ED. NOTE: This column will appear in each issue. In it, the author of a popular set of wargame rules will answer the questions most asked of his rules. What better way to inaugurate the column then by Phil Barker's answers to questions concerning his Ancient Rules -- perhaps the most popular set of wargame rules ever published. These questions and answers were selected from dozens asked by myself and others in preparation for the last three Ancient tourneys held at Penn Con each June.
Your help is solicited in keeping this column going. Send me questions that you have asked of rules authors and their answers. Also, send me questions you would like answered, name the rules and the author and I will endeavor to have them answered and listed here. Al1 these questions concern orders. Later columns will cover melees and formations.
1. Q: Are orders to hold against infantry but attack cavalry acceptable?
- A: Yes, if anyone
wants to try it!
2. Q: May a unit be ordered to occupy its present position, or any position, and attack units that come within a given distance?
-
A:
Yes
3. Q: A unit is ordered to attack infantry and hold against cavalry. It attacks an infantry unit. A cavalry unit with orders to attack in support of the infantry unit that has been attacked declares a countercharge. What are the infantry unit's options?
- A: As in p22 for reaction, pare. 10; obey
the /east aggressive order.
4. Q: Assuming that the attacker is allowed to halt, must the cavalry unit countercharge?
- A: As the declaration must already have
been made -- yes.
5. Q: May an infantry unit that is ordered to advance attack infantry, hold against cavalry, advance to within more than 3" of a cavalry unit?
-
A:
No.
6. Q: May any unit that is ordered not to attack advance to within 3" of a hostile unit? See page 3 under charge.
- A: No.
7. Q: Are a unit's reaction to conditional orders (a) instantaneous, or (b) only period by period?
- A:
Instantaneous.
8. Q: Can you write the following order? "Advance and attack enemy infantry, following up enemy -- do not persue routing enemy"?
- A: No. One cannot order people not to
pursue. One can only not pursue if one has a hold order.
One can order someone to go into action and then hold,
but
cannot tell them to hold after they have already defeated
the enemy. In effect, this would be giving them a new
order that they will obey in the next period at which time
they have already completed their compulsory
pursuit.
9. Q: Can you write an order to hold the woods and charge the enemy that enters them?
- A: No -- you give a hold order as such. If you
get the right reaction result when testing for being
charged, then you can countercharge.
10. Q: Are troops with attack orders, who have no modification of the attack order instructions (or standing orders), and who get obey orders on their ~action test required to charge even though they may be disordered?
- A: Yes, if you are given attack orders,
you cannot wait until you think you want to attack. You
must attack the first period that you are within
reach.
11. Q: Can troops with attack orders, whose enemy is in charge reach, avoid charging them that period by expanding or contracting for more than ,/' the period?
- A: They can avoid the charge requirement
this way only if they can demonstrate that they need to
go to another formation to get maximum amount of
figures in contact. You do not have to commit suicide, but
they cannot make changes that serve to only slow them
down.
12. Q: Conditional orders mentioned in the orders section are described as ''better included in standing orders"; are they subject to exploitation by the umpire or are they options among which the player may choose if he gets an "obey orders" on a reaction test?
- A: The most offensive must
always be used.
13. Q: A unit is ordered to advance, hold. At what distance must the unit halt?
- A: It halts when it has to respond
to a charge.
14. Q: An infantry unit is ordered to Advance; Attack Infantry; Hold against cavalry. It is now within 8" of a cavalry unit, but not within 3", may it continue to advance?
- A: It can advance until a charge is
declared against it.
15. Q: May a unit be ordered to attack in support of more than one friend? If so, what is the priority in the absence of standing orders?
- A: Yes; the order in which the threats
develop, unless previously specified in writing.
16. Q: May a general with a unit that is in melee change the unit's orders?
- A: Yes, unless he
himself is fighting.
17. Q: May a general with a unit that has just broken its opponents change that unit's orders from attack to hold so that there will not be one turn of compulsory pursuit?
- A: No. Time lag stops this. By the time
the order is digested, they have already pursued.
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