Honour Forums

Discuss the Honour system.

1. Great Redoubt
   Member

   Hello,

   I picked up a copy of the rules yesterday at my FLGS. The presentation is nice and so far things look pretty logical. Will need to play a game or two of course before making any judgements.

   One question about interpenetration of units: For a tactical game, it seems to me that the rules are pretty liberal concerning the ability of regular cavalry & infantry units to move through each other, especially when in close proximity to the enemy.

   Is there a particular rationale for this? At a brigade-level game I can understand this, but I would think at the tactical level moving one formed unit through another 'while close to the enemy' would be a very risky proposition that most commanders wouldn't willingly undertake.

   Thanks,

   Bart

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. Sam Mustafa
   Le Grand Fromage

   There is of course a whole long debate about the question of "passage of lines." And then there's the debate between the people who argued that artillery batteries were massive parking lots of horses, men, and vehicles that nobody dared move through... and those who argue that infantry and cavalry advanced through their friendly gun lines all the time (I'm obviously in that latter camp.)

   My decision was to make it depend upon a Disc Test, and then upon simple geometry. If you are so close to the enemy that you can't pass through and clear without contacting the enemy, you obviously can't do it. And since you can't charge the enemy and interpenetrate in the same turn, then you'd be placing yourself at some considerable risk to just hang there in front of him, or to fail the test and create a traffic jam that might complicate your efforts to React by fallback or formation change.

   Finally, if interpenetration near the enemy was extremely difficult, then we need to consider what was happening in all of those very fluid cavalry actions, when one line of squadrons fell back, and the second, fresh line went forward. Surely they weren't taking a big detour and riding around each other.

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. steve lampon
   Member

   :)
   Can a unit interpenetrate a friendly unit whilst using retrograde movement with both units being 'near the enemy'?

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. Sam Mustafa
   Le Grand Fromage

   If you have the movement allowance to do it, and move completely clear of the stationary unit, AND you pass the Disc Test, then Yes.

   It can also happen as a Fall-Back, which would necessitate the Disc Test to see if additional DISR were inflicted.

   Posted 2 years ago #

5. SteveM
   Member

   Sam

   On the subject of fall back and interpenetration.

   If a fall back exposes a unit of infantry, can that newly exposed infantry fire, even though it was not eligible at the begining of the turn?

   Steve

   Posted 2 years ago #

6. Sam Mustafa
   Le Grand Fromage

   Yes.

   (Surely we all long for that cinematic moment when your Cossacks melt away in the face of the oncoming French Cuirassiers, revealing the massed batteries of the Russian artillery reserve....)

   Posted 2 years ago #

7. Great Redoubt
   Member

   Hi Sam,

   Thanks for replying.

   I can understand your point concerning the cavalry actions... it's difficult to model. I was more thinking of the classic 'passage of lines' issue you noted where infantry battalions would have to somehow make gaps in the line (forming column or running like dogs...) to permit the second line to advance.

   I guess I based my question on experience with other rules sets where more-or-less free interpenetration (of infantry units especially) was used as a sort of 'get out of jail free' card to allow gamers to get units where they needed to be without having to really think about unit placement earlier in the game.

   Posted 2 years ago #

8. EagleSixFive
   Member

   We find you fail the Disc Test when needed most. 8-)

   Posted 2 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.