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Arabs and Combat dice

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:23 pm
by philqw78
A question about disorder by camels. A camel Bg is fighting 2 cavalry units with supports either side (see below). Who loses dice
Image
Both enemy cav will lose a dice. Will they get to choose who to lose a dice against or do both lose a dice against the camels as it is causing the disorder?

Even worse do the supports either side lose a dice as a loss of one per three from their 4 dice. (No)

If the enemy cavalry were a single BG 1 deep this last question becomes more vexed as the cavalry either side would be facing the same unit.

Re: Arabs and Combat dice

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:49 pm
by carlos
philqw78 wrote:A question about disorder by camels. A camel Bg is fighting 2 cavalry units with supports either side (see below). Who loses dice
Both enemy cav will lose a dice. Will they get to choose who to lose a dice against or do both lose a dice against the camels as it is causing the disorder?

Even worse do the supports either side lose a dice as a loss of one per three from their 4 dice. (No)

If the enemy cavalry were a single BG 1 deep this last question becomes more vexed as the cavalry either side would be facing the same unit.
Camels... :roll: :roll: :roll:

1 - I don't think the rules specify where the dice is lost from. They have 3 combat dice to allocate as equally as possible.
2 - They won't as only 2 stands from each of the friendly BGs are within a base width, so you can't lose 1 out of just 2.
3 - Actually it becomes easier. The enemy cav would have 4 dice, down to 3 because of the camels, and then they'd need to allocate equally so 1 dice per opponent. They'd take a kicking...

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:53 pm
by nikgaukroger
If you have 3 dice and 2 opponents you'd allocate 1 dice to one opponent and 2 to the other.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:55 pm
by philqw78
If the enemy cavalry were a single BG 1 deep this last question becomes more vexed as the cavalry either side would be facing the same unit.
The enemy cav would have 4 dice, down to 3 because of the camels, and then they'd need to allocate equally so 1 dice per opponent. They'd take a kicking...
I was asking about the friendly (to the camel) Cav in my final question as this Cav now has 4 disrupted dice against a single BG.

And at contact it would be 8 dice down to 6 for the enemy cav, so again can they choose where the dice are lost.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:02 pm
by philqw78
If you have 3 dice and 2 opponents you'd allocate 1 dice to one opponent and 2 to the other.
Whichever opponent you wanted or the least dice against the camels as they are causing the disorder. Otherwise, as camels are generally otherwise piss poor, most people would allocate max dice against the camels as there is more chance of hitting them/not being hit by them.

At impact 4 dice v's camels at + and 1 dice either side at evens is far better than 2 dice v's camels at + and 2 dice either side at evens

(edit) no its the same number of hit probability. But causing more hits on the camels gives a better chance of causing disruption as you can only do a max of 2 either side whereas the camels could take 4 by themselves depending on allocation.

It would make a difference against unprotected weaponless camels in melee though

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:07 pm
by babyshark
philqw78 wrote:
If you have 3 dice and 2 opponents you'd allocate 1 dice to one opponent and 2 to the other.
Whichever opponent you wanted or the least dice against the camels as they are causing the disorder. Otherwise, as camels are generally otherwise piss poor, most people would allocate max dice against the camels as there is more chance of hitting them/not being hit by them.

At impact 4 dice v's camels at + and 1 dice either side at evens is far better than 2 dice v's camels at + and 2 dice either side at evens
See p.94 for rules regarding "Allocating combat dice."

Marc

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:16 pm
by shall
The camles cause DISR by BG. This is delibreately set up so that your own cav won't suffer when enemy will - thereby replicating the idea of troops familiar with camels and elephants but without any extra rule for it. :-)

So your own troops only have 2 bases each side DISR and do not lose a dice.

The enemy BGs both lose 1 dice but as they are set up to have 2 and 2 vs each opponent they can in this case choose where to lose the single dice.

As Phil says this may allow them to gang up onthe camels but again this is a good thing as it means you will not want to use mediocre UnProt camels in this way, but rather those with some sort of fighting potential - Prot LtSp say. Of course works very very well with Armoured Camelry.

Si

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 3:46 pm
by carlos
shall wrote:The camles cause DISR by BG. This is delibreately set up so that your own cav won't suffer when enemy will - thereby replicating the idea of troops familiar with camels and elephants but without any extra rule for it. :-)

So your own troops only have 2 bases each side DISR and do not lose a dice.

The enemy BGs both lose 1 dice but as they are set up to have 2 and 2 vs each opponent they can in this case choose where to lose the single dice.

As Phil says this may allow them to gang up onthe camels but again this is a good thing as it means you will not want to use mediocre UnProt camels in this way, but rather those with some sort of fighting potential - Prot LtSp say. Of course works very very well with Armoured Camelry.

Si
What I said! And who the hell gets armoured camels except the cataphract ones?

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:08 pm
by footslogger
The camles cause DISR by BG. This is delibreately set up so that your own cav won't suffer when enemy will - thereby replicating the idea of troops familiar with camels and elephants but without any extra rule for it. Smile
Hmmm. Not sure where you get this from. Page # please? On p 132 it says that only bases that are currently at least partly in the situation are affected. The disorder effect is to lose 1 dice per 3 for shooting or close combat. If the dice loss is per battle group I'd like to know where that's written down. I'm reffing a tournament coming up and I would be at a loss to know from the rules why the guy with the camels wouldn't lose a dice in the situation where the three BGs were fighting the single line of enemy cav.

I don't see anything about this in pp90ff, pg 120, p 132, or the glossary.

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 9:08 pm
by philqw78
The camles cause DISR by BG.
No they cause it to a <single base width either side.

Combats are fought by file, as they are here. But All are fighting the same BG in my last question. Therefore at impact 2 bases, 4 dice, v's the enemy cavalry. These 4 dice are disordered so lose one per three?


__ :( :( :( :(
:!: :oops: :twisted: :twisted: :oops: :!:

:( Disordered En Cav
:!: Non Disordered Friendly Cav
:oops: Disordered Friendly Cav
:twisted: Friendly Camels

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 3:36 am
by footslogger
I haven't read anything that makes me think your own cav disordered by your own camels don't lose a dice. If there is something in the rules that would make me think otherwise I'd like a page #.

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:41 am
by MarkSieber
It's in the math: you have to have enough dice to lose one. Since only one stand of the supporting BG participating in impact is disordered, you can't lose one of only two dice.

But another question:

Disrupted BG's are treated as a unity for lost dice. Are BG's which are entirely disordered (even though this is determined base by base) treated similarly?

e.g. If the all stands of the supporting BG were disordered from, say, terrain--or another camel nearby but not in contact-- would it then lose one of the four total dice (one per three)? In other words, are dice lost for the whole BG from the cumulative effect of disorder on it's stands?

If so, the fact that only one stand is disordered and therefore not at risk to lose a die obscures this concept in the example given.

The alternative would be that each disordered stand of any BG would have to meet its own threshold for die loss--and never would, so the opposing cavalry would also be protected from losing a die. My understanding has been from earlier posts/threads that the intent was that the supporting BG's should not lose a die.

Do I have this right?

Thanks.

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:16 pm
by MarkSieber
No answer... am I like the mad Aunt who's blurted out a complete non-sequitur, and missed the point entirely? :oops:

Maybe simpler: do you aggregate all the bases of a BG for dice loss from disorder, or go stand by stand?

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:47 pm
by philqw78
My understanding was that all those contributing to a combat got thrown into the pot. So if 6 disrupted bases of LH shooting at the same target but from different BG fired they would lose a dice. So above the disordered Cav, 4 dice, though from 2 different BG, lose a dice as it is the same target/combat. So I am confused.

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:01 pm
by chrisrivers
Except that the cav on the camel's side are fighting two different enemy BGs, so they calculate their dice seperately. Hence neither loses a die since only 2 dice are affected.

Chris Rivers

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:21 pm
by hammy
chrisrivers wrote:Except that the cav on the camel's side are fighting two different enemy BGs, so they calculate their dice seperately. Hence neither loses a die since only 2 dice are affected.

Chris Rivers
Not quite. Only 2 bases of each of the cavalry BGs on the camels side are dissordered. As there are only 2 dissordered bases the dissorder has no effect.

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:35 pm
by chrisrivers
hammy wrote:
chrisrivers wrote:Except that the cav on the camel's side are fighting two different enemy BGs, so they calculate their dice seperately. Hence neither loses a die since only 2 dice are affected.

Chris Rivers
Not quite. Only 2 bases of each of the cavalry BGs on the camels side are dissordered. As there are only 2 dissordered bases the dissorder has no effect.
Thanks for the clarification, Hammy that is what I was trying to say, I meant 2 dice in ea friendly cav BG are affected.

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:18 pm
by footslogger
hammy wrote:
chrisrivers wrote:Except that the cav on the camel's side are fighting two different enemy BGs, so they calculate their dice seperately. Hence neither loses a die since only 2 dice are affected.

Chris Rivers
Not quite. Only 2 bases of each of the cavalry BGs on the camels side are dissordered. As there are only 2 dissordered bases the dissorder has no effect.
Based on what rule? I would view it as one big impact (or later melee) with 4 disordered dice on the side who had the camels, so they also lose a dice. Where does it say that the disorder is per BG?

(If it does, I'm fine with it, and can even imagine that is what the intent is, I just want to see where it is written down. And it is disorder rather than disrupted.)

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:52 pm
by philqw78
yes I would like to see the rule

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 8:59 pm
by rbodleyscott
philqw78 wrote:yes I would like to see the rule
P.93-94

Essentially shooting and close combat are different. For shooting, dice losses are applied per target. For close combat dice losses are applied per BG fighting.

The last bullet on P.93 is the only place where the rules require you combine dice from multiple BGs for the purpose of calculating lost dice, and only applies to shooting.