There was a unit of archers, Viking types with various, bow and shield. They went into shieldwall...perfectly fine as they were shielded. Once they elect to shoot with their bows, however, they are no longer considered shielded, and thus fall out of shieldwall. To go back into shieldwall, they will need another deploy order. If they elect to fire again, they fall out of shieldwall.

Note that a unit with a front rank of spear and shield may remain in shieldwall if it has rear ranks of archers firing. The definition of shieldwall is a unit with a front rank carrying shields and counts as being shielded.

I thought I'd write a more thorough example of what happens when a unit is fighting to cross an obstacle.

1. There is a unit of UI archers with Defend orders behind an obstacle (stream, wall, stakes, etc.). In front of them is a warband of screaming UI Galwegians, frenzied and thus under automatic 'Attack' orders.

2. The Galwegians have to charge the archers, so declare as much during the Charge Declaration Phase and roll for their charge movement, deducting a d6 (in 25mm) for running into delaying terrain (crossing the obstacle). There is a chance that they may not make it to the archers if they are slowed enough and in this instance, will be in deep trouble! If the attackers were close order foot or mounted, they would be automatically disordered from entering the delaying terrain. Loose order foot are not disordered.

3. Assume they do make it to the archers. During the Missile Fire Phase, the archers get to shoot at the Galwegians, but must take a Morale Test to see at what range they get to fire at (this is only in MW & AW, not in FPMW). They roll an unmodified d10 and if they roll their Morale To Pass number or higher, they fire at Close Range. If they fail to roll high enough, they fire at Effective Range.

4. The archers count the target as shielded (if the warband has shields), and charging or in contact (one or the other).

5. If enough casualties are done to the warband to lose a whole stand, the Galwegians will take an immediate Morale Test. If they fail, they will suffer the results on the Morale Failure Table.

6. Assuming the Galwegians do not have to take a Morale Test or pass one if they do, they will fight the archers during the Close Combat Phase.

7. The Galwegians have some serious minuses, attacking a Superior Tactical Position (enemy behind an obstacle) for a -2 and another -1 for enemy with Defend orders. They also do not get their charge combat die roll as this is lost when attacking through delaying terrain or across obstacles.

8. The Galwegians attackers are frenzied, so get the +2 for this, but enemy will count shielded if they have shields. Even thought the archers fired, they would have sufficient time to grab their shields before the Galwegians hit them. Of course if they don't have shields, they are shieldless!

9. This will be a tough fight and either side can win. If the archers win, the Galwegians will be forced back across the obstacle, disordered, and will lose their frenzy. Since the archers had a Defend order, they will not be able to follow-up. In fact, if you had close order foot defending an obstacle, you had better have Defend orders because if you are forced to follow up or pursue, you'll be disordered yourself from crossing the obstacle! I hope this clears up any questions as to what happens when you are defending or attacking an obstacle.