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#1 Doug Pappert

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Posted 10 September 2008 - 11:01 AM

Hello,It has been some time since I made a post, but it was about time I did.A couple of weeks ago(yes I know...behind as usual), our game crew played a game of American Battlelines and we had some questions. The game was a ACW game with a Southern Brigade with Artillery was to defend a stretch of road, while an attacking reinforced Northern brigade with two artillery batteries in support, attempted to dislodge them. As not to make this too long, the battle proceeded like this. The Southern troops deployed along a ridge line overlooking the road, while the Union forces approached through a wooded area on the other side of the road. The Union forces came on slowly, keeping their formations in good order. The southern player was able to get a couple of shots off at the blue coats as they approached, with little effect, execpt for a spectacular bit of counter battery fire by the reb artillery battery. In one shot, it took out one of the union batteries with all crew hits, as it tried to deploy in the open. The rest of the battle went like this. The union player moved his troops up and deployed them just on the edge of the woods near the road and sniped at the rebs on the ridge. after several turns of this, the reb comander got frustrated and moved his troops off the ridge and onto the road, as to get better shots at the union forces in the woods. Well, this did not work out very well for him. His forces walked into a storm of union lead. They held on for a cople of turns, but finally, the union forces moved out of their cover and overran the road. This worked great all along the line, except on the union far left, where one union regiment was completely routed by some crazy Texas boys. Well, it was a good game and it could have come out a diferent way. We will need to play this one again. Well, the group had several questions and comments about he rules.1. There seemed to be great confusion about the modifiers for flank and enfelade. Enfelade is explained in the rules, but shouldn't the the flank modifier be for melee and the enfelade for artillery and small arms attacks. On the QRS, ther is a fire modifier for flank and enfelade.2. One of the players wanted to move one of their regiments into a formation called colum of divisions. This is would be represinted as a rigiment in two columns, side by side. This was referenced from another rules set, and we were wondering if you all had thought about making any rules spicific to this?3. There were several questions about rules for keeping to more historical brigade formations? ie...proper placement on the board, how many regiments to properly preform these formations, etc......4. The issue of company size units. It was felt that company size units should just be represented by a 1/2 by 1/2 inch stands with one figure on it for 1 to 20 scale, or two 1/2 by 1/2 stands for 1/10 scale games. The 1 to 10 scale games sees to make more sense for smaller battles.5. There were several questions about weather Art can preform overwatch fire. Some seems to think that to takes more to react to targes with artillery than with rifles. Possibily making the negative modifier larger?6. In overwatch, could a unit choose to use its action to retire, giving up its standard action for the turn? One of the Reb units, on overwatch, saw a union force beyond the range of its guns, and wanted to retire behind the ridge as to stay hidden from the union forces.7. It was the opion of the group that the leader bonus action, should be used for any action exept for a fire action. It was felt that it made some situations a but unballanced.8. I may have missed this in the rules, but would it not make sence if you were attempting to reform as part of your moved and fail to do so, you would cause the unit to gain a one disorder?9. If there is any part of a unit out of a terrain feature, does the unit get the modifiers for that terrain? How much of the unit needs to be out of the terrain for it to loose the modifiers. The situation we had was a union regiment was in a small clump of trees, and had one stand sticking out of one side and one out the other. He had reb units that could see each end, but not the whole unit. 10. We were wondering if you had ever experimented with expending the combat charts so that even with larger kill values, there was still a chance to get 0 casualties with a roll of a 20?11. When charging against a unit in or behind disordering terrain, when are the disorder effects applied to the attacking unit. Before or after the attack results?12. Here is the situation. A unit in line moves onto a "U" shaped fence line. Picture the U on its side. The unit contacts one of the long sides and proceeds to move across and hits the other long side. All this time, not contacting the short(bottom) side. Since it moved in and out of the terrain feature, it gets fidorder from both.....right? What if it had made contact with one of the long sides, but was far enough down to have one of its stands always in contact with the short side. Would this be treated as still being in the same feature and get one disorder, or would you still treat it as two, since the majority of the unit was not incontact at all times with the feature?13. One of the players had a huge fit about an enfelade shot. The firing unit was not at a nice 90 degree angle, but was at an angle that was within the normal firing arc of the unit and was able to trace its line of fire through more than one stand. This is still a good shot. The units do not have to be an exact 90 degree angle........right?Well, this shold give you somethings to think about and respond to for a while.Keep up the good work,Doug

#2 Bob Benge

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Posted 11 September 2008 - 02:29 AM

Hey Doug,There is some good stuff here that I am sure that Don and Jon will love to see as they are working on the upgrade to American Battlelines called Historical Battlelines. I hope that they get to this thread soon. I'll let them know about your questions. :)

#3 Jonathan Coulter

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Posted 11 September 2008 - 12:05 PM

Howdy Doug! Some great questions here. I’ll try to give you some equally great answers.1) Both modifiers are valid. Enfilade is defined as gunfire directed along the length of a target. So a frontal shot on a column would enfilade, as would a solid flank shot on a line. A side shot on a column would be a flank shot. Likewise, a side shot on a line that does not otherwise meet the definition of enfilade would also be a flank shot (see also the answer to #13).2) Columns of divisions will be addressed in the new Historical BattleLines. No concrete rule at the moment, but it is on my list to add.3) I’m not sure I understand your question here, can you be more specific?4) Interesting idea. I will add this one to my idea folder and play it out.5) I’m seriously toying with the idea of removing overwatch totally from the rules. It isn’t really historical, has caused confusion in some cases, and is generally forgotten about anyway. I think it is one of those extraneous rules that really doesn’t add much to the game.6) Within the current spirit of the rule, I would find using Overwatch to retire to be acceptable.7) Making this a house rule is certainly an option. However, I find using the command action to fire historically acceptable. It simply represents a commander taking a personal interest in that part of the battle and more effectively directing the unit’s fire. HOWEVER, I am toying with the idea of requiring the recipient unit to pass a TQ check first. Failure would mean the unit did not understand the order, the regimental commander disregarding it, the aid carrying the order getting delayed, etc, etc.8) Yes, if you fail a reform check you are disordered +1. I don’t have a copy of the rules handy to point out chapter and verse.9) This needs to be a GM call, or if there is no GM the players need to exercise good judgment. Basically, I would rule if the unit is more than half out of the terrain then the terrain modifier would not apply. EXCEPT possibly in the case of your example where some are out opposite sides of the terrain.10) No, I haven’t. Primarily because rolling a “20” results in a reduction of ammo, so it already has one bad result being applied to it. I think it would be unfair to apply two negative results.11) The disorder modifier take effect at the feature causing the disorder.12) First, crossing both long sections would indeed be two disorders. As for the second part of your question, this would be a judgment call on the part of the GM. The way I read your question, one company would be straddling the short fence section as it moved forward, but not actually crossing it. I would not give a penalty in this case.13) Well, I don’t think in a real battle you will see a regimental commander maneuvering his unit to get into a perfectly 90 degree angle to get the best results from his fire. I may consider a change requiring two full stands must be crossed to get enfilade, otherwise the shot is simply a flank shot.




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