Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Ewan McNay]

This came up at Historicon; I did not expect it to be controversial, but so it proved (or at least, it caused an amicable disagreement).

Some unit charges without making contact; it is entitled to support shoot in a charge (i.e. has a rear rank of bow or is an elephant or whatever).

The question is, (i) may it shoot even though not making contact, and (ii) may that shooting be against a body not the target of its charge?

[Ed Kollmer]

I (as many of you know) am not an authority.
However, I am surprised that Ewan is asking this question on the Form.
I presume it came up at H-Con.
ALL the important people who ARE knowledgeable on this question were there.
What was their answer.??????
I am happy he put it on the Form , so we lower caste people can partake of the pearls of wisdom that flowed at H-Con.

But I digress
I would answer:
NO! you can not shoot.
1) the shooting phase is over.
2) NO contact so no support shooting ,since support shooting is part of combat and since no combat , no support shooting regardless if the target is the charged unit or not.

Ed the Lower Caste.

[Frank Gilson]

The rules are not completely clear on this.

8.8 Shooting and Movement or Combat

This states that mounted evaders with bow an shoot from a rear rank at final position (move evaders, move chargers). They can shoot only at those charging them.

8.81 Shooting and Charging states that chargers can shoot with bow from an elephant, chariot or rear rank...and 'implies' that this can only be done at a body being charged.

It does not state in 8.81 whether or not contact has to occur for chargers to shoot. Nor does 9.1 Hand-To-Hand sequence prohibit or permit this type of charger shooting with regard to lack of combat.

So...Scott...

Frank

[scott holder]

Um, and what was my answer?

I remember a different question regarding support shooting by a 3rd party ending up behind the flank of a charger that did not make contact but don't recall this one.

scott

[Ewan McNay]

Because this came up (at keast for me) in the Theme, Mark was umpiring. He ruled against, on the basis that Frank suggests (but with which I disagree) that there's an 'implication' in the text suggesting a limitation on targets of support shooting by chargers. That's certainly a position that could be adopted by a reasonable person.

You [Scott] have previously ruled the opposite, consistently in my experience, hence the post here.

The exact text in question is:
"Units that charge or counter-charge can shoot with bow from an elephant, chariot, or rear rank. No other type of shooting is allowed at bodies currently being charged unless by troops already in contact with these."

I read the first sentence as permissive, and there are no restrictions placed on the target(s) of that shooting. The second sentence places lmits on which bodies are allowed to shoot at bodies being charged, but places no limits on the targets of shooting by chargers (which I take if anything as Bayesian support for there being no such limits, because another class *is* limited but this one is not).

Mark (and Frank?) read an implication that the authors' intent was to limit targets of shooting by chargers; I will let them explain the rationale (and hope that they will do so). I thought (and think) that it is clear that chargers may support shoot at any body that is otherwise a legal shooting target: the case where this is likely to matter most is if their charge target has evaded and another body is now a possible target. [Quite possibly, especially if the evade involved an interpenetration, that new body is preventing shooting at the original charge target which would otherwise be shootable - so in a 'realworld' sense the arrows that would be going towards that original target would not suddenly stop in midair when a new body appears . But I don't as a rule believe in realworld arguments for game mechanics... ]

[Mark Stone]

The thinking behind the ruling was as follows:

The second sentence in the paragraph in question starts out by saying "No other type of shooting is allowed at bodies currently being charged..." I took that to imply that the first sentence was about shooting at bodies currently being charged. Ewan's question was whether chargers could shoot at targets other than those being charged. On my reading this section of the rules was silent on that matter, and so I took the narrower overall reading: what is not explicitly allowed is not allowed. One could take a broader reading that was is not explicitly forbidden is allowed, but that seems perilous. Or I could simply be reading the intent wrong here. Frank is right; the wording is not 100% clear.

[ghauser90]

So I am certainly not a rules authority. However for documentary evidence I would like to share my experience this past Hcon.This practice has been performed against me on many occasions over the years. I have also employed this tactic. Scott allowed this type of shooting in my NICT game. Mark prohibited this in my theme game. So a clarification would be handy as I saw it ruled both ways over two days.

[Terry D]

Mark, is your ruling only regarding chargers shooting at targets other than the bodies that they charged? If so I think that is within the spirit of the rules.. If you are saying that chargers can't shoot unless there is contact, I don't think that is what is implied by the rules, or many past rulings.

[scott holder]

Moving forward, we're doing this my way, ie., Mark and Frank are incorrect.

scott

[Mark Stone]

[Frank Gilson]

Rules unclear, Scott not ...

A written thingy in the upcoming clarification will be helpful here.

Thanks!

[Historian]

Having read through the the thread twice I am not sure what the ruling was.
I believe it was the chargers can shoot, and at any target that the target shooting priorities allow.