Oppurtunity

Hi guys, I have just bought the rules and like them very much, however I want to make sure I understand opportunity properly.

A unit of C grade knights advances towards an enemy so that it's movement ends just in front of the enemy. It rolls to go on to opportunity but fails it's roll. Next turn the enemy unit/s charge the knights and again the knights fail the roll to counter-charge. This means that they cannot get their impetus and are at a severe disadvantage in melee. This situation is clearly ridiculous and in reality the knights could not fail to meet the threat effectively.

I sincerely hope I have missed something and have not described it accurately as soldiers would not meet an approaching threat at the standstill as this rule implies.

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Nick

Hi Nick,
well we have 2 arguments here, the opportunity and the countercharge.

Opportunity is useful in several situations, but it is not a standard approach. I mean you can play a full game with no need to put any unit on opportunity.
Usually opportunity may be useful to shooting units or to impetuous units. In the latter case as you want to prevent them to go out of control (frenzy).

Counter charge is useful if you have the Unit already in opportunity, but if you have not, it is not worth unless you need to move forward to "save" for example another friendly unit you don't want to be contacted.
Now the only advantage to countercharge is to add impetus bonus. But waht you risk if you fail is worst. Much better to roll few dice less than start a melee in disorder.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I guess what I'm saying is that if a unit fails it's quality check twice it will not be able to counter-charge and probably lose the melee, this does not model anything like reality. Thanks for clearing this up, I thought maybe I didn't understand, but it seems that if you don't make the die rolls you get hit stationary, this is nonsense. Sorry, will not play....

Nick

nicholassalmon wrote:Hi guys, I have just bought the rules and like them very much, however I want to make sure I understand opportunity properly.

A unit of C grade knights advances towards an enemy so that it's movement ends just in front of the enemy. It rolls to go on to opportunity but fails it's roll. Next turn the enemy unit/s charge the knights and again the knights fail the roll to counter-charge. This means that they cannot get their impetus and are at a severe disadvantage in melee. This situation is clearly ridiculous and in reality the knights could not fail to meet the threat effectively.

I sincerely hope I have missed something and have not described it accurately as soldiers would not meet an approaching threat at the standstill as this rule implies.

Many thanks for your help in this matter.

Nick

First off you can't move the C Knights and then attempt to go on Opportunity. You can only attempt to go on Opportunity at the start of your activation (technically after attempting to rally once for free) and then it ends your activation if successful - if not you activate (move/shoot/melee) as normal.

In the situation described the C Knights should either declare a charge at the outset, hoping the additional movement dice is sufficient to contact.

Or move once (against which the enemy can't counter-charge as it is not a charge but could take opportunity action if on OP - not for ZOC infringement as you are on a trajectory to contact) and then charge as move segment #2 (you roll for disorder before calculating the combat).

At worse you charge in with impetus but counting disorder. Only if the enemy are on OP are you at risk of being gazumped and even then you would count your impetus in the ensuing melee as you are in motion by definition.

So the situation may be ridiculous but is also illegal as the rules stand

Be wary of approaching decent CM horse archers like mamelukes with this pattern    - they shoot you on the approach and if they don't like the melee after will evade. Impetus is one of the few rule sets that really get heavy horse archers right IMO.

Welcome to the fold - ask as many questions as you like

Zippee has it right Nick. With impetuous troops you would normally double move in against your opponent to get the bonus dice while hoping that you pass you discipline test. This shows hard riding knights foaming at the mouth raring to get it. On the otherhand, you could move them up one move and then hope that you get the initiative next turn to charge them in. In this case, you don't have to risk disorder. Of course, the otherside could get the initiative on you and charge before you get a chance to reactivate. But as Lorenzo says, in this case never counter charge because the extra dice aren't worth going disordered.

All new players get hooked up on the number of melee dice thrown but the more important issue is keeping your troops in good order. The extra impetus dice aren't that important in the end.

Agree with Gaius and Zippee being the aggressor with the most dice doesn't necessarily equate to success in a fight that's for sure. As you play more games you'll soon get to realise the cohesion test is the important roll