Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Dear Jon,

I imagine this has been answered before but I don't recall seeing
it, and I don't see any qualifications in any obvious places in the
rules. The relevant support language is "if each flank has . . .
steady close or loose order friendly body within 120 paces." I
don't find a statement that the supporting unit must be entirely or
partly past or on the flank line of the unit to be supported.
Starting with a literal interpretation, this would seem to allow
unit "pods" to be mutually self-supporting as below. I can think of
intuitive reasons why this should not be the case, but can also
think of game reasons why it should be the case. I'm trying to get
the full set of questions answered through one set of diagrams which
I hope makes it easy for you -- hope I haven't blown it!

LEGEND: AAAA, BBBB, and CCCC are all steady heavy infantry facing
top and to scale so in each case A, B and C are all within 120p of
one another measuring between relevant flank corners.

CASE 1:

BBBB
__AAAA CCCC

1.1: A is supported by B on the left, C on the right (easy).
1.2: B is supported A on the left, C on the right?
1.3: C is supported by A on the left, B on the right?

CASE 2: TWO LINES

AAAACCCC
BBBB

2.1: A is supported by B on the left, C on the right?
2.2: B is supported by A on the left, C on the right?
2.3: C is suppported by A on the left, B on the right?

CASE 3: ECHELON

AAAA CCCC
__BBBB

3.1: A is supported by B on the left, C on the right?
3.2: B is supported by A on the left, C on the right?
3.3: C is suppported by A on the left, B on the right?

CASE 4:

AAAA BBBB CCCC

4.1: I understand that A and C are not visible to each other. True?

4.2: It also appears that feeling supported under the rules does
not require the support be visible. True?

4.3: If correct, then A B and C are each supportable by the other
two bodies?

Thanks,

Mike

[joncleaves]

The relevant support language is "if each flank has . . .
steady close or loose order friendly body within 120 paces." I
don't find a statement that the supporting unit must be entirely or
partly past or on the flank line of the unit to be supported. >>
[
[
It does not. And that is an issue, because clearly the intent of the rules
is that what you are about to ask *shouldn't* be allowed. It's a good catch
you have made and I am surprised one of my 'power gamer' playtesters didn't
catch this eariler...lol
To fix this without going into a long discussion of your (excellent)
diagrams and points, we will clarify that:

5.131 (Pg 24) Add at end of text and before the example: "To provide
support to the flank of a close or loose order foot body, some portion of the
supporting body must be on the OUTSIDE of a line drawn through the side edge of
the supported body. To provide support to an elephant or LI body, some portion
of the supporting body must be BETWEEN two lines drawn through the supported
bpdy's side edges."

The first example will be corrected to show these lines.

Thanks!
Jon



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 8/22/2004 14:02:35 Central Daylight Time,
ewan.mcnay@... writes:

> I'm not a power player, but I am a rules lawyer, and I saw this long
> ago. I never asked about it because the rule was clear. i never brought
> it up because I liked it the way it was before!!!

Ditto. If I have a unit poised to guard my flank, I don't care whether
it's 1p on the inside of my flank or 1p on the outside - either way, it's
there and poised.



I am not clear on what either of you is saying. The rules, read literally,
would indeed seem to allow two bodies both on the same side of a friendly
body to provide support to both flanks in those cases where one of the bodies
on
the same side could be made to be within 120p of the 'far flank.' This is
in no way the intent of the rule and that is the reason for the clarification.
It is a 'loophole' in the language of game design. And taxes..

The reason I have as many 'types' of gamer help me playtest is that while
some things are crystal clear to me from an historical standpoint, for that
same reason I often miss how the rules as I actually write them could be used
to
produce an ahistorical situation. I am sorry I missed this one, but
certainly I would not expect anyone to be arguing *for* two bodies both on the
same
side of a friend providing support to both its flanks....

Jon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Ewan McNay]

On Sun, 22 Aug 2004 hrisikos@... wrote:
> I'm not a power player, but I am a rules lawyer, and I saw this long
> ago. I never asked about it because the rule was clear. i never brought
> it up because I liked it the way it was before!!!

Ditto. If I have a unit poised to guard my flank, I don't care whether
it's 1p on the inside of my flank or 1p on the outside - either way, it's
there and poised.

[Bill Chriss]

>
>
> The relevant support language is "if each flank has . . .
> steady close or loose order friendly body within 120 paces." I
> don't find a statement that the supporting unit must be entirely or
> partly past or on the flank line of the unit to be supported. >>
> [
> [
> It does not. And that is an issue, because clearly the intent of the
> rules
> is that what you are about to ask *shouldn't* be allowed. It's a good
> catch
> you have made and I am surprised one of my 'power gamer' playtesters
> didn't
> catch this eariler...lol


Jon:

I'm not a power player, but I am a rules lawyer, and I saw this long
ago. I never asked about it because the rule was clear. i never brought
it up because I liked it the way it was before!!!



Greek

[Bill Chriss]

> The reason I have as many 'types' of gamer help me playtest is that
> while
> some things are crystal clear to me from an historical standpoint, for
> that
> same reason I often miss how the rules as I actually write them could be
> used to
> produce an ahistorical situation. I am sorry I missed this one, but
> certainly I would not expect anyone to be arguing *for* two bodies both
> on the same
> side of a friend providing support to both its flanks....
>
> Jon
>
>



Well, there you have it...Always expect the Greek to do the unexpected!!!
I guess you have no Greek playtesters Since he agrees, perhaps Ewan has
Greek blood of which he is unaware!


GREEK

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, hrisikos@D... wrote:
> Well, there you have it...Always expect the Greek to do the
unexpected!!! I guess you have no Greek playtesters Since he
agrees, perhaps Ewan has Greek blood of which he is unaware!
>
>
> GREEK

Perhaps this justifies the old saying I just invented - beware of
GREEK bearing rules? Maybe I was inspired by the amazing things
that Olympic athletes can do as I was puzzling over flank echelon
and 2-line battle arrays. I tried 2 units neatly lined up one
behind the other on the end of a battle and could rationalize them
giving warm fuzzy support-like feelings to each other, but there are
3 possible natural dividing lines to choose from on a rule like this
and it wasn't clear which one would make the most sense.

The clarification is the middle course and tactically means the 2
aligned end units can't both support each other, which means you
make the second line support the first and have a reasonable result.

Thanks, Jon, for the clarification,

Mike

[Larry Essick]

IIRC, one thing that used to be possible (before Jon's clarification) was to
have a single unit positioned to the rear of loose/close order foot and provide
support to both flanks.

IMO, Jon's clarification hits at the intent of the rule.

Larry

[John Murphy]

Just to be sure I understand, and I missed a bunch of stuff flying
over my head here, the below is _still_ possible right?

If a 2E MI unit in column is in front of the center of an 8E MI unit
4E wide? The same unit supports both flanks?

--- In WarriorRules@yahoogroups.com, <larryessick@b...> wrote:
> IIRC, one thing that used to be possible (before Jon's
clarification) was to have a single unit positioned to the rear of
loose/close order foot and provide support to both flanks.

> If a 2E MI unit in column is in front of the center of an 8E MI
unit 4E wide? The same unit supports both flanks?<

That can all be clarified in the diagram, but IMHO I think it should
also show that A supports B's left and C's right below:


__BB__CC__
AAAAAAAAA

Mike

[joncleaves]

In a message dated 8/22/2004 23:47:56 Central Daylight Time,
jjmurphy@... writes:

If a 2E MI unit in column is in front of the center of an 8E MI unit
4E wide? The same unit supports both flanks?>>
No. The same body (or shoreline) cannot support both flanks.

Jon


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]