Cohesion and Disorder

I know that you -1 for disorder in the cohesion test.
When do you apply this in the case of a melee?

If you loose the melee you become disordered and must take a cohesion test. Do you apply the -1 to that test even though you were ordered at the start of the melee?

Thanks
Phil

No, if you start a round of melee in good order, whilst that round of melee might result in you becoming disordered, you don't count as disordered in the cohesion test.
As a rule of thumb, if you didn't lose a dice because you were disordered in the melee, you don't get -1 for disorder in the cohesion test that follows the melee.

Jim

Only slight exception is if you are hit in flank or rear, then you get immediately Disordered prior to resolution so you count as Disordered in the cohesion test.

Granicus Gaugamela wrote:Only slight exception is if you are hit in flank or rear, then you get immediately Disordered prior to resolution so you count as Disordered in the cohesion test.

Remember also that in this case you fight disordered.
As an aside it is one of the few cases with BI where I'd like to see disorder being 'added' to disorder.
It's a bit irritating when you hit an enemy unit in the rear, and discover they were already disordered so fight just as well as they would have done to the front  

Ah well.   

Jim

What's really annoying is when your Alexander led Agema unit hits the Roman enemy C in C in the rear and the Roman still needs a 6 to fail and he keeps making his roll over and over as he is slowly ground down but all the enemy races to trap Big Al...

What kind of Roman cavalry are you talking about Granicus?

A VBU 5 unit flanked would be automatically disordered. Alexander hits with 9 dice. Asumming he gets two hits that would mean that the Roman cavalry are testing at 2 with a +1 for the leader over a CT of 3. With VBU 6 cavalry the test is 4. Failure leads to automatic destruction. Even passing the test causes an automatic loss which makes next turn's situation worse.

With that said I do wonder if there shouldn't be an extra -1 on the CT for being flanked in melee.

the bl**dy Romans were heavy infantry who picked up a +1 for that (FP vs only CP) as well. VBU 6 veterans, with leader +1, with +1 for FP v CP.

They just kept rolling well enough not to take a permanent loss directly, only a disorder on disorder, so they didn't evaporate as I had hoped.

Such is life.

I must admit I'd be wary of charging any cavalry into decent heavy infantry, but charging into the rear it should be exceptional if they didn't evaporate.

Jim

Yes, I agree Grancius that with the heavy infantry it would take a long time to wear them down. I had a Swiss pike block with an attached leader charged on the flank by some late Medieval knights and the pike ultimtately won because I avoided rolling a 6.

One option would be to have any flanked unit roll two CT dice and take the higher of the two for the result.

Then again, whilst we grit our teeth when it happens, we have to remember we're modelling warfare or trying to and in warfare strange things do occasionally happen. French gendarmes charged multiple times in and through Swiss pikes who refused to let it worry them and finally withdrew unbeaten

Jim

Yep, I had "one of those" weekends. Firstly the damn Romans stuck around then a bunch of Pilgrims in a Crusader army not only held up but actually pushed back the Macedonian pike and once they were overcome the Crusader Knights also managed to overcome their aversion to deep pike.

8 consecutive cohesion tests rolling a 2 or less.

Gritted teeth indeed!   

Granicus Gaugamela wrote:Yep, I had "one of those" weekends.  Firstly the damn Romans stuck around then a bunch of Pilgrims in a Crusader army not only held up but actually pushed back the Macedonian pike and once they were overcome the Crusader Knights also managed to overcome their aversion to deep pike.  

8 consecutive cohesion tests rolling a 2 or less.

Gritted teeth indeed!   

   yes I watched that from the sideline. However if they were REAL pike instead of Persian pretenders it could have been a very different story GG.

I'd have to agree with Tarty on that one, GG. 

It took me a while to realise those immaculately kitted out pikemen were Persian pantos.

Still, it was awful rolling!

those dice have been relegated to a special place in hell...

Jim Webster wrote:Then again, whilst we grit our teeth when it happens, we have to remember we're modelling warfare or trying to and in warfare strange things do occasionally happen. French gendarmes charged multiple times in and through Swiss pikes who refused to let it worry them and finally withdrew unbeaten

Jim

Perhaps you're right Jim. My Swiss block was taken on the flank by some Knights of St. John CP. My CT was 6+1+1 (FP + a Commander attached) -1 (disorder) which meant that I needed to roll a 6 to take a melee casualty. The melee went on for 3 turns which meant 6 melees back and forth. Everytime I took a hit I rolled below the 6. Finally the cavalry got worn down and failed a CT and withdrew. Most melees the cavalry did some damage so I had at least a 16.7% chance of taking a hit and risking losing the melee (and immediate destruction and loss of the game.)

Very good infantry like the Swiss were very resilient troops. Still, the Swiss were totally flanked and caught out in the open before high quality heavy cavalry. Not sure where the line should be drawn.

It's warfare not linear algebra. There are inevitable confusions, odd results and counter-intuitive behaviours.

Sometimes, you need to create a narrative in your mind that satisfies the events on the table. It's one of the things I find fun in these games.

Think also of your opponent who has just been handed a great story of survival against the odds. In the same competition as GG's I destroyed an opponent's army with one ill-considered hare-brained and desperate cavalry charge - killing his commander and three units all in the same sustained series of melees. All against the run of play.

But it gave us both a great story

Gaius Cassius wrote:
Perhaps you're right Jim. My Swiss block was taken on the flank by some Knights of St. John CP. My CT was 6+1+1 (FP + a Commander attached) -1 (disorder) which meant that I needed to roll a 6 to take a melee casualty. The melee went on for 3 turns which meant 6 melees back and forth. Everytime I took a hit I rolled below the 6. Finally the cavalry got worn down and failed a CT and withdrew. Most melees the cavalry did some damage so I had at least a 16.7% chance of taking a hit  and risking losing the melee (and immediate destruction and loss of the game.)

Yep, even with disorder on disorder casualties it stays high for a stubbornly long time...

In my opinion based on secondary sources I have read then the SWISS would be fairly "comfortable" being attacked in the flank .. they could stop and fight off the threat. I have just started playing SWISS only armies as an extention from French rennaissance. It sounds like if you have stopped the block with a flank charge you are in a good position to maximise some shooting to try and whittle down the strength.

Plus there is always the chance that one of the flank attacks wins the combat and that would be the whole pike block gone !