Slitherine

Guys sorry for this probably stupid question, does the whole BG fight in the melee phase? We have ben fighting with DBM & WRG 6th for a while now and we got stuck when a melee situation cam eup when a BG of 4 Persian cav. charged into a BG of 8 Athenian hoplites, the impact phase came out as a draw then when the melee phase came along we couldn't agree how many hoplites should be fighting, as the cav. had hit the end of the hoplite BG and we werent sure what the overlap is we allowed the hoplites a 6 dice roll, but a couple of guys stated that it should be a dice for the first two ranks of the BG so all bases should count even outside one base overlap. Can anyone clear this up for me please?

Thanks

In very simple terms, an overlapping base is one next to the last one fighting an enemy directlly in front of it. So if your BG is four wide and the end two have enemy in contact, the third base is the overlap and the last is not involved. From your description it should be four dice against six. Under 'feeding in more troops', the two unengaged bases may later get to move to the other end of the BG to become an overlap at that end. You will need to read the rules on this. There are good diagrams covering it all.

Examples

PP
PP
HHHH
HHHH

In this case 4 Persians fight 6 hoplites. the ones in contact, plus an overlap in this case on one side. and then the 2nd rank.

_PP
_PP
HHHH
HHHH

In this case the Hoplites have an overlap on each side so 4 persians to 8 hoplites.