talked about it.

maybe your units were just lucky with the tests. change them to poor undrilled. try a few turns.

it definitely works that way. i just tried it: mf impact foot charging out of woods through a rocky hex into mf archers in scrubs.

I tried it again with poor quality troops (already undrilled) and also included LF as the targets. I even presented the targets' rears to the MF shock troops and played many turns. Still nothing doing. Not replicated in the laboratory, I'm afraid.

Okay, I tried it once more. Before the enemy troops were two hexes away in the various different terrains with one hex of open space between them. I then filled that space with broken terrain and they did anarchy charge. So it seems they will anarchy-charge through uninterrupted non-open terrain. Can still use them defensively if there is open space in between.

Tried to figure out the answer to question 5 using a test scenario. My preliminary findings are: pretty much everyone pursues units they rout but sometimes they don't. The ones that didn't pursue were archer units (although usually they did pursue). So it seems there's probably a CMT roll going on as the rulebook says. Was wondering if some units wouldn't pursue out of woods and suchlike but they did. Probably a more in-depth test scenario would yield greater insight.

the_iron_duke wrote: 7) I made a test scenario with MF in stream, ditch and open hexes and different attackers in open hexes. Against attacking MF and HF the terrain had no effect on impact or melee stages whatsoever compared to fighting in the open. Against attacking light spear cavalry there was no difference between open terrain and stream but the cavalry were heavily penalised attacking MF in a ditch. So it seems that both units are affected by these terrain hexes, not just the unit in the ditch or stream (in similar fashion to other terrain types).

Ruleswise Gulley/Ditch is better ground for MF than Stream. MF is d in Stream, but not in Gully/Ditch, according to rules. I just tested it, both cavalry and MF have 4 dice to use in a Ditch. I'm guessing there was rubble before the ditch and you didn't notice it and thought it was worse due to that. It also showed that if the cavalry had been in the ditch, it would have just used 3 dice. Thus the example shows(at least on my computer) that ditches(and thus likely streams and gulleys) work the way they are said to work in the manual.

Some more notes on ditches/streams.

Firstly, with a stream situation with a light spear cavalry attacing a MF, the cavalry is at a severe disadvantage if it's in the stream hex. If it's on a clear hex and the MF is in the stream the combat is the same as if they were both in the open - 65%/14% odds in this example. If the cavalry's in the stream and MF on an open hex or they're both in the stream the odds drop to 15%/60%. The cavalry loses the following modifiers:

+1 Mounted other than El/SCh; target MF/LF; open terrain
+1 No other net POAs; mounted with LS

However with a ditch situation, if the cavalry in the open attacks a MF in a ditch they lose the above advantages but are not disordered (odds of 25%/49%). If the cavalry's in the ditch or they're both in the ditch the odds are the same as with streams - 15%/60%.

Bit complicated. I guess the moral is don't be in the ditch or stream hex.

Another couple of quick questions. Does the number of units trying to loot a camp make a difference - is using more than one unit pointless?

Also, the rules say foot are better at looting fortified camps than mounted. What about regular baggage camps - are they equally efficient?

As far as I know, each unit rolls looting separately, so the more you have, the faster it'll be done. But all the units will lose their turn to anarchy when the camp is looted, so it might not be in your best interest to use too many troops.

No idea about foot vs mounted on looting, I didn't even know that.

Thanks for the info.

Tiavals wrote:As far as I know, each unit rolls looting separately, so the more you have, the faster it'll be done. But all the units will lose their turn to anarchy when the camp is looted, so it might not be in your best interest to use too many troops.

No idea about foot vs mounted on looting, I didn't even know that.

From the manual (of course no idea if its accurate LOL:
Baggage
At the start of friendly player turn that a battlegroup is adjacent to an enemy baggage camp it will take a complex move test to complete looting the camp. The baggage camp will then be removed from play and will count as 'looted'.
• If the battlegroup fails the complex move test it will continue to 'loot' the camp and may do nothing else that player turn.
Fortified baggage:
At the start of each friendly player turn that a foot battlegroup is adjacent to an enemy fortified camp there is a 1 in 3 chance to 'break into' the camp.
• At the end of each friendly player turn that a mounted battlegroup is adjacent to an enemy fortified camp there is a 1 in 6 chance to 'break into' the camp.
• At the start of friendly player turn that a battlegroup is adjacent to a 'broken into' enemy fortified camp it will take a complex move test to complete looting the camp. The baggage camp will then be removed from play and will count as 'looted'.
• If the battlegroup fails the complex move test it will continue to 'loot' the camp and may do nothing else that player turn.

Just want to check about missile combat. The table in the rules says:

- Short Name /Shooter (Current Player) / Points Of Advantage / Target
- moved(MF) / Medium foot that moved this player turn / -1 / Any

This rule is not enacted in the actual game and there is no penalty for MF moving and firing?

Also, below that there is the following:

- support / Medium foot being charged / -1 / Any

What does this mean? I don't understand it.

the_iron_duke wrote:Just want to check about missile combat. The table in the rules says:

- Short Name /Shooter (Current Player) / Points Of Advantage / Target
- moved(MF) / Medium foot that moved this player turn / -1 / Any

This rule is not enacted in the actual game and there is no penalty for MF moving and firing?

Also, below that there is the following:

- support / Medium foot being charged / -1 / Any

What does this mean? I don't understand it.

Moving affects nothing shooting wise. You can move and shoot with any ranged unit, if the enemy is in your line of fire, even with Light Artillery, and there are no penalties. Unless of course you move into bad terrain or such.

Probably nothing. Or it may be that when MF bows are charged, they get to shoot before the enemy strikes(which is why you have different odds attacking MF foot from the front 2 hexes, than the sides), perhaps there is a minus involved in this shooting? Though I don't think so, as far as I understand it, they get to roll 6 dice instead of 4(that is, 2 more than normal) when they're attacked, and that there's no actual ranged attack roll involved, only a boosted impact roll.(which is why Scots-islands impact foot archer support, and dailami archer support, are so powerful).