Large Units & Pursuit

Hi, all, new to the forum but been playing Impetus for a few months now. We have most of the rules sorted but 2 areas still bug my group!

If you persue a retreating unit who moves past a unit behind and to the side of it. What happens to the persuing unit? Will it follow the retreating unit no matter what and avoid the unit behind and to the side of the enemy unit OR charge the new unit as it is in its path?

We have been playing it as a new charge with no charge responses from the new unit.

The other question is about Large units, when testing for damage on a unit after a combat do you use the current VBU of the rear unit or the Current VBU of the front unit? I assume extra hits carry forward into the front unit so the Front unit VBU is always used for the Cohesion test. We have played it where the rear unit VBU is used as its the one taking the losses but I am now thinking thats wrong?

anyone ut there clear this up for us?

Many thanks

The charging unit charges what is ever in its path. It is quite common for the charging unit to contact a different unit than the one it is pursuing. The unit that is pursuing is charging and there is no response opportunity for enemy units. It sounds like you are doing it correctly.

Yes, you have been doing it incorrectly. Always use the front unit/stand for determining the units VBU. A 5/4 LU will be always using a baseline 5 for its Cohesion Tests until the front unit starts taking loses. This makes LUs powerful in Impetus and gives them an advantage over single stand units.

And welcome aboard!

Yes, welcome to the forum. One other matter. You ask whether the pursuing unit can follow the retreating unit. Just to make sure, a pursuing unit can only move straight ahead, they cannot change direction at all.

Excellent, I am so please i raised this as we were getting frustrated with Pike Units being so fragile. Thanks so much for you assistance. We have a massive 28mm Medieval game next week with hundreds of figures (Swiss v Burgundian) so this information and clarification will be invaluable.

In a recent game a couple of Norman knights overran one of my wings by simply ricocheting from one of my units into another and then another and then back again until they were all routed. Pike in Impetus is very strong and can overrun enemy units. My Swiss pike are extremely power (if vulnerable to flanking.) Haven't used them since the new Warbooks have started coming out.

Welcome aboard bazz ... yeah there's always a few things like this that come up when starting off.

Some of those heavy hitting medieval CP units can do serious damage if they get on a roll in pursuit mode ... played a few late medieval games lately.