Hi, just a question that bothers me since we played ESR.
If, at the end of the Art.&Sk phase a formation has enough fatigue points accumulated from the fire phase to make it to retreat or worse, does we wait until the status check phase at the end of the combat phase or does the result takes effect immediately before combat accurs ?
Thanks
The Status Check only occurs at the end of the Combat Phase, so yes, you wait until then, and Formations only perform a Status Check if they perform an Assessment in Combat. Which means if a Formation reaches the threshold of Retreat [RT] or Break [BK] during the Artillery & Skirmishing Phase, if no Combat Assessment is triggered, then the Formation does not convert to Retreat [RT] or Break [BK].
-David
So in theory a force could take infinite fatigue from skirmish?
Along the same thought, what do you do when you have a force that has taken a lot of fatigue and is still being pummeled, from skirmish and therefore becomes unresponsive to commands? How do you get them out of the killing zone? If the force is defending, I guess you could reorient the battalions out of range, provided that they are still aligned with the objective?
So in theory a force could take infinite fatigue from skirmish?
Yes.
Though in practice, things tend to happen, like the enemy hits them. Or, even if they are stuck on a Defend [D] directive, individual battalions can go to contact with any enemy within 450 yards and 45º. So, there are natural ways the situation can come to resolution.
Along the same thought, what do you do when you have a force that has taken a lot of fatigue and is still being pummeled, from skirmish and therefore becomes unresponsive to commands? How do you get them out of the killing zone? If the force is defending, I guess you could reorient the battalions out of range, provided that they are still aligned with the objective?
That is the problem with allowing a Formation to get pinned, it effectively gets stuck and can become unresponsive. As noted above, individual battalions could potentially go to contact with the enemy to try and decide the issue, or as you indicate, you could reorientate them out of the range of the enemy so long as it does not change the general position of the Formation as a whole.
But frankly, the most practical way to extract them is to send in other troops to take the pressure off of them.
-David
That is the problem with allowing a Formation to get pinned, it effectively gets stuck and can become unresponsive. As noted above, individual battalions could potentially go to contact with the enemy to try and decide the issue, or as you indicate, you could reorientate them out of the range of the enemy so long as it does not change the general position of the Formation as a whole.
But frankly, the most practical way to extract them is to send in other troops to take the pressure off of them.
Thank you for the reply, this is helping me understand how the fine mechanics are working... My follow-up question may be worthy of a different topic, but here is a frequent example:Â
A defending force happens to be on the objective of the enemy and the attacker was forced from a move order to convert to a defend order at 450 yards as they approached their objective. So the two forces are now on a defend order and skirmish and/or shoot artillery at each other. Can the attacker move to contact on a defend order since their objective is occupied by the defender? Or depending on the defenders objective, could the orient themselves into contact with the attacker?
If so, could a farther objective have forces shuffle or crawl toward their objective if they were on a defend order, since they will need to "reorient" themselves based on the defend order, in relation to their objective? Thanks much!
Can the attacker move to contact on a defend order since their objective is occupied by the defender?
Individual Units may move to contact with the enemy if they are within 450 yards and 45º (per 3.6.2).
Or depending on the defenders objective, could the orient themselves into contact with the attacker?
Well, they could orientate themselves so that they have Units within 450 yards and 45º and then could act as above.
If so, could a farther objective have forces shuffle or crawl toward their objective if they were on a defend order, since they will need to "reorient" themselves based on the defend order, in relation to their objective?
The intent of the Defend [D] directive is a Formation nominally stays put in its general area, so moving the Force's objective won't really impact that. You'd want to give it a Move [M] directive to get it moving again.
-David
