Turn Sequence Confusion

[ODDYSSEUS]

I have some questions for those in the know.

Chainmail (3rd Edition)

TURN SEQUENCE

THE MOVE/COUNTERMOVE SYSTEM

1.    Both opponents roll a die; the side with the higher score has the choice of electing to move first (Move) or last (Counter-move).

2.    The side that has first move moves its figures and makes any split-moves and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.

3.    The side that has last move now moves its figures and makes any split-moves and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.

4.    Artillery fire is taken.

5.    Missile fire is taken.

6.    Melees are resolved.

7.    Steps 1 through 6 are repeated throughout the remainder of the game.

Note: Missile fire from split-moving troops is considered to take effect immediately during the movement portion of the turn, and the same is true of passthrough fire. All other fire, both artillery and missile, is considered to simultaneously take effect just prior to melee resolution. (page 9)

Rate of Fire: Crossbowmen, Archers, and Longbowmen may fire every turn. If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not meleed at the end of a turn they may fire twice. (page 11)

Q1: If an Elf split-moves and fires at Step 2 does this prevent him from executing passthrough fire at Step 3 due to the Rate of Fire rule?
Q2: Would the same split-moving and firing Elf in Q1 be excluded from firing at Step 5 due to the Rate of Fire rule, also?
Q3: If an Archer executes passthrough fire at Step 2 then moves at Step 3, is he excluded from firing at Step 5 due to the Rate of Fire rule?
Q4: (Stationary) Archers and Longbowmen always fire twice because missile fire is executed at Step 5 just prior to melee resolution at Step 6 due to the Rate of Fire rule?

[rsdean]

Q1 The passthrough fire rule on p12 says that “stationary” missile troops may shoot. So, your moving elves are not stationary this turn and are not eligible in the passthrough fire phase.
Q2 Since we are still in the same turn, I would read that as “yes, they are excluded because they have taken their shot”.
Q3 Since the archers have to be stationary to execute passthrough fire, I would rule that they have used their movement opportunity and can’t move in Step 3, nor fire in step 5. This also means, by the way, that any First Mover archers who moved in Phase 2 are not eligible to shoot passthrough fire in phase 3, as they are not stationary.
Q4 If they moved in step 2 or 3, they fire once in step 5. If they didn’t, they fire twice. Am I missing something about Q4?

Technically the rate of fire rule is a little more complicated; a shot is only guaranteed for a unit moving less than half its move; otherwise they have to win a roll off.

[ODDYSSEUS]

Jul 27, 2022 4:40:04 GMT -6 rsdean said:

Technically the rate of fire rule is a little more complicated; a shot is only guaranteed for a unit moving less than half its move; otherwise they have to win a roll off.

Is the "roll off" you're referring to (in red): "...and if they are moved over one-half of their normal movement they may fire once only if they beat their opponent's die roll." (CM 11)

If "yes" that was going to be my follow up question. Q: What die roll is that?

[ODDYSSEUS]

Jul 27, 2022 4:40:04 GMT -6 rsdean said:

Q4 If they moved in step 2 or 3, they fire once in step 5. If they didn’t, they fire twice. Am I missing something about Q4?

If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not meleed at the end of a turn they may fire twice. (CM 11)

No one melees until Step 5 and Missile actions occur before Step 5. The rule seems redundant or am I reading it wrong?

Seems like only if an archer was not meleed this Turn he gets to attack twice in the next Turn. The wording is throwing me off.

[SebastianDM]

Jul 27, 2022 14:00:30 GMT -6 ODDYSSEUS said:

Jul 27, 2022 4:40:04 GMT -6 rsdean said:

Q4 If they moved in step 2 or 3, they fire once in step 5. If they didn’t, they fire twice. Am I missing something about Q4?

If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not meleed at the end of a turn they may fire twice. (CM 11)

No one melees until Step 5 and Missile actions occur before Step 5. The rule seems redundant or am I reading it wrong?

Seems like only if an archer was not meleed this Turn he gets to attack twice in the next Turn. The wording is throwing me off.

I don't think there is a choice whether to participate in the melee or not. As I see it, once units are in melee contact they will melee in the melee phase.

I cannot find it explicitly stated in CM, but it is pretty standard practice for a lot of wargames.

edit: I guess this section implies that units cannot unually choose whether to participate in a melee:

"Missile Troops: Missile troops interspaced with other footmen forming a defensive line may "refuse" combat and move back 3" out of melee range. However, if the other footmen who are meleed are killed or driven away, the missile troops must fight if the attacker is able to continue his charge move."

[rsdean]

So, as is always good practice, take anything I say with a grain of salt. I’m not from Lake Geneva, and didn’t play with the authors BITD. On the other hand, I’ve been doing “this” since 1971, and regularly play Charge!, a 1967 set of rules much longer and more spelled out which provides a reasonable snapshot of rules at the time. I’ve read most (all?) of the published wargaming hardback books from the time period, even if I haven’t played all of the rules. So I like to think that I have some grasp of the zeitgeist.

I would ordinarily expect that the sequence of events would make it clear which missile units were in melee (presumably because someone had charged them, making the chargers eligible for pass through fire, btw), so units in contact and about to engage in a melee would not be able to shoot.

Since beating the opponent’s roll is not otherwise defined, and d6s are standard, I would expect to roll 1d6 vs the opponent’s 1d6 and take the second shot if I score higher. (15/36 chance, btw.) 2d6 vs 2d6 is possible, I suppose.

In general, these rules were written with the expectation that you were remembering the record of what each unit was doing each turn for the duration of the turn. They are not intended to be read as though you could look at the table at any instant in time and work from there. So, a unit’s movement continues to affect it through the end of the melee phase. (E.g., if you are continuing a charge after a post-melee morale resolution, you are ordinarily continuing the remaining distance you could have charged — if your charge move is 12” and you go 6”, win the melee and continue, the distance you continue would be 12”-6” = 6”. )

The rules were written by wargamers for wargamers, and are not in any way written to be airtight in interpretation. (And that’s not to mention that you have to make choices to even begin to play, such as whether you are using sequential or simultaneous movement.)

I need to go cook dinner now, but if that didn’t help, I can try again.

[ODDYSSEUS]

It certainly did help! Bon appetit!

[hamurai]

Jul 27, 2022 14:00:30 GMT -6 ODDYSSEUS said:

If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not meleed at the end of a turn they may fire twice. (CM 11)

No one melees until Step 5 and Missile actions occur before Step 5. The rule seems redundant or am I reading it wrong?

Seems like only if an archer was not meleed this Turn he gets to attack twice in the next Turn. The wording is throwing me off.

The way I understand (and used to play) these rules:

Steps 2 & 3 include movement and all missile fire. Movement happens instantly, as does split-move missile fire and pass-through fire. Other missile fire is rolled for hits, but does not take effect yet, so split-move and pass-through fire can already take out units, while normal missile fire cannot. A unit can be target of normal missile fire and the dice rolls may already doom it to death, but it can act normally during this step.
Pass-through and split-move missile fire takes effect immediately. In my games, that was especially important mostly when a unit charged a ranged unit, because the ranged unit was able to take a shot at the charging enemy before they closed in and this may result in the death of the unit before they get the chance to harm the archers.

When an enemy unit comes into melee range of an archer/longbow unit now, that archer/longbow unit counts as "in melee"* and cannot fire twice. If no enemy unit comes into melee range of said archers, they may fire twice.

In steps 4 & 5 you resolve artillery and missile fire. Now, units assigned missile fire (not split-move or pass-through) in Steps 2 & 3 actually take the damage. They may be killed before they can do any melee damage in step 6. This would not affect the rate of fire rule of firing twice in my games, though.


* I'd say a better wording in the rate of fire rules would have been "If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not in melee range of an enemy unit, they may fire twice."

Edit: We checked this rule at the end of steps 2 & 3, so if en enemy unit charged, got killed by passthrough fire and therefore never would have made it into melee range, the archers could fire again.

[rsdean]

So, for convenience in play, why not just resolve the missile fire simultaneously during the “resolve missile fire” phase? (And, most of the time, there should be a limited number of archer unit vs. archer unit combats going on; unless you are doing something like the Wars of the Roses where both sides were longbow-heavy, it’s common for armies to be fairly asymmetrical.)

Any split-move/pass-through fire has already taken effect, and my expectation is that the artillery fire is intended to take effect before regular missile fire.

Any missile unit which will end up in melee *should* have taken a pass through shot, hoping to break the attackers before the melee is resolved.

[hamurai]

Jul 29, 2022 8:00:05 GMT -6 rsdean said:

So, for convenience in play, why not just resolve the missile fire simultaneously during the “resolve missile fire” phase?
[...] Any split-move/pass-through fire has already taken effect, and my expectation is that the artillery fire is intended to take effect before regular missile fire.

That's the convenient way, yes. It might change things a little because both sides will have moved their troops already. Normally, player 1 moves and fires missiles before player 2 had the chance to move. It's a lot easier than rolling and taking notes who gets hit by who and then resolving it afterwards, though, so it might be considered a "modern" way of doing it.

It is how I usually played it with my friends because we felt like it was more realistic that moves happen simultaneously, then simultaneous shooting.

And yes, Artillery fire (step 4) is resolved before Missile fire (step 5).

[rustic313]

Jul 27, 2022 15:18:22 GMT -6 SebastianDM said:

Jul 27, 2022 14:00:30 GMT -6 ODDYSSEUS said:

If Archers or Longbowmen do not move and are not meleed at the end of a turn they may fire twice. (CM 11)

No one melees until Step 5 and Missile actions occur before Step 5. The rule seems redundant or am I reading it wrong?

Seems like only if an archer was not meleed this Turn he gets to attack twice in the next Turn. The wording is throwing me off.

I don't think there is a choice whether to participate in the melee or not. As I see it, once units are in melee contact they will melee in the melee phase.

I cannot find it explicitly stated in CM, but it is pretty standard practice for a lot of wargames.

edit: I guess this section implies that units cannot unually choose whether to participate in a melee:

"Missile Troops: Missile troops interspaced with other footmen forming a defensive line may "refuse" combat and move back 3" out of melee range. However, if the other footmen who are meleed are killed or driven away, the missile troops must fight if the attacker is able to continue his charge move."

Another data point to suggest the idea that troops which are in base to base contact are in melee, and thus no longer generally eligible for missile fire in step 4.

"Throwing Axes and Spears and Javelins: These missile weapons are treated as any other missile weapons except: They may fire only once per turn, they may always fire at enemy troops charging them, and they may not fire indirectly."

Hurled weapons are special in that they are explicitly allowed to fire on troops that charge them, i.e. fire in step 5 even if they are in base to base contact.  This also makes sense as their maximum range is but 3", so even with "pass through fire" in step 2 & 3 they probably won't be in range at that time until close contact has occurred.

[Starbeard]

I'm no Chainmail expert. I think the rules mean that a stationary archer may shoot twice instead of once, but only if not caught in melee that round; if they are engaged, then only the one shot is possible.

If an archer unit can legally make two shots in a round, I think the rules allow them to make those two shots at any legal point in the turn, even if that means making two simultaneous shots in the missile phase. I can see a case for arguing that it should instead be split between the passthrough and missile phases. In other words, "an archer that remains stationary and remains out of melee this turn may shoot in the passthrough phase and the missile phase; if it moves it may not shoot in the passthrough phase, and if it is engaged in melee when all movements have been made for the turn then it may only shoot once in the turn (passthrough or missile)."