An isolated unit is attacked by a force that is able to bring 9 points of threat against it. Example a stand on each flank and a stand on its front face. Each stands has a threat of 3, add 1 for forces CO, and minus 1 fatigue, for a total of 9.Â
The attacking forces rolls 2d6 and rolls a 7. The total fatigue is 15 against a cohesive of 1.
My questions:
1) Is this fatigue applied to the units parent unit and the unit routes to the reformation area?
2) Is the unit destroyed? If so does the parent unit receive any fatigue?
If the isolated unit is an artillery stand, does this change the results?
Bob
1) Is this fatigue applied to the units parent unit and the unit routes to the reformation area?
The Fatigue is applied to the parent Formation and the Unit will Rout to the Reformation Area per 8.10.2.Routing Units.
2) Is the unit destroyed? If so does the parent unit receive any fatigue?
#1 is effectively the case, #2 does not apply.
If the isolated unit is an artillery stand, does this change the results?
It means that per 8.10.2.Routing Units the Artillery Unit is removed but otherwise it does not change the result.
An isolated unit is attacked by a force that is able to bring 9 points of threat against it. Example a stand on each flank and a stand on its front face. Each stands has a threat of 3, add 1 for forces CO, and minus 1 fatigue, for a total of 9.Â
The attacking forces rolls 2d6 and rolls a 7. The total fatigue is 15 against a cohesive of 1.
A couple notes/clarifications about this situation:
This is a pretty rare circumstance simply because if there is *any* Threat against the parent Formation's main body, then the Cohesion used for the Assessment is the *higher* of the main body and the isolated Unit (per 8.6.Determining Cohesion). So, for this situation to occur, not only does a Unit need to be isolated from its parent Formation, and have a bunch of Threat thrown against it, but the parent Formation's main body must also not have any Threat coming in at it, because otherwise it effectively negates the situation's concern.
Additionally, even if this situation does occur, the isolated Unit would still receive the Cohesion Bonus of its Formation's Commander, so making the situation even more rare, the Formation Commander would also have to be dead or otherwise unavailable.
The last circumstance that could make this situation at least a little more likely, is that the target Formation has enough Fatigue to drive the net-Cohesion down to '1'.
We gamed out this sort of extreme scenario during development and play testing and we tinkered with putting in maximum and minimum conditions in order to prevent a Formation from taking a ton of Fatigue because a single Unit got run over, but it was awkward and created new corner case problems. Ultimately we determined the odds of this situation were low enough that we really didn't need to solve it, especially when the solutions introduced new problems. Really it all comes down to the fact that it is difficult to both completely isolate a single Unit *and* avoid placing any Threat on an additional portion of that Unit's Formation that would cause 8.6 to kick in and raise the Cohesion being Assessed against.
Hope that helps!
-David
David,
Bob and I game together. The very first games of the new version we played had this happen about 4 times. Granted it did have several unusual reasons for it to occur. However, we have had it occur in almost every game we play.Â
When several small formations which include artillery face a large formation it will occur. The large formation is attacked or attacks. At least one of the small formations receive enough fatigues to withdraw. It immediately does so leaving its unlimbered artillery behind. The gun does not have to be in cohesion. The rest of the formation withdraws. During the next command phase the gun is unable to be limbered due to the fatigues or bad die roll. It is attacked again and receives a bunch of fatigues. As Bob outlined. The small formation is now broken. Again we had it happen so many times the first game to make it seem a real problem. We have had it happen in every game till we just decided to make a table rule that the guns react the same as in retreat.
However, we were wondering if since the battery was not in cohesion whether that meant that it takes the damage and not the whole formation. But your answer above means that is wrong as well.
We are also having another problem. We were testing the rules out to play a full version of Waterloo. When we realized that the French grand battery could really hurt Picton's division behind the ridge by merely firing at the guns that are forward. Plus I am not sure if a formation can hide from guns behind a hill if the guns are within 900 yards. Assuming the minor ridge is not rough terrain. If it is then by not touching the rough terrain the formation is not a target but the guns are.
"When several small formations which include artillery face a large formation it will occur. The large formation is attacked or attacks. At least one of the small formations receive enough fatigues to withdraw. It immediately does so leaving its unlimbered artillery behind. The gun does not have to be in cohesion. The rest of the formation withdraws. During the next command phase the gun is unable to be limbered due to the fatigues or bad die roll. It is attacked again and receives a bunch of fatigues. As Bob outlined. The small formation is now broken. Again we had it happen so many times the first game to make it seem a real problem. We have had it happen in every game till we just decided to make a table rule that the guns react the same as in retreat."
It was found that if a unit was on defend, and a unit that attacked it took enough damage to withdraw, the defending unit could attack the artillery that was left behind. This would put enough fatigue on the target unit that it would either have to retreat or be broken. This was the case even if the unit that withdrew fell back behind a unit that was stationed behind the it.
Thanks to both of you for the context.
Out of curiosity – what ground scale are you playing at? Also, do you use limber stands with your Artillery Batteries or only gun stands?
When we realized that the French grand battery could really hurt Picton's division behind the ridge by merely firing at the guns that are forward.
The Artillery could be detached as a Leader Action to form a separate Formation which would suffer the Fatigue.
Plus I am not sure if a formation can hide from guns behind a hill if the guns are within 900 yards.
Depends on whether the hill blocks line-of-sight/awareness – which is ultimately a scenario determination, so in the case of Waterloo, the answer is: probably.
-David
David asked: "Out of curiosity – what ground scale are you playing at? Also, do you use limber stands with your Artillery Batteries or only gun stands?"
We are primarily using 100yds per inch. Bob mostly does not use limbers. I mostly do. As I have spent the money and time to have what are essentially worthless toys on the field. We both use 15s for ESR. I understand your point that the artillery paraphernalia behind the guns do make a rough area to move through. My guns are taking up 150 yards of area on my stands already, ignoring the limber Which would make it at least 350 yards.
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David said: "The Artillery count be detached as a Leader Action to form a separate Formation which would suffer the Fatigue."
Individually? If so do they receive their own Reformation area (possibly represented by the limber or another one)?
As a group? Essentially like a grand battery? or really just a bunch of scattered guns essentially under the leadership of a non-represented general? This could work. And also means that they will be taking Fatigue from the French grand battery because they are being fired upon and either firing back or trying not to fire back (per orders).
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David said: "Depends on whether the hill blocks line-of-sight/awareness – which is ultimately a scenario determination, so in the case of Waterloo, the answer is: probably."
Okay, that alters my perception of what you have written. Actual honest to goodness LOS breaking terrain is also able to break "awareness". So if the artillery on the front of the ridge is a separate formation and the formation behind the ridge (which is a LOS break) is unable to be seen and therefore the French grand battery is "unaware" of it.
Lloyd
We are primarily using 100yds per inch. Bob mostly does not use limbers. I mostly do. As I have spent the money and time to have what are essentially worthless toys on the field. We both use 15s for ESR. I understand your point that the artillery paraphernalia behind the guns do make a rough area to move through. My guns are taking up 150 yards of area on my stands already, ignoring the limber Which would make it at least 350 yards.
The reason I ask is that the limbers aren't considered "worthless toys" in ESR, they are a part of the Artillery Battery, so when your Infantry Battalions fallback after the Formation Converts involuntarily to Withdraw [W], assuming the limber stand is present as assumed – the Artillery Battery is *probably* still Cohesive with the Infantry Battalions. This would likely have a significant impact on the math of the Threat Assessment.
Individually? If so do they receive their own Reformation area (possibly represented by the limber or another one)?
As a group? Essentially like a grand battery? or really just a bunch of scattered guns essentially under the leadership of a non-represented general? This could work. And also means that they will be taking Fatigue from the French grand battery because they are being fired upon and either firing back or trying not to fire back (per orders).
The Leader Action: Create a Formation (per 3.4.1) allows a player to break off some number of Units to create a new Formation. All Formations require a Reformation Area – so yes it would need one even if the Formation is a single Artillery Battery, and no the limber stand would not be that Reformation Area as the limber stand is part of the Artillery Battery.
If the player wished to add other Artillery Batteries from another Formation, those Artillery Batteries would need to be Cohesive with the Formation they were intended to be absorbed into (per 3.4.2).
A Grand Battery functions differently and has different requirements (per 3.5).
And also means that they will be taking Fatigue from the French grand battery because they are being fired upon and either firing back or trying not to fire back (per orders).
Just to clarify one point – in ESR a Unit may not "choose" not to Threaten, Threat is automatic. So if there is a valid target and the Artillery Battery is unlimbered it will Threaten that target. If you're referring to the intention of the historical actors and just being descriptive, then no worries and just ignore my clarification.
Actual honest to goodness LOS breaking terrain is also able to break "awareness".
The design presumption is that Artillery has to be able to sight the fall of rounds to be able to perform effective fire and thus Threaten. The philosophy behind the writing of ESR is to design for the general case. Anything that falls outside of the "general case", as we designed it, is intended to be addressed in scenarios where it applies. You can observe this in our ESR Campaign Guides. Our working notion is that replicating specific historical battles can take a lot of painstaking work to replicate unique conditions and situations, but players who wish to just setup a fictional/hypothetical game will have a different, lesser number of considerations which can be addressed by the general case rules. This is why you won't see rules for addressing knocking out bridges with fire rafts in the ESR Series 3 rulebook, but such a thing should generally get addressed in a scenario for Aspern-Essling.
So if the artillery on the front of the ridge is a separate formation and the formation behind the ridge (which is a LOS break) is unable to be seen and therefore the French grand battery is "unaware" of it.
Yes. There's also the question of range. The starting condition you explained indicated that the opposing Artillery were within range of each other, once the Infantry is separated into another Formation, the ridge may well prevent the French Artillery from Threatening it – if it is even still in range.
-David
We are primarily using 100yds per inch. Bob mostly does not use limbers. I mostly do. As I have spent the money and time to have what are essentially worthless toys on the field. We both use 15s for ESR. I understand your point that the artillery paraphernalia behind the guns do make a rough area to move through. My guns are taking up 150 yards of area on my stands already, ignoring the limber Which would make it at least 350 yards.
The reason I ask is that the limbers aren't considered "worthless toys" in ESR, they are a part of the Artillery Battery, so when your Infantry Battalions fallback after the Formation Converts involuntarily to Withdraw [W], assuming the limber stand is present as assumed – the Artillery Battery is *probably* still Cohesive with the Infantry Battalions. This would likely have a significant impact on the math of the Threat Assessment.
Sorry, finally figured out how to do the quotes in your program. I mean worthless toys as in in most games they are. I would however beg to differ about the limbers adding that much of a foot print. Unless in march column the battery is not necessarily that long. 150 yards is more than deep enough to represent an artillery company in battery and a company on the move. Bob's basing is deeper than mine so his are 200 yards deep just for the unlimbered company. The known depth of a company in battery is really hard to estimate, I have for decades tried to find this and it is so variable as to be impossible to state. Even the frontage is so loose as to be hard to estimate and my bases cannot contract.
Yes, the guns depth might matter. (Just to clarify we were using the limbers at the time.) This just makes it worse. If the left behind unlimbered guns always affect the small formation, either because they are in coherence, or they are not and no other stands are in coherence, we get the same affect. The gun+general+what is left of the brigade minus a lot of fatigues brought us down to negative numbers several times in the first game. We figured out that having the remains of the brigade coherent might help but with 2 or more fatigues it was possible to be overwhelmed when a brigade starts with 3 or 4 units, then add in the bad terrain! Lloyd
Individually? If so do they receive their own Reformation area (possibly represented by the limber or another one)?
As a group? Essentially like a grand battery? or really just a bunch of scattered guns essentially under the leadership of a non-represented general? This could work. And also means that they will be taking Fatigue from the French grand battery because they are being fired upon and either firing back or trying not to fire back (per orders).
The Leader Action: Create a Formation (per 3.4.1) allows a player to break off some number of Units to create a new Formation. All Formations require a Reformation Area – so yes it would need one even if the Formation is a single Artillery Battery, and no the limber stand would not be that Reformation Area as the limber stand is part of the Artillery Battery.
If the player wished to add other Artillery Batteries from another Formation, those Artillery Batteries would need to be Cohesive with the Formation they were intended to be absorbed into (per 3.4.2).
A Grand Battery functions differently and has different requirements (per 3.5).
Yeah, I understood all of that but most of that could be done before the scenario started as Wellington can do that before the attack.
As to the Reformation areas for each gun, that is getting a little much for a single battery.
Yes, Wellington said "do not fire" that can also cause real fatigue. But since our toys do not track ammo, the fatigue is essentially doing that. Lloyd
I would however beg to differ about the limbers adding that much of a foot print.
The question of how deep any historical element was is quite debatable, but not relevant here. The reason I asked if you were using limbers as prescribed by the rules is that it changes the determination of Cohesion and impacts the game play mechanics.
Yes, the guns depth might matter. (Just to clarify we were using the limbers at the time.) This just makes it worse.
The Threat-to-Cohesion Ratio is determined by comparing the total Threat against a Formation to the highest Cohesion of the Threatened portions (per . If the Threatened Artillery Battery is Cohesive with the rest of its Formation, then the Cohesion of the target is higher than if the Threatened Artillery is not Cohesive, thus necessarily improving the ratio from the perspective of the target (the Formation's Fatigue could offset this but it would make it a neutral result not worsen it).
Going back to your original post: the "isolated" Artillery Unit would have a Cohesion of '1' (it should also add that of the Formation Commander, so probably a net-Cohesion of 2? minus whatever Fatigue the Formation has).
Refining that based on the circumstances you added in your subsequent posts, the Artillery Unit is isolated because the Infantry of its Formation have pulled back when the Formation Converted involuntarily to a Withdraw [W] Directive. A Formation Withdraws [W] is at ≥1/2:1 Fatigue-to-Cohesion, so if the Infantry remains Cohesive with the Artillery, the Threat-to-Cohesion number just got better for the Artillery because instead of being '2' – Fatigue, it is now '2' + X – Fatigue, where X is the rest of the Cohesive Units.
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-David
