Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Trajan · Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 12:26 pm Post subject: Maybe Elephants ate your baby

Question about shooting elephants.

Figure 8-4 says the elephant can not be a target and then refers to 12.42. Which states that elephant can be seen over any troops.

So if you can see them, why can't you shoot them?

Matt

scott holder · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 3:27 pm Post subject:

8.7 is the limiting factor here. You can't shoot over intervening troops unless stone-throwers or bolt-shooters in certain circumstances.

Now, if that line in 8.4 from element A1 could trace to the elephant unit, then it could shoot.

I can see how the wording in Example 8.4 creates some confusion. If the elephant unit (Unit Y) weren't an elephant unit, than everything in Example 8.4 reads correctly. Because it's elephants, the wording is confusing.

The key is always remember you can't shoot over intervening troops except stone-throwers or bolt-shooters as outlined in section 8.7.

Of course, I remain open to be corrected. Embarassed

scott

lilroblis

I thought at Cold Wars the followup said you could shoot over intervening troops - is this what I should plan for Historicon?
On Military matters was who followed up
Robert

scott holder · Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:26 pm Post subject:

Was there a follow up posted here somewhere? If so, please point me to it.

scott

Fred Stratton · Recruit Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 22

Scott, see pm I sent you.

Fred

scott holder · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:05 pm Post subject:

Fred came to the rescue. We did talk about this post-Cold Wars. So ignore the above and go with the following:

Missile armed shooters may NOT shoot over *friends* at the same elevation.

Elephants, due to visibility rules (see 13.15 and others), are legal targets
to missile armed troops over intervening *enemy* bodies. Of course, the elephants, as a target, must reflect the priorities listed in 8.3. Also, as stated in 8.3, elephants in HTH, even if every base is in contact, are eligible targets.

So, in the limited example of this, the El in the example are a legal target. This is from a back and forth with Jon back in 2005 that Fred found after Cold Wars 2011 when this issue came up and I ruled DIFFERENTLY (of course).

scott

joncleaves · Moderator Joined: 29 Mar 2006 Posts: 16447

For those who care, the history behind this is that missile fire is a very inexact science in this time period. What we see as simple shooting over friends would be in reality hundreds of missiles falling short into a friendly body. Which would piss them off and ultimately be discouraged. Smile

War engines that can reliably clear a huge mass of friendlies could shoot over them without fear of hundreds of arrows/stones/quarrels falling short of the target into friends.

So, yeah, sometimes you can see a body and not be able to shoot it.