The legendary CB's E

[spiritusXmachina]

Ok, Lex threw me the glove... Here's one from me.

I am playing an undead army. On the other side there's two units of Trollslayers waiting in bloodlust 25cm away, positioned in line behind each other, eager to charge. On my side I have two brigades, each of them consisting of 3 units of bowmen and 1 unit of skeletons. It's my turn and I know (by some vision of the old gods) that I will have exactly two successful orders.

How many shots were possible at the best before the Troll Slayers actually throw their first attacking dice?

Tell me how you do it?

Bonus question: Tell me what CB's E could mean?

(For deciding how many shots hit always calculate with expected probability and round up.)

@Lex: Could you do a poll again? I did'nt find this option. The numbers would be 21/24/27/29/33/36/39

[wmchaos2000]

1. 39+
2. I will tell, after possible poll ends.
3. To the bonus, I have no clue.

[spiritusXmachina]

Are there any others with an idea?

[spiritusXmachina]

Thank you very much for participating 

You're quite right. 39 shots are the same that I calculated. Now I'm interested how you would do that?

To the Bonus question. CB's E stands for Chris Burnett's E-Formation. Burnett is/was quite a successful Warmaster player who should still be around somewhere on this planet (last heard of him when he did the rules for the winning Chaos Cannon at the Elite-Unit competition).

He was the first one that I read of mentioning the above shooting tactic called the E-formation by him.

[wmchaos2000]

I meant 39+ = more then 39 shots.

It is a bit hard to explain, but I put the shooters in VVV formation with the two warrriors behind them. The upper ends of the V:s are max 2cm wide.
The closest unit to the slayers, one represented by one leg on the middle-V, is max 9,9cm from slayers and this forces both the slayers to charge by initiative (and all stands can get into base-to-base).

With the shooters in this formation and with their flanks towards slayers so that all stands can draw line of sight to them, you should be able to:
1. Shoot 18 shots on first unit, hitting on 4:s so killing two stands in first unit.
2. First unit charges and the one stand moves into the closest shooter and thereby gets into contact with one shooter on each side of closest and therefore getting killed by 9 S&S shots.
3. Second unit charges and it should have to get into contact with at least 5 shooters and therefore getting 15 S&S shots, almost killing 2 stands.

Sum: 18 + 9 + 15 = 42. (maybe 45 if 6 shooters get into base contact)

Rulewise: I am not sure that one is allowed to charge and get responses if one only gets into contact by a corner to corner, shall check the book tonight.

I also have an engagement with the deadies tonight and I will try this and let you know if it is doable.

[wmchaos2000]

It is doable, so 45 it is!
Questions? 

Of course this is almost only in theory. The exact distances between charging stand, charged stand and involuntary charged stand has to be very precise. So it is almost not doable during a game.

Or as an old mate of mine used say "Everything works in theory, I want to move to theory". 

[spiritusXmachina]

Yes, it could be doable. But as you need to put your bowmen into a curved position this would probably produce a lot of discussion.
39 shot it is with a straight comb-line of bowmen even with the utmost unit charged first.

Greetings,
Gerald