#1 [url]

May 19 11 10:06 AM

O,

1. Player A is on assualt orders and is moving forward. Player B is on hold orders. Player B's skirmishers happen to be deplyed to the right of his line, taking pot shots at one of Player A's columns and are not covering Player B's line immediately to the front. Player A wins the initiative and moves two btns in line approx 10 cms way from two btns in line belonging to Player B. Player A also puts his 18 skirmishers halfway between his line and player B's line. Is it open to Player B, in his movement phase, to insert his skrimishers between his line and Player A's skirmishers bearing in mind that they will be too close to his own line to be an effective skirmish screen?


The movement of player B's skirmishers is okay, provided he has the movement allowance etc, and so long as he doesn't come within the restricted area of player A's formed units. Not strictly relevant in the context of this question, but I got the distance wrong in the first answer, it is now 30cm, not 20cm. I'd missed that, and it is a significant change for those of us with rifle armed skirmishers (Page 110 11.3.c)

2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, are Player B's skirmishers an effective screen vis-a-vis Player A's skirmishers such that Player A's skirmishers must fire at Player B's skirmishers?


It has less to do with being an effective screen and more to do with target priority, skirmishers first priority target is other skirmishers. (Page 114 - 11.18.1)

3. Even if the answer to 2 is 'yes', in our case, we had 18 Player A skirmishers facing off against 8 Player B skirmishers. Are all of player A's skirmishers required to fire at Player B's skirmishers or would fiire be divided so that, say, 12 Player A skirmishers fire on the Player B skrimishers whilst the other 6 fire at the line behind.


I'd suggest that this would depend on their actual positioning in respect of each other - by this I mean if Player A has 6 figures that have direct line of sight and are with arc of of the formed line, and none of Player B's skirmishers to their direct front then they can fire at the line. :idea: is only included to break up the skirmishers into firing groups

AAAAAA :idea: AAAAAA :idea: AAAAAA

BBBBBB :idea: BB

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Obviously if B's skirmishers are further to his right then they mess up the line of sight, but anyway B can only cover the frontage of 8 of A's figures, so I'd be inclined to say that under most circumstances, 12 of A fire on B's skirmishers and the other 6 should be able to fire on the line as at only 2.5cm between them A would struggle to get all 18 in arc.

That looks and sounds clumsy reading it back, but I hope you can see what I'm suggesting.

In a more general way about the battle, I too have experimented with the oob for the Allies. I've been meaning to sound out people for ages about the grading and size of the Saxons. I have come to the view that there is nothing in the accounts of the battle that suggest that the Saxons were any less enthusiastic that the Prussians. Prince Louis rode up to one battalion to ask for volunteers to form a new skirmish screen after the schutzen got scattered, and the whole battalion stepped forward; individual battalions made repeated attacks after being repulsed etc so I've been grading them all as 1st Line. By the same token I've also been fielding them at 32 figures - they had only just been mobilised, the campaign was only days old, they were in friendly territory etc, so I'm of the opinion that should be at or near full strength. Since they have a 4 company organisation that means 32 figures by my reckoning. Thoughts?