Art De La Guerre

[KevinD]

1. Suppose there is an included general and his units routs an enemy elephant in melee. If the elephant rampages over the unit the general is included with, does the general have to take a survival check? (Even though rampages occur after routs, is the general still in combat when the elephant rampages over top of his unit?)

If yes,

2. Suppose the unit with an included general was behind the elephant while another friendly unit was fighting the elephant to the elephant’s front. Again, assume the elephant routs and rampages over top of the unit with the included general (now to its rear) that provided melee support. Is this included general considered to be engaged in combat and thus have to take a survival check? I assume not as even included generals are not engaged in melee if only providing melee support.

I think the answers are 1. Yes and 2. No, but obviously I’m not sure…

In any case rampaging elephants are no fun! You go to all that work to surround and kill the thing and it gets revenge by flattening one of your units on the way out!

[madaxeman]

[Mark G Fry]

[SteveR]

Hi Kevin,

"Even though rampages occur after routs, is the general still in combat when the elephant rampages over top of his unit?"

I don't think rampages occur after routs. They happen at the same time in the route phase. So agree the answer to your first question is "yes"

For the second question, what you are asking is is a general in melee support in melee. The answer to this is "no"

Page 60 under Melee defines what it is to be in melee. It must be the main unit in a fight. It is true that sometimes a unit in melee support acts like a unit in melee. For example it may not evade and it suffers from multiple attacks. But in these cases the relevant rule is "when a unit is in melee or melee support" further reinforcing that melee support is not melee.

[madaxeman]

[Hazelbark]

Yes rampage may create a risk of death.

As usual your compound questions add small bits.

If your question is: "Does an included general in melee support test for cohesion loss

From Errata
Commander engaged in combat (page 2
Only commander fighting with the main unit of a melee counts as Engaged in combat for CP purposes, combat bonus and risk of elimination. Commander with a unit in melee support is not Engaged in combat.

[Neep]

Both players might have to roll for commander loss in a Rout and Pursuit phase. I assume the active player chooses the order.

There is one optimization possible - albeit one that a mad axe man would characterize as the difference between playing badly and playing really badly. Leader loss causes a cohesion hit which can cause the attached to unit to Rout. That in turn can trigger subsequent Routs. It is possible that a commander that checked for loss (die roll 1) gets Routed and avoids the Rout check (die roll 1,2,3). Extremely unlikely, but there it is.