charging?? help

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stew
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:37 pm

charging?? help

Post by stew »

I find the charging rules a little cloudy, so if someone would please help me by walking me through this example, I'd appreciate it. I hope this will make sense:

lets say we have 3 standard union regiments arranged in a line as

A B C

charging 3 confederate standard regiments opposite them in

X Y Z

resulting in

A B C
X Y Z

if I read this right, the attacking union player can either decide to designate B as the leading unit with A and C as supports, OR A as lead unit with B as support and C by itself, or anything similar and whatever the attacking player has the most chance of success. But let's say B is lead with A and C supporting.

charge reactions: Y will fire at B, and I guess X and Z fire at A and C, and this is where I get real confused...
if the lead unit B gets a see the elephant (STE) test it's pretty clear in the rules what happens, but if the supporting units A and C also get a STE test do they take it as normal or ignore it?

let's sat that A took 2 casualties, a STE test and retired, B and C take 1 each. on the modifiers table for -1 for every 2 casualties, is that now a -2 (because 4 total) or -1 (because A is gone leaving only B and C in the combat.

when do supporting rerolls happen? as needed?

thanks for the help. I find the rules interesting and am hoping to try them soon.
Fat Wally
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Joined: Wed Sep 04, 2013 8:03 am

Re: charging?? help

Post by Fat Wally »

"if I read this right, the attacking union player can either decide to designate B as the leading unit with A and C as supports, OR A as lead unit with B as support and C by itself, or anything similar and whatever the attacking player has the most chance of success."

First of all, nope. See restrictions on page p38. Opposed by another enemy unit. A flank support cannot offer support if an enemy unit not involved in the charge is to its front and within 15cm [9"]. See the picture on top of p37.

Kev
Fat Wally
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Re: charging?? help

Post by Fat Wally »

Elephant tests are immediate AFAIK. So apply.

Supporting re-rolls are made if the charging unit/s actually make it to close combat and after they've rolled 2D6.

Kev
Fat Wally
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Re: charging?? help

Post by Fat Wally »

You need to see if you roll poorly, and how poorly to decide if you want to re-roll.
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DCRBrown
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Re: charging?? help

Post by DCRBrown »

S,

As correctly stated by Kev you apply all SETs immediately, so if one of your flank supports was forced to take a test and lets say received a whipped result, it would immediately fall back, so dropping out of the charge, (and losing a potential support reroll).

Again the advice on support rerolls is bang on - support rerolls are not compulsory - the charging player may always decide whether to use them or not after his initial 2D6 charge roll. Obviously if your initial 2D6 roll was double six - you're not going to use any support rerolls! But a roll involving any ones or twos will probably see you using them, however the decision becomes a bit more problematic with a die score of say three or maybe four. It can get quite tense!

The procedure for conducting the support rerolls is actually on the playsheet at the bottom of the Charges Table.

If you need anything else just ask.

DB
stew
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Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:37 pm

Re: charging?? help

Post by stew »

Fat Wally wrote:"if I read this right, the attacking union player can either decide to designate B as the leading unit with A and C as supports, OR A as lead unit with B as support and C by itself, or anything similar and whatever the attacking player has the most chance of success."

First of all, nope. See restrictions on page p38. Opposed by another enemy unit. A flank support cannot offer support if an enemy unit not involved in the charge is to its front and within 15cm [9"]. See the picture on top of p37.

Kev

thanks for the replies everyone! the SET is applied immediately.

however, I am confused about the part above on the restrictions. i thought the restriction does NOT apply, because the units X and Z (in front of supporting units A and C) ARE involved in the charge, as supports for the lead defending unit. i thought the picture on the top of page 37 demonstrated that: the confederate supporting unit 3 was in support range of confederate unit 1, but could not support because it was opposed by Union unit B which was out of support range from A, therefore not involved in the charge, and therefore prevented confederate unit 3 from supporting 1. i assumed 3 would then just charge B if the player wished.

Pg 39, #10 speaks about supporting fire on the charging unit or supports; "any unit may provide fire support, provided they are within effective range of the charging enemy or supports and provided they have no other target with effective range to their front."

i guess I don't understand; in order for a supporting unit in a charge to get fired on during the supporting fire step of a charge, to maybe take force a SET and get peeled off the charge as DCRBrown describes:

"As correctly stated by Kev you apply all SETs immediately, so if one of your flank supports was forced to take a test and lets say received a whipped result, it would immediately fall back, so dropping out of the charge, (and losing a potential support reroll)."

wouldn't then you have it have it that A and C could support B against Y with X and Z supporting as I described? how else would you get defensive support fire on charging supports unless the units were right across from each other?

Or is it that A and C can't support B because opposed by X and Z, and i which case when X and Z give support fire they have to shoot A and C, which doesn't help defending unit Y at all.


hope i'm being clear still. the book really only gives an example of a charge with rear supports and not flank supports.

so i guess my question is now: are we sure that's how the support restriction is supposed to work? and please could i get an example of a charge?

i'm hoping to host a game of this sometime soon-ish, depending on holiday, and as no one buut me has the rules i'll need to be the rules expert. : )
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DCRBrown
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Re: charging?? help

Post by DCRBrown »

S,
lets say we have 3 standard union regiments arranged in a line as

A B C

charging 3 confederate standard regiments opposite them in

X Y Z

resulting in

A B C
X Y Z

if I read this right, the attacking union player can either decide to designate B as the leading unit with A and C as supports, OR A as lead unit with B as support and C by itself, or anything similar and whatever the attacking player has the most chance of success.


Correct.
however, I am confused about the part above on the restrictions. i thought the restriction does NOT apply, because the units X and Z (in front of supporting units A and C) ARE involved in the charge, as supports for the lead defending unit. i thought the picture on the top of page 37 demonstrated that:
Correct. Basically in your diagram all units are involved in the charge because they are all within support distance of either the lead charge unit or lead defending unit.

Now say unit Z was actually 8cm away from unit Y so it could not support - but it might well block the progress of unit C, or simply be in unit Cs way, thus preventing unit C from supporting the charge.

The being "opposed by another enemy unit" only applies if the enemy unit in question is not a support.

DB
stew
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Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:37 pm

Re: charging?? help

Post by stew »

thanks so much! it's clear to me now. : )

appreciate the help everyone!

-Stewart
Fat Wally
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Re: charging?? help

Post by Fat Wally »

...and to me too. Apologies for almost misleading you.
BLabrum^
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Re: charging?? help

Post by BLabrum^ »

See p.39:
9.d. "All casualties caused are spread out as evenly as possible amongst all attacking units.." and also
11. See the Elephant Test. The lead attack unit takes any required See the Elephant test..."
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