Roy K. Bartoo - 09:01pm Jun 12, 2001 PST (#1218 of 1221)

Pushed the counters around for Line of Fire: Maipo tonight. Came up with
some questions.

5.2 Stacking.

(a) Can units change their stacking order when their command is activated?

(b) Can units that are in the frontal hex of an enemy unit change their
stacking order?

(c) Can units of both sides change their stacking order after a Shock
combat?

(d) Assume two infantry units are stacked. Could the top unit fire, then
the bottom unit change stacking order to become the top unit, and fire
(thus getting around the 5.23 rule that only the top unit in a stack can
fire)?

(e) When a hex becomes stacked, I assume the owning player can put his
units in whatever stacking order he desires?

5.34 Facing. Can units change facing after:

(a) Advances/Retreats due to combat?

(b) failed countercharge?

(c) pre-Shock withdrawal?

6.12 Movement and Firing. It appears from the rules that units fire/move
individually. So it would be legal for a unit to move, fire, then
another unit moves into the same hex, puts itself at the top of the
stack, and also fires (again, to get around the 5.23 rule that only the
top unit may fire)?

6.14 Reaction Fire. As this is listed in the rules section covering
Small Arms (6.1), artillery therefore does not get either variety of
Reaction Fire, correct?

6.33 Cavalry and Shock Combat. Does a Charging Cavalry unit still have
to make a Commitment die roll, or is that subsumed in the Charge die
roll?

6.38 Play Note. I assume the Maipo Terrain Effects Chart is in error: it
lists the Shock effect of clear terrain as -1, whereas in Lundy’s Lane
(and per comment in the rules) the Shock effect should be +1 to the
Attacker’s Shock Die Roll, correct?

6.41 Cavalry and Shock attacks. 6.41 says “Cavalry can Shock only when
they Charge”. 6.43 says [Cavalry that spent 2+ movement points to enter
any hex] “may still Shock attack ... but does not receive any Charge
bonus.” Can Cavalry which does NOT Charge, still Shock attack?

6.44 {Charging Cavalry] “They incur Movement Reaction Fire ... If such
fire disorders them ...” It appears that Artillery cannot Reaction Fire,
and there is no way for infantry fire to Disorder anything, so this is
irrelevant?

6.46 “Cavalry that is charged from its Flank or rear ... may turn and
face the incoming cavalry ...”

(a) So if it is being Shock attacked by non-Charging cavalry, it can’t
change facing?

(b) I assume it can both change facing AND attempt counter-charge?

(c) Can it change facing even if it is in the frontal hex of an enemy unit?

Minor errata: Some of the names on the counters for Maipo are slightly
different from the names in the setup:

Mongado/Morgado

Chilean (Cav)/Chillan

Morla/Mora

The Royalist setup lists the artillery units by their names, the
counters have only the commander to whom they are attached, i.e.

1st Chilean artillery Brigade is las Heras’ artillery

2nd Chilean Artillery Brigade is Alvarado’s artillery,

Argentine Artillery Squadron is Quintana’s artillery

Setup calls for 4x12 pounders in 1613, there are only two (Quintana’s)

All of Arellano’s cavalry units are labelled Ch Cz/a: there should be a
Ch Cz/a, Ch Cz/b, Andes Cz/a and Andes Cz/b. At least according to the
setup, these are two separate battalions, the Chilean and Andes
Cazadores à Caballo battalions.

Roy

Richard H. Berg - 09:12am Jun 13, 2001 PST (#1220 of 1221)
"I like talking about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything
about." O. Wilde.

Answers for Roy on LINE OF FIRE:

5.2 (a): Yes; (b) No; (C) No; (d) No; (e) No, units moving into a hex
from an hex other than the stationary unit's frontal hex are placed on
the bottom. (Visualize the actual movement of men.)

5.34. (a) Yes (b) No (c) Yes

6.12. No; see above.

6.14. This section was wrongly located; artillery has Reaction Fire
capability.

6.33. Subsumed in the Charge DR

6.38 Maipo Terrain Effects: Typo. Should be +1.

6.41 Hmmmmm. Erratatime. Let's change that to Cavalry receives that +2
DRM only when they charge; not when they just attack (which they can do)

6.44 As you see, above, they do have Reaction Fire.

6.46. (a) It can (b) Yes (c) No

Royalist artillery: true, but obviously not a problem as you figured it
out.

Quintana's 12-pounders. That should say 2 counters (representing 4 guns;
the '4' probably left over from a prior rendition).

You are correct about the mis-identification of Arellano's cavalry. If I
hadn't sold out the game, I'd change it. However, the ratings and
command color are correct, which is the important point.

RHB

Roy K. Bartoo - 09:45pm Jun 15, 2001 PST (#1222 of 1225)

Rich, sorry to interupt the ConRails discussion, but three more
Maipo/Line of Fire (I know things about pigeons!) questions, and a
couple of comments.

Setup. Do formations have to set up to occupy all of their listed setup
hexes? Several formations (such as the Infantes Don Carlos, and either
the 7th Andes or 3rd Chilean battalions of Quintana) will set up with at
least one unit out of command if they are required to occupy all of the
setup hexes listed.

6.72 Who Retreats. A situation came up in the game: a defending unit had
hits equal to its morale, and so dies on the next hit. A stack of
attackers entered the hex for shock combat. The dice rolled such that
the attackers suffered two hits, the defender one (and was thus
eliminated). According to a literal reading of this rules section, the
attackers still have to retreat (having suffered more hits). I assume
instead that, if the defender is eliminated, the attacker does not have
to retreat regardless of how many hits they suffered in the process.

6.75 Retreats.

(a) If a stack of units is forced to retreat into an enemy frontal hex,
does the entire STACK take 1 hit, or does EACH unit in the stack take 1
hit?

(b) Do the frontal hexes of the units that just engaged in the Shock
combat qualify for inflicting the additional hit? Consider two
situations. In the first, an attacker in the defender’s frontal hexes
makes their Commitment roll and enters Shock combat, but loses and is
forced to retreat. Retreating back into the hex it came from, which is
in the frontal hex of the victorious defending unit, costs it an
additional hit? Second situation, three attackers enter Shock combat
with a defending hex - if they enter the hex in such with facings 120
degrees apart, all of the hexes adjacent to the combat hex are covered
by their frontal hexes (until they have to adjust facing after the Shock
combat), so the defender in retreating would be forced to suffer an
additional hit?

In this latest playing, San Martin and the army of the Andes lost. The
battle opened with the both of the Andes cavalry formations (brigades?
Arellano and Zapiola) concentrating on their right, to fall upon the
isolated Royalist cavalry formation (Morgado). The Royalists were able
to activate their small cavalry reserve formation (Rodriguez) to try and
rescue Morgado, but a series of Andes activations eliminated two of
Morgado’s three units. In the process, however, Arellano strayed too
close to the Royalist infantry line, and the Mora’s Royalist infantry
fell on the rear of Arellano’s horsemen who were still engaged with
Rodriguez. The Andes horse was getting badly shot up, trapped with
little or no place to retreat. So the Andes infantry of las Heras and
Alvarado moved up, to try and take Mora in the flank - and were promptly
flanked by the Royalist right under Ordoñez. In short order, las Heras
and Alvarado both lost two units, as stacks were unable to retreat, with
Mora advancing on the left and Ordoñez on the right. San Martin sent his
reserve, Quintana, to try and salvage the battle, but the Royalists were
on a roll (it being much easier to more forward that to retreat). With
11 Andes and 2 Royalist units in the deadpile, San Martin failed his
battle-loss roll and fled the field.

The game was fun, although the stacking gets pretty tight (and I can’t
clip the counters, as the information is too close to the corners).
Three things bothered me about the game.

Firstly, morale seems to play too small a role. It has four effects
under the rules-as-written (RAW). Sometimes units have to make a morale
check not to be disordered by artilery bombardment; they have to make a
morale check to charge or enter shock combat; low morale serves as a
tie-breaker for retreat from shock combat; and when units have hits in
excess of their morale, they are eliminated. As a result, Disordered
status is unusual, and even units that are shot to pieces march
perfectly around the enemy flank to get off another volley.

Secondly, the consequences of failing a countercharge check are
frequently less dangerous than the consequences of passing the check.
The following happened several times in each game: the attacking cavalry
passes its charge checks, and several cavalry units come galloping
towards a single defending cavalry unit that is one or two hits away
from elimination. The defender makes a countercharge attempt. If they
fail, they are Disordered, retreat several hexes and are still alive and
temporarily out of harm’s way. If the defender should, by misfortune,
pass their countercharge check, they are almost certain to be eliminated
in the Shock combat.

Thirdly, the mobility seems too high. I realize that you want to keep
what Jim Dunnigan called “the illusion of movement”, but with infantry
moving six hexes and cavalry nine, the illusion was more reminiscent of
a bar fight - or perhaps the old Richtofen’s War. When it is my
activation, my units swirl around behind the enemy to either shoot
without being shot at, or assault them from the flank/rear. When it is
the enemy’s activation, such of his units as are not pinned in frontal
hexes return the favor, swinging around to take my units in the
flank/rear. Battlelines, like plans, do not survive contact with the
enemy in this game.

I’m going to try a couple of house rules to address these issues, but
I’d like your thoughts on them.

First, whenever a unit takes a hit by fire, or loses a shock combat, it
rolls against its adjusted morale, failure makes it Disordered. This
should also slow the pace of the game down, as a couple of activations
of combat should leave the map littered with semi-effective disordered
units.

Second, when cavalry fail a countercharge by more than 2, they remain in
place, are Disordered, and suffer the Shock combat in its full g(l)ory.
Thus, cavalry that is relatively fresh should be able to countercharge;
that which has moderate damage is likely to skedaddle; cavalry with
severe damage is more likely to be too disorganized to charge or
withdraw effectively.

Third, cut the movement rates of infantry and cavalry by 1/3, to 4 and 6
respectively. This will hopefully reduce the ‘Richtofen’s War’ effect,
as now units will not have the movement points to make wide tactical
manuevers. It will also, I think, reduce the effect of one player
getting several activations - he will not be able to move his entire
army into contact with a portion of the enemy line before the enemy is
likely to get a chance to react.

I’ll let you know how these house rules work out.

Roy

Richard H. Berg - 12:15pm Jun 16, 2001 PST (#1225 of 1225)
"I like talking about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything
about." O. Wilde.

Roy B . . .

Maipo Set-up: Units that are adjacent to units in command are also in
command. (Should be in the rules, but probably isn't because I do try to
keep them short . . . Consider it the victim of downsizing.)

6.72: Interesting what doesn't come up in testing. Your assumption
seems reasonable.

6.75 (a) 1 Hit per Stack (consider that guy blocking for the others,
taking one for the team, as it were)

(b) Yes. However, your first example is a No, as you don't take a hit
from retreating into the hex from which you came.

Good to see the Royalists win. Feeling was the fix was in for San
Martin. And the game was designed not so much as a on-spot histo-sim,
but rather a fun, blaze-and-crash away battle. Lots of action . . . sort
of like a Michael Bay movie.

The Movement allowances for scale are the same as for practically every
other tac battle game around. Thing is, with smaller battles, everyone
just seems that much faster . . . and the activation mechanic
exacerbates that.

You want to make changes, go ahead. No giant hand will come out of a
closet and slap you around. But it becomes Your game then, not mine,
Whether this is bad or good depends on how you view that sort of thing.

For example, whenever I play one of The Gamer's SCS games - e.g.,
TUNISIA - (which isn';t that often, but . . .) I always allow the
non-phasing player to React during the phasing player's turn, not after.
Dean and I have had many conversations about this, replete with about a
dozen reasons, 11 of which I find specious. But that's his view. No one
chastizes me when I play it my way . . . the joys of solitaire.

RHB