Cavalry Charging

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marshalney2000
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Cavalry Charging

Post by marshalney2000 » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:11 am

Played our first game of blb last night with a good time being had by all. Not surprsingly a few situations came up that we would like to clarify.

a) where cavalry are hit while statioary we could not see that this made any difference in the subsequent melee.

b) whre a cavalry unit is two squadrons deep and the first line is destroyed in the melee (yes he was that lucky with his dice) what happens next.
Thanks in advance
John
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Post by barr7430 » Fri Apr 25, 2008 4:42 pm

Hi John,

here goes:

1. Cavalry hit stationary: The chargers kill on 4,5,6 or 5,6 depending on nationality and period. The stationary cavalry kill ONLY on 6s. so you have potential 6 horse fighting and killing on a 16% chance against 6 horse killing on a 50% chance.. that's a pretty significant advantage. If this is not capitalised upon(luck of the kill dice!) then the second round becomes even steven. All killing on 6s

2. If 2 deep unit is stationary then only the first rank would have fought therefore the victors simply follow on into the second rank(IN THE NEXT ROUND OF MELEE). Everyone is then killing on 6s on that next round. If the two rank unit was charging(ie in the ALL or nothing charge mode) then actually the melee casualties incurred should have been distributed over the two fighting squadrons, if they lost melee then one test is done using the average number of figures across the squadrons as the number to beat or equal on the morale throw.

does this help?
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Post by marshalney2000 » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:11 pm

Thanks that is just what i needed. I cannot promise however that further queries will not arise in future games!!
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Cavalry Charging and Subsequent Melee

Post by Churchill » Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:26 pm

Hi John,

Just to add to Barry's answer for Question a) Page 21. LOSERS - Cavalry losing a melee test morale and are routed if they fail. So you may not even get to a subsequent round of melee.
Question b) Page 22. The "all or nothing" charge - Where a regiment of cavalry charges and has more than 1 squadron in base to base contact with the squadron behind it and upto 4 squadrons, all the front squadron fight, half the second squadron behind it and 2 figures from each subsequent squardron so 6 + 3 + 2 + 2 = 13 figures fight in melee.
All casualties received in the melee on the regiment are divided between the number of squadrons, so in your case (6 casualties divided by 4 squadrons = 1.5).The average number of figures per squadron now is 4.5 rounding up to 5.
If the regiment lost the melee then a morale test must be taken (Page 24)
and a score of 5 or less is required if the regiment is Elite, 4 or less on a D6 if not.Add or subtract modifiers where applicable.
To pass a morale test it must score less than the remaining number of figures in the squadron/regiment on 1 D6.
Barry I have a question.....(Page 24) Cavalry Morale - The first circumstance states.....It has taken casualties this turn.....Does this mean that in a melee even if the winner of the melee takes a casualty it must take a morale test.

Regards...........Ray.

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Post by barr7430 » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:13 pm

Actually Ray that should read

If it has taken casualties from 'shooting' this turn
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Post by obriendavid » Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:09 pm

Barry, here's another question regarding charging cavalry.
Under R2E rules cavalry need to move a certain distance to count as charging or counter charging but I can't see any rules for this under BLB. Have I missed something or have you decided to keep the BLB rules simpler?

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Post by Saxon Warrior » Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:41 pm

Does it not count as charging if the unit moves more than its normal distance?
That's just my opinion of course.

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Post by barr7430 » Fri Jun 27, 2008 11:12 pm

3" for charge speed before contact - means the counter charging unit is allowed the charge contact 'kill' modifiers of 5,6 or 4,5,6. Any less it kills on 6s only even if moving
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Post by obriendavid » Sat Jun 28, 2008 2:59 pm

barr7430 wrote:3" for charge speed before contact - means the counter charging unit is allowed the charge contact 'kill' modifiers of 5,6 or 4,5,6. Any less it kills on 6s only even if moving
Is that actually written in the rules somewhere as I can't find it?
We're having our first big game at the club on Thurs so there might be more questions coming up.

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Post by barr7430 » Sat Jun 28, 2008 5:04 pm

Dave it appears on page 16 under ROUTING & PURSUING : CAVALRY :wink:

WhyI stuck it there I cannot recall :roll:
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Post by obriendavid » Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:42 pm

Thanks for that Barry.

I hope you don't think I'm being awkward asking all these questions?
it's just that the rules are quite different to Koenigkrieg whcih is the usual set we use for Marlburian and we are still trying to get our heads around BLB. Part of the problem is that some of the rules are similar to R2E so we sometimes get the rules mixed up. :oops:

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Cavalry Charging and Subsequent Melee

Post by Churchill » Tue Jul 08, 2008 10:15 pm

Barry,

I have a question concerning the cavalry charge test.
Firstly is a cavalry charge the same as a "all or nothing" charge in regard's to the charge test.In the example it states that if the regiment fails it's test following it's charge declaration it doe's nothing that turn unless it is itself charged.
In the cavalry morale section P24 in the Test Procedure it states "All cavalry will fail the test to charge on a 6 regardless of who they are.In the Results it tells us what happens when the cavalry fail the charge home test "Rout", but not what happens when they fail the charge declaration. On P15 Charging it states troops testing to charge and failing suffer morale depletion commensurate with their score as a result.I'm not 100% sure what this means because a fresh squadron only fails on a 6 anything below that and they charge, so do they dice again if they fail and the result being either 4 + carry on, 3 or 2 shaken, 1 retreat.

Any help please...........Ray.

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Post by barr7430 » Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:24 pm

Firstly is a cavalry charge the same as a "all or nothing" charge in regard's to the charge test.In the example it states that if the regiment fails it's test following it's charge declaration it doe's nothing that turn unless it is itself charged.
CORRECT RAY


In the Results it tells us what happens when the cavalry fail the charge home test "Rout", but not what happens when they fail the charge declaration. On P15 Charging it states troops testing to charge and failing suffer morale depletion commensurate with their score as a result.I'm not 100% sure what this means because a fresh squadron only fails on a 6 anything below that and they charge, so do they dice again if they fail and the result being either 4 + carry on, 3 or 2 shaken, 1 retreat.

Re: above. Infantry and cavalry morale mechanisms are completely differetn Ray (as you of course know) :D If cavalry FAIL a charge test they DO NOTHING unless themselves reacting to a charge. It is not possible for cavalry to get a SHAKEN/RETREAT type morale result. They can of course get RETIRE FROM FIRE which is a sort of SHAKEN equivalent under fire.

Does this explain?
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