Slitherine

Battle Wagon questions

1. BW's can only shoot along their long edge at one dice per base width, meaning 2 dice.

2. BW's cannot be hit in the flank or rear, and whatever face they are hit on fight with 2 dice per base width in impact and melee, effectively any side they fight on is there front?

3. Ok, so say you have a BG of BW's in column and the first BW is fighting along their front and both sides - SEE BELOW

....EE
EEBWEE
EEBWEE

So how many dice does the BW get? Logic tells me it gets 4 dice, but rules say '2 dice per front rank base width' as the BW is fighting on 5 base widths (2 either long side and 1 on short side) that would mean it gets 10 dice.

4. Would the BW be counted as fighting in 2 directions?

A BW can never have more than 4 dice in combat. In the situation you describe the front half of the battle wagon would get 2 dice and the back half would get 2 dice. I think they need to be split as evenly as possible between the attacking enemy BGs.

Looking at your diagram, the top BW has four bases in contact and will presumably be splitting its four dice one against each.

Now that I looked at the rules here's a better answer.
A battle wagon elects which edge is it's front edge for close combat. So if it elects to use it's front or rear edge, it gets 2 dice vs that opponent, if using it's side as the front edge it gets 2 dice per base width. Since a battle wagon is 2 base widths long, that means it's side edge fights with 4 dice. In the situation depicted, I assumed that only 1 battlewagon was depicted, although a single battlewagon is impossible. A battlewagon base, surrounded on three sides chooses which side it will count as its front edge, and will roll dice only against enemy on that side. The enemy will roll for each base in contact, but the battlewagon BG does not count as fighting in two directions. Note that this means that if the battlewagon were contacted on the rear half on one side, and the front half on the other, the battlewagon would roll dice only against the enemy on one side.

A battlewagon base, surrounded on three sides chooses which side it will count as its front edge, and will roll dice only against enemy on that side. The enemy will roll for each base in contact, but the battlewagon BG does not count as fighting in two directions. Note that this means that if the battlewagon were contacted on the rear half on one side, and the front half on the other, the battlewagon would roll dice only against the enemy on one side.

Correct They get gradually swamped by contacts on multiple sides.

Si

Oh dear, I was wrong again. On the bright side, it probably means no-one contacted my Hussites on more than one side.

Oh dear, I was wrong again. On the bright side, it probably means no-one contacted my Hussites on more than one side.

I am sure your tactical nouse with Hussites meant the issue never arose...

Alas I did manage to get surrounded in a practice game and found out the hard way.

Si

A further thought on this. Consider a single BW line fighting to its long edge. If this is subsequently charged in flank, I presume it would count as one base in responding to the chargers. It doesn't turn so presumably the 'if all engaged then turn just one' rule is in effect. In subsequent melees, would this half of the wagon then continue to fight to flank?
In my diagram XXYY is a couple of BW. I am thinking that XX fights the fresh charger E at impact and subsequently uses two dice against EE and two against AA.
If The wagons were arranged
XX
YY
then does YY fight E coming in from the left at impact, XX not involved in the impacts, and uses all its dice against A in melee?

If you don't know about battle wagons Roger what hope is there for the rest of us?!!

Pete

In which case I can adopt a policy that was sound when teaching A level maths. If in doubt, just bluff. So long as they think you know, they won't argue.

A further thought on this. Consider a single BW line fighting to its long edge. If this is subsequently charged in flank, I presume it would count as one base in responding to the chargers. It doesn't turn so presumably the 'if all engaged then turn just one' rule is in effect. In subsequent melees, would this half of the wagon then continue to fight to flank?
In my diagram XXYY is a couple of BW. I am thinking that XX fights the fresh charger E at impact and subsequently uses two dice against EE and two against AA.

Code:
AAAA
EXXYY
E

If The wagons were arranged
XX
YY
then does YY fight E coming in from the left at impact, XX not involved in the impacts, and uses all its dice against A in melee?

I have always taken the decision of which is the front to be an at the moment decision, so not like DBM where it had a legacy.

My approach therefore has been

In case 1 in IMPACT XX fights against E1. In melee it could fight against E from a short side or against A from a long side (porbably the latter).
In case 2 XX would fight E1 and YY E2 at impact and in melee YY would choose left edge as front and XX might prefer to choose top facing to get more dice vs AA.

Seemed to work very well in my test games. The rules aren't terribly specific on these matters as we didn't want to bog the rules down with too much about them for the sake of a few (meritable ) officionados. But I did have fun testing out with my Hussites I must admit.

Si

Thanks for the thoughts. I have always agreed not to bog down the rules (or indeed the FAQ) with very rare occurences is the sensible path. After the rules and the FAQ, there is always the 'common law' of accepted practice. With the above first case, I think the requirement to have at least one die against each opponent comes in, so the wagon would need to fight both directions in the melee. I think this would be in accordance with the 'no legacy' idea. Still, it's likely to be a rare occurence. Getting the wagons to that position is not a very clever idea. Keeping them there long enough to get the second charge at them is even more rare.

I am still considering the Hussites for the Challenge. They were given a hammering at Roll Call, but have been re-organised since.