Slitherine

Can a BG made up entirely of Non Skirmishing Archers fire upon an enemy BG in the Impact Phase before the Impact is resolved. i.e Fire on the enemy as they come charging in, or do they have to fight them or can they Evade?

A battle group of non-skirmisher foot archers - i.e. MF - cannot evade. Mounted archers could if non-shock cavalry 1 rank deep.

There is no shooting at chargers by the target battlegroup (or indeed any other battle group) in the impact phase. There is no equivalent of, say, WAB's Stand and Shoot charge response.

However, MF archers will get 1 die per base for 2nd rank bases behind a front rank base in close combat which is how FoG simulates the last close range shooting. So, for example, an archer BG 4 bases wide and 2 deep will get 8 dice for the front rank and 4 additional dice for the back rank in the impact phase.

One thing to remember is that the 2nd rank use shooting PoA's and to hit scores - which includes a - PoA for ending in contact.

Pages 98 & 99 of the rules are your friend here

Thanks for the quick reply. Thats what I thought, but as I have just received the rules and getting ready for the first game on the weekend I just wanted to check.

LH and LCH can also fire to their rear ,again with a negative POA
David

But not in the impact phase which was the original question.

So in the Impact Phase the First rank of Archers would use the Impact POAs while the Second rank of Archers would use the Shooting POAs, is that right?

At impact the front rank uses their impact POA (usually none) and the second rank uses shooting POA and dice to hit but with an extra -

So unarmoured lancer cavalry in more than one rank charging bowmen would be

The lancers get 2 dice per file at ++
The archers get 2 dice per file at -- in melee and 1 dice per file at + in shooting (++ for unarmoured cavalry and - for charging)

That clears things up nicely. Thanks for all your help guys.