I raised an issue in the March REVIEW concerning the firing procedure in Tod Kershner's Seven Years War AGE OF REASON rules. I had sat in on a game presented at COLD WARS, and had commented on what looked like an immunity-from-fire for units that had just charged into contact. The fire phase follows the contact phase, and in the game I observed, there was no fire directed at several cavalry units which had just been placed in contact with each other. I thought, therefore, that one was prohibited from "firing into a melee". Tod read my note and wrote a reply, stating: In the game you watched, there simply was no artillery or infantry unit that was able to fire on the cavalry flank and thus there was no opportunity fire. Tod explained further about the opportunity fire procedure, which occurs prior to the regular fire phase: To answer your concern about units in contact/melee being immune from fire, rest assured that this is not the case in AGE OF REASON. On page 29 of the text, you will find a section on opportunity (pass through) fire, where it clearly notes that charging units are viable targets during the charge phase. If infantry/artillery fire on them during the charge phase, they will take morale checks as appropriate and only if they pass do they close and become "immune" to fire. Jerry Lannigan also took up the cudgel in defense of AGE OF REASON, stating, in effect, he didn't want me to get "completely befuddled" about the rules (does this mean that 'partial befuddlement' is acceptable?... probably so, since that's my normal state of existence). Jerry quoted the passage cited by Tod; on page 29 of the rule book, we find: (Opportunity fire is)... resolved anytime during the charge movement or normal movement phases... Any unit using opportunity fire may not move, change facing/ formation, or fire for the rest of the turn... Jerry's other comment was: "My first two playtests with ...(AGE OF REASON)... have produced very favorable results. Large games tend to play rather slowly using the alternate card movement pattern." Back to PW Review May 1993 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com