Few rules queries (First Game)

Played my first game today with an experienced war games player (Partucularly Ancients) and came acroos a few rules (Or lack of) that left us scratching our heads. Wondered if anyone can help.

1/ If one has a group which cannot become disordered but is simply made in to seperate units when it takes disorder, do all units from that group (Now units) become disordered?

2/ A medium cavalry want to turn and run away as a move order, what happens if it fails the disorder, does it stay where it is?

3/ What are the benefits of forming a group with one unit behind another?

4/ Can you rally in melee?

5/ We noticed that there does not seem to be any morale tests for nearby units breaking like in other games (EG Warhammer ancients) or are we missing something?

6/ If a unit wheels say two inches and its move is five inches can it still move 3 inches after the wheel as one activation?

7/ What happens if a unit gets a front and ear attack at the same time. Is one unit still the support unit and the other the main unit or are they both main units?

8/ Why are their no difference in VBU to Slingers (Greeks) and Javelin men (Roman) in melee when Roman Velites after about 220 were armed with swords?

Now probably the rules are in the book somewhere, but I cant find them so help please before I consign the rule book to anothet bring and buy.

I've answered your questions in the order you asked them.

1. Not sure exactly what you’re describing but in principle, disorder is determined on a unit by unit basis.

2. Not sure exactly what you’re describing here. If you’re talking about making an "about turn" then unit stays where it is disordered.

3. An S unit in front and a formed unit behind can work wonders as a group. Also having FL or T units as a group, one behind the other, allows them to rotate firing (got blasted last night by a Numidian army doing this.) Groups are formed to assist in moving groups of units.

4.  No.

5. There are no morale tests in Impetus. So you are not missing something. The effect in Impetus for having exposed flanks is still present.

6. Generally wheeling is a full move. So in the above example the first wheel is one move, the move forward is a second move, the following wheel a third move. Impetuous units get to wheel as part of the first move in certain circumstances.

7. The Front Unit is always the main unit and the flanking unit is always a support unit.

8. Skirmish units are not allowed to melee each other (with a few exceptions.) To initiate melee a unit needs a Impetus rating above 0. Most skirmishers don’t have an “I” rating.

Keep reading the rules and Advanced Impetus. Judging from your questions you still haven’t gotten a feel for the game yet.

Thanks for getting back. I've also posted these queries on the Yahoo groups by the way.

In regard to 1.

I have a group of two bases one behind the other. They are targetted by misile fire and become disordered. But it says in the rules that groups cannot become disordered, so they must I assume split?

However having now split where does the disorder marker go, as I presume the firing was done on the group not just one base. And from which base do te casualties come off, I presume its the rear base as that what it is for large groups.

In regard to 7 this is what happened to us.

A Greek unit was charged by a group of Triari to the front. We fought this out and the Greeks and triari took losses. In the next activation round a unit of Princepes from the same command attacked in the Greek flank so had lots of dice i.e VBU plus pilum, plus flank attack in fact 10 dice against 4. However as the same command is activating that includes the Triari to the front, and their VBU is only 4 after taking casualties last round. So if the front is always the main unit and the flank acts as support only getting half the attack dice you are actually at a disadvantage having an attack to the front and rear (9 dice) rather than having one just to the rear (10 dice).

Adding slightly to GC's answers

arthurpendragon wrote:
1/ If one has a group which cannot become disordered but is simply made in to seperate units when it takes disorder, do all units from that group (Now units) become disordered?

Rather than thinking of it as Groups cannot become disordered think of it that Units that are disordered cannot form part of a Group, any unit that is a part of a Group that becomes disordered is no longer part of that Group. It effectively acts as a standalone Unit.

Thus if you have a Group of 2 units and either one of them or both of them become disordered then they are no longer a Group.

arthurpendragon wrote:
5/ We noticed that there does not seem to be any morale tests for nearby units breaking like in other games (EG Warhammer ancients) or are we missing something?

If a formed Unit (ie not Skirmisher S, Light FL or CL or Missile T from memory) breaks then any other Unit within 5U of them within their retreat path suffers a Disorder penalty.

arthurpendragon wrote:
7/ What happens if a unit gets a front and ear attack at the same time. Is one unit still the support unit and the other the main unit or are they both main units?

The ear attack is a Roman speciality, Mark Antony likes to borrow them.

In terms of deciding the main unit the one with the greatest contact with the enemy front is the main unit, all others are support.


Overall a good list of questions, stick with the game and give it a number of chances, it is different to many other systems and it takes some time to get across the nuances that make it a highly enjoyable game.

So basicaly just to recap and get it into my thick skull when a group is shot at the shooter targets one group and its that unit that takes casualties and if it becomes disordered it splits from the other units in that group?

So it means then that either you say which unit in the group you are firing at OR its the closest one i.e. firing to te front unit when one unit is behind another?

I think the rest makes sense, until then next game LOL.

Thanks Guys

Groups exist in Impetus primarily to assist in moving multiple units around the table top together (command and control. ) For purposes of missile fire and melee they do not exist as all combat is done on a unit by unit basis.

To be specific when shooting you shoot from the front centre of your firing unit to the centre of the appropriate edge of the target unit (selected in accordance with the firing priorities).

You hit and damage only that unit, if it becomes disordered then it can no longer be part of a group, although other units that still meet the criteria for being a group remain so.