rules questions

[cjbennett22]

My brother and I got in a 2000 point pick up game over the weekend.  Elves vs. Dwarves.

I, as the dwarves, took up a defensive position on top of a hill with 1 ranger and 1 cannon for kind of a last stand.  My brother hated the "defensive position" that I get with being at the crest of a hill.  He even still thought that his chariots that were trying to put the game away should still have all of their "charging in the open" bonus'.  We later put it to rest by finding all of the necessary descriptions of a defended position of a hill in the rulebooks.

Are there any house rules that others use for hills?  He found a simple -1 to attack value for attacking a hill and wanted to stick to that, that's what he was hung up on.  He won the attack by a single hit and in turn hit my dwarven break point (flame cannon blew up without any attacks  LOL.....read second question)

When his Reavers attacked the dwarf flame cannon on the same hill it rolled a double and blew up without any attacks.  We joked about how the reavers were just dumb founded by the "suicide" of the device and would just halt the attack, but we decided that it would be a kill and a win and then a second and final "Advance" by the reavers into my defended line's flank. 

How would anyone else finish this situation with the flame cannon?

Thank you everyone

[Dave]

Are there any house rules that others use for hills?  He found a simple -1 to attack value for attacking a hill and wanted to stick to that, that's what he was hung up on.  He won the attack by a single hit and in turn hit my dwarven break point (flame cannon blew up without any attacks  LOL.....read second question)

We've been playing "everyone gets their bonuses" since the WM playtest weekend in 2013. So chariots get the extra dice but hit on 5s.

[Lex]

When his Reavers attacked the dwarf flame cannon on the same hill it rolled a double and blew up without any attacks.  We joked about how the reavers were just dumb founded by the "suicide" of the device and would just halt the attack, but we decided that it would be a kill and a win and then a second and final "Advance" by the reavers into my defended line's flank. 

How would anyone else finish this situation with the flame cannon?

No Combat was fought (as the S&S is done as part of their movement fase) and officially at any part of their move. So they end up in the intended position.

1) if they made incidental contact with other troops fight without bonus
2) if they end out of contact with enemy, they can take another order

[cjbennett22]

that was my initial reaction!  Reavers need to take another order to move or advance (for the first time) but we were on our last beers and it was 1 a.m.    and the dwarven breakpoint was 1 unit away!!!! (silly flame cannon)

Along with hills how does everyone do roads?  I have seen the same rules as the hills in the rulebook, 5+ to hit and not in the open when infantry is parrallel with the road and taking a charge to their front from off of the road.  I'm thinking that would make for a good spot to be "defended but open" as well like with the hills.

Oh! And one more question.  A routed unit is when they are driven back by shooting attacks more than their full pace move.  What if they are just outside of dense woods and they are driven back 13+cm backwards through the dense woods that reduces movement to half pace, or 10cm?  again we only saw "more than full pace movement" anywhere in the instructions so despite it making sense that the elves were scattered from the cannon fire we decided the rules would allow them to re-group almost on the other side of the dense terrain.

Thank you everyone!  My brother and I are pretty excited to be getting back into warmaster and still glad to see a few others still out there doing it as well.

[Geep]

It's been a while since I've read the rules, but I don't think any terrain normally slows movement- at least not in a direct fashion. It imposes a command penalty, so you may end up stuck in a forest with poor order rolls.

If you play that terrain slows movement, I'd say that you ignore all terrain benefits and penalties for the purposes of determining routing. In other words, unless the dice roll higher than the base movement of the unit, it's fine. Similarly, if a unit is fleeing down a road (and you play that moving along a road adds to movement) that extra movement is ignored when determining if they route.

Personally, I wouldn't consider a road defended, but as long as you and your opponent agree then go for it.

[jchaos79]

Our houserule of the road is: If a unit touching the road is column and finished their in regular formation touching the road then it has a command bonnus of +1 for given that order.

But there are a lot of types of roads and your rule is as good as mine. You could use both depending on the scenario, etc...

About the routed units you are right. But the situation of the forest could not happen because non of the warmaster terrain reduces movement to half pace. This ocurr only because the formation of the unit. The terrain is "passable" or "impassable" for a type of unit.

In instance, infantry can enter woods and retreat through them as in open, but cavalry, artillery, monster, chariot can not enter in woods, and if they are force to drive back through them they stop and became confuse. If cavalry artillery monster chariot are pursuit (hand to hand combat lose and enemy is allowed to pursuit) making them enter in the woods then they are destroyed.

[cjbennett22]

what are the rules for the playtest weekend 2013?  is that an actual printed set or rules?

[Dave]

I thought Lex posted them at somepoint but I can't track them down. I'll ask him.

I found my breakdown though:

http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=4962.msg50510#msg50510

[honestmistake]

We play that units that charge uphill do not count as charging in the open to represent the lost momentum but the charged unit does not count as defended. Bit more problematic for missile attacks though and we are still debating the rules we want for them. For what it's worth I currently favour counting the target as defended if its at over half range.