Bataille Empire

Thought experiment:

If a cav charges a inf that is next to a art. Before the charge the art had no targets directly ahead of it. As it stands the art could support the combat next to it. But lets say that the cav brings in a support unit and that unit moves so that it is directly ahead of the art.
-Does this mean that since the art now has a target in front of it that it can no longer support the combat. I so not recall any rules for firing on a supporting unit in order to affect the combat.

Good thought all the shooting has to be targeted at the principle unit so in this case if target priority applies it wouldn't be able to support. which doesn't make sense.

Adrian and I have debated this at length. There are two views:
1) Artillery in the period set up to fire in a particular direction. The field pieces cannot easily be re-aligned. Hence the target priority rule applies in all phases and a battery will not target an enemy not directly to its front to shoot an enemy not directly threatening it.
2) Artillery batteries are flexible enough to target enemy in opportunity fire when these are charging friends on their flanks. Hence the support fire overrides the target priority in this case.
Neither of us has convinced the other. I believe we will simply accept the author's opinion when we get it.

Firing on a supporting unit DOES affect combat. Units engaged by the enemy cannot be counted for support.

Roger
The cav would not be engaging the art though. If they were exchanging fire then sure but cav cannot shoot.

RogerGreenwood a écrit : ↑
ven. 25 juin 2021 21:37
Adrian and I have debated this at length. There are two views:
1) Artillery in the period set up to fire in a particular direction. The field pieces cannot easily be re-aligned. Hence the target priority rule applies in all phases and a battery will not target an enemy not directly to its front to shoot an enemy not directly threatening it.
2) Artillery batteries are flexible enough to target enemy in opportunity fire when these are charging friends on their flanks. Hence the support fire overrides the target priority in this case.
Neither of us has convinced the other. I believe we will simply accept the author's opinion when we get it.

I dont buy into #1.
- They are on wheels right....
- In the game they already have a 45 degree field of fire.
- They can prolong 2 UD but cant aim at something close?

To your first point, the cavalry may not be firing on the gun, but they are being engaged by the artillery. One presumes coming under artillery fire is a sufficient distraction to take their mind off a support task.

Whoops, I was wrong there. You are correct. Fire from artillery does not prevent morale support because artillery is not a formed unit.
In view of this I am changing my opinion. Option two looks to be better. If not there would be an odd situation where the artillery would have no effect on the combat.

Maybe this might resolve our issue with target priority. p50 Firing priorities. "When several targets are available a unit selects it's target by the following priorities." So during the charge phase only primary charging units can be valid targets. Other non-primary charging units are not available to be fired at.

p47 Fire support: "Fire support allows supporting a combat from a distance by firing at the enemy's PRIMARY unit."

I believe that the Halifax players will be agreed now. I was the one who needed convincing.

We are now looking at the suggestion from the author that target priorities should be by range band. I.e. the first priority targets to consider are the short range ones, then the effective range etc. This definitely is not stated in the rules, but is the intent apparently.
We have two games being played side by side tomorrow. We shall see if there are more issues.

Bataille Empire

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