[WM] Questions from the battlefield...

[pw]

I wasn't sure where to post this but ultimately it's a series of questions so here goes:

My Empire took to the field last night against their regular Dwarf opponents in the first of a few planned 1700 point Winter Warmer warm-up games. With little idea what to take I went for:

General
Griffon Hero
Hero
Wizard
4 Halberd
4 Crossbow
2 Flagellants
4 Knights
Pistoliers
Steamtank
Cannons

The Dwarfs brought (from memory):
General
Runesmith
Hero
4 Warriors
2 Slayers
2 Gyrocopters
2 Cannons
2 Flamecannons
2 Rangers
2 Handgunners

I’d planned to write up a battle report complete with pictures (I even charged the camera), but we were so incredibly slow while we thumbed our way through the rulebook that I had to abandon that plan. So, instead, it’s going to be highlights, a few observations, plus ‘questions from the battlefield’.

The battlefield had a small town close to the Empire deployment zone on the right flank opposite a large hill on the Dwarf side (as it turned out the hill was incredibly useful). There were a couple of woods in the centre of the table and another hill on the far left of the table (that played no part in the game).

The Empire army set up with a brigade of two units of knights and a unit of pistoliers on the left flank, supported by a steam tank and commanded by the Griffon Hero. In the centre was a mobile brigade of Flagellants and 2 x Halberd commanded by the other hero ready to march forward. Then the rest of the army (led by the General and the wizard) formed a gunline on the baseline and a brigade ready to march into the small town. Finally, on the far right flank the remaining two units of knights waited for orders from the General.

On the other side of the board the Dwarfs covered the hill with missile troops/warmachines along with the rangers and a unit of slayers (or rather behind it to start as it was a little far forward). In the middle, planning to counter the knights were four units of warriors and a unit of slayers.

The first turn was bad for both of us as no-one really commanded anyone to do anything. The only notable event was that my steam tank blundered and then rolled a 1 so he was out of the game. Other than that the knights on the left flank made one move forward and the dwarfs shuffled onto the hill.

The game then split into two halves. On the left flank my knights took on the slayers (who they killed in one turn) and then spent the next few turns trying to kill the Warriors. This flank was always in my control and eventually the units of Dwarfs started to die off. The main lesson here was that knights are nasty when they’ve got a terror hero in there.

On the right flank I learnt that charging units on hills is rubbish as my knights were destroyed by a unit of handgunners. Most of my army just stood still on that side trying not to die. Then I made my error. Having managed to get within one unit of breaking the dwarf army I charged some crossbowmen, supported by the General, into a steamtank which we killed and then we ran back towards the safety of the town as fast as possible. It wasn’t fast enough and two cannons later and my General was dead and it was game over. Lesson learnt! Don’t risk the general!

The end result was a draw as I’d killed more points but been broken.

A couple of questions came up:

1) When does a unit have to be able to see the enemy to charge? Can you move on one order to a position where you can see the enemy and then move on a second order to charge that now visible enemy?

2) Can you move with one order into a flanking position and then charge into the flank on a second order?

3) If after winning a combat one of stands would ‘bump into’ a fresh enemy when you pursued the retreating enemy can you choose not to do so and instead take that unit round the flank of the original unit?

[Schindbua]

1) at the beginning of the charge move

2) yes; but better would be; charge with the first unit the frontage of the opponent, so that there is no more space left and the second unit can now charge the flanke (if there is line of sight for the second unit)

3) yes but only if the opponents unit lost 1 or 2 stands; if not you have to go straight forward.

cheers stefan

[spiritusXmachina]

"I charged some crossbowmen, supported by the General, into a steamtank which we killed"
?? I thought you were playing Empire??

1) Yes, definitely. At the "beginning of the move" means every time before you give a command.
2) So, yes also. Easy.

3) Is a bit more complicated. One would need to see the situation explicitly.
Basically if you pursue you have to reestablish contact where you already had.
Those bases that have lost their contact (ie. because of destroyed bases) may choose freely where to be positioned. So, you may put them to another side, the flank, whatever - as long as the pursuing unit is still in contact. But important, when pursuing you don't have to maximise contact - you may if you want.
Just as further information. It does not matter how far a pursuing unit has to travel to come into flank (or back...) as long as there is contact to the other stands of their own unit (so even moving 40cm around enemy units is ok - there just need to be a clear path).

To be honest at friendly games we take this rule quite easy. So, most of the times if an opponent wants to avoid coming into accidental contact we accept that. Tournament games of course would be a different page of the book.  

[Guthwine]

To be honest at friendly games we take this rule quite easy. So, most of the times if an opponent wants to avoid coming into accidental contact we accept that. Tournament games of course would be a different page of the book.  

But according to the rules there is no obligation for pursuing stands to cover the enemy center to center. You can also pursue like unit A in this diagram:

[pw]

Killing the steamtank! I'd already effectively done that! I meant gyrocopter  .

Thanks for the answers everyone.

In the pursuit question, the dwarfs had four units all next to each other but one at the extreme edge of the block was exactly 1cm further forward than the rest. I charged with knights who then overlapped by 10 cm on either side of the unit. This meant that when I pursued the far left base (after moving 1cm) would hit the next dwarf unit along if it followed the retreating unit in a straight line. The result of this would have been to take me out of formation (although the units would still touch at the sides) and to have brought a fresh unit into the combat. Tha alternative (if I pursued) was for that unit to scoot round to the other side of it's fellow knights and end up in the flank of the original target unit (as it couldn't fit in the gap between the two units.

[pw]

Another Empire-Dwarf game last night threw up a whole new bunch of questions. I'll have another read through the rulebook but thought I'd ask here for clarification too.

1) Can a unit that wins combat use the withdraw move to get closer to an enemy unit? This came up when the Empire broke one unit on the charge the advance took them into the next unit which they expected to beat. They couldn't get all of the units  into combat with the fresh enemy (LOS was blocked) so one unit used a fall back to get in between the cannons and the combat (i.e it went just past the combat). This was massively useful but seemed rather odd to both of us. We couldn't find anything in the book that ruled this out so we let it happen.

2) Can you stand and shoot at advancing charges? (we said yes)

3) Do you get the pursuit bonus if you pursue a unit up a hill?

4) What happens if an infantry unit in a defended position is charged by another infantry unit that starts its move within the same defended position? (to clarify, we decided that the whole town counted as defended and the battle took place in the town square). Do both units need 5s to hit? Is there a charge bonus etc?

5) How do you play the rules for towns? Do people tend to count them as 'area terrain' with everything unchargable by cavalry and defended or just the buildings themselves?

No doubt I'll come up with more silly questions soon!

[Claus]

1) You mean "fall back" and YES, you are allowed to do so.
You can move everywhere you want but you must roll 3D6 to determine the distance and you have to keep 1 cm distance between you and enemy troups.

2)Yes, as it is a new combat and normal S&S rules apply.

3)YES because it´s the 2nd round of combat and thus said you don´t get anymore the bonus for being defended. Bonus for defended applies only in 1st round of combat.

4)The attacking unit needs 5´s to hit as they leave their defended position in order to attack enemy and in addition they don´t get the attack bonus of +1 attack. (but only in first round of combat. In all following rounds standard rules apply)
The being attacked one only needs 4s to hit as they are still defended.
Same rules apply as when being in woods.
Only exceptions are hills when you charge from same level or above position...then the charger also hits at 4´s and get´s his attack bonus.

5)Dicsuss with your oponent how you want to treat terrain before deploying armies and roling for sides.
This is common practice and avoids a lot of discussion afterwards.

Cheers
Claus

[pw]

Thanks Claus, that's really helpful. Glad to hear that my forwards 'fall back' move wasn't illegal. It certainly made a difference to the outcome of the game as the unit that thus made itself the target of the shooting kept my other unit of knights in the game.

[Stomm]

Claus is right in all his replies, but I feel I should add the following to muddy the waters a little.

In WMA the fall back rule was amended so that you could only move to behind your own battle line. Moving forward with a fall-back move I don't think really threw up too many complaints, but the most common use of the move in my experience at least is when you have a draw, and in this instance it always seemed rather odd...



As to towns. Well, obviously as with all terrain consult with your opponent ideally before even deploying terrain, or if you have fixed terrain (say at an event), then prior to deployment. Unless the town in question is exceptionally large (say more than 20x20cm), then it is in my experience usual to treat the whole thing as dense terrain. So visibility restricted to 2cm, impassable to everything bar infantry, and obviously stands being attacked count as defended for shooting, drivebacks (one less dice), and of course for the first round of combat.


Another alternative, especially for very large urban areas is to treat sections as dense terrain, with one or two roads passing through as open terrain to allow cavalry to pass through, or artillery to be placed, etc... If you really want you can also intersperse a couple of fortress towers, impassable large buildings and so on. I actually think that it would be really interesting to fight a very large battle with at least half the map made up of a huge city, it's walls and the area inside it. That would make for a great demo game at a Games Day if we could both pull enough resources together for it and find a GCN club for us to run it under...

[jchaos79]

Out of subject/topic

As to towns. Well, obviously as with all terrain consult with your opponent ideally before even deploying terrain, or if you have fixed terrain (say at an event), then prior to deployment. Unless the town in question is exceptionally large (say more than 20x20cm), then it is in my experience usual to treat the whole thing as dense terrain. So visibility restricted to 2cm, impassable to everything bar infantry, and obviously stands being attacked count as defended for shooting, drivebacks (one less dice), and of course for the first round of combat.

And one or two city squares to let a cavalry charge in city.
There is a very famous example of these (at least in spain), shown in a Goya painting called La carga de los mamlucos (Mameluco's charge), that shows the elite egyptian mounted troops of Napoleon charging to the spanish insurrect people in a famous square from Madrid.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zSw8YECxVl4/R9lxoeaW9yI/AAAAAAAAA-M/G77-0XhXeOY/s400/La+carga+de+los+mamelucos_Goya.jpg

[Stomm]

There's also the 'Peterloo Massacre', around the same sort of time as it happens:



I don't know of any incidents of medieval cavalry being used in a siege though, which is really what we're talking about. Generally speaking, as with tanks in WWII and now for that matter. You put cavalry in a town with hostile forces nearby, and its going to be dead cavalry pretty quickly. Horses can't get into a house very easily you see...

[Lex]

I don't know of any incidents of medieval cavalry being used in a siege though, which is really what we're talking about. Generally speaking, as with tanks in WWII and now for that matter. You put cavalry in a town with hostile forces nearby, and its going to be dead cavalry pretty quickly. Horses can't get into a house very easily you see...

Represent this easy allowing troops to pursue Cavalry while operating in build-up areas, and restricting Cavalry chargerate

I would guess there is plenty of horse-mounted charges on troops breaking through walls or gates at a siege...  but then in general there was (large) open spaces in those areas of a city. Also plenty of "fluff" evidence in a lot of Fantasy literature. In general those troops will find themselves in trouble when they do NOT rout opponents..... representing this easy allowing troops to pursue Cavalry while operating in build-up areas, and restricting Cavalry chargerate (which makes sense to include in the ongoing Siege-rulesrevision)

[jchaos79]

Represent this easy allowing troops to pursue Cavalry while operating in build-up areas, and restricting Cavalry chargerate

Hey Lex I love this idea! IMO is the best way to simulate

[Lex]

we use that for heavy scrub areas and/or unharvested fields too... 

[Stomm]

Just to interject, when talking about 'charge rates'. Even units that are subject to half pace moves, or charges under initiative still use the full movement of the charging unit. The only exception to this are advance charges, etc...

As to ambushing cavalry in built up areas, there is no need to add needlessly complicated additional rules to allow this to happen. Merely having very limited 'open' areas within these built up areas will ensure that any cavalry used in them gets pounced on and wiped out. Remember you need only push a unit into contact with your own troops or impassable terrain for them to get destroyed. And fo anything other than infantry, difficuilt terrain is impassable, even to flyers as far as combat is concerned...