Art De La Guerre

[KevinD]

Suppose there is a group of identical troops all in the open who will evade. Normally they would roll for distance together because they have the same speed.

But what if there is terrain that will slow them behind only some of them that they can’t avoid? Do they roll separately for this prospective difference in movement speed or do they roll once as a group since they have the same speed in the terrain where they start?

AABBCCDDEE
Open Open
Rough Open

[ALEXANDER]

If think this depends on the attacker.
If the attacker charges as a group you evade as a group too
...dicing once as all have the same speed.
The units that contact rough terrain will evade shorter (or slide to the open gap /slide reduces the distance!
The rest will evade their full movement.

Correct?

But lets look at a similar situation

There is a group (red) of 5 MC bow
2 UD away
from a group (blue) of 5 HC Impetous.
HC Player Blue has 3 command points

M1M2M3M4M5

H1H2H3H4H5

Player Blue attacks with H1 first
Player Red can evade with all 5 MC
(giving Player Blue the chance to rally some of his other HC as there us no enemy within charge reach after the evade)

..or just M1 and M2

or just M1 (This will end in H1 beeing in corner to corner contact with M2 = combat after conforming)

Correct?

Imagine Player Red just evades with M1 and M2 only

Then player Blue attacks with H5
with Player Red evading with M4 and M5

Finally Player Blue attacks with H2, H3 and H4
Player Red evades with M3

There are 3 different attacks and 3 different evades
So the chance of blue catching at least 1 enemy is tripled.

Corecct?

[KevinD]

[Black Prince]

I would go with at the start of the evade their movement is the same so one roll.

[lionelrus]

[Za Otlichiye]

The problem is the imprecise use of "movement allowance". Units have a set of movement allowances, and even if open MA matches, rough and difficult MA may differ. And then there are camels. What if some of the units are already in slowing terrain?
I think if it's the same type of unit, it's one roll regardless, but after that it gets vague. I'm also not sure why it's there in the first place...

[Longtooth]

This is not so complicated.

Units which wish to flee must first consider which units are allowed to group together. Sub-groups are then formed on the basis of movement rate* and a single dice roll is made for each sub-group.

*movement rate is considered at the time the flee move is declared.....you do not consider future movement rate upon entering terrain

Jesse

[lionelrus]

[Za Otlichiye]

The penny drops. If you evade as a group, you are nominally using group move rules. The group stays in configuration, moving at the speed of the slowest element. Therefore it is to your benefit to split into subgroups so the faster are not slowed down.
But as Kevin notes it is impossible to know beforehand whether a group will be held back by some of its members encountering slowing terrain. And apparently the grizzled and knowledgeable consensus is that you can split the group at that point.

But it seems the evading player has some leeway in defining the groups as they may evade only part of a physically connected group, so long as it includes a target unit. And sometimes they have to. What if they have a line of 8 units (created when two 4 unit groups moved next to each other. If they get charged by 5 units in the moiddle. There are 7 targets (since leaving a corner to corner contact will result in melee). You have to evade in at least two groups.

So why not allow the evader to define their groups, then penalize the whole group should any part of it slow?
(Leave the "same MA" rule intact though. Otherwise the evader will group with slower units to maintain formation when it is clear the evaders will be safe.)

[MC_Delicatessen]

[lionelrus]

Wath means IMHO?
_________________
"Quand on a pas de technique, faut y aller à la zob"
Perceval à Yvain et Gauvain.

[vexillia]

[lionelrus]

[Mike Bennett]

Must admit I am amazed how something this simple can be made this complex.

[Za Otlichiye]

I had some second thoughts on this. Then I chased an Asian eagle and upgraded to Windows 11. Both a lot of work, if ultimately successful.

OK - I'm think I was wrong about evade moves following group move rules. It's like charges. The group determines who moves, but each unit will follow its own path. Should part of the group hit slowing terrain, then just those units would slow, not the whole group - as seems to be the consensus.

Obviously, an AED roll adds some doubt to the situation. But it is difficult for me to see the point of multiple AED rolls. A group of, say, LH and LI will pull apart 2UD anyway. Half the time with two rolls this will still be true. The rest of the time they will pull apart 1UD or 3UD, except for the 6-1's where they will either separate by 4UD or end up together.
And as the saying goes, "I don't have to be faster than the impetuous HKn. I just have to be faster than you." The results are most significant for the slowest units.
Perhaps an experienced player can provide some illumination.

The other point is that there are pathological situations where it is okay if a few units are caught, but if all are caught it is a disaster. This then makes rolling for each unit individually optimal, if tedious. So there is a reason to forbid more AED rolls than necessary.

As Kevin asked, when do you make more than one roll? I find it difficult to answer this question looking at the rules. For example, if you have two groups or two separate units targeted, do you make one roll or two? It seems simple enough, but when you read the evade rules, page 48 isn't crystal clear.
Perhaps this just indicates that most every time you have, maybe, a group of 3 LH and they make a single roll and run 4, 5, or 6 UDs away.