Rules Question Thread

I have a question:

I recently got the PDF for the hail caesar rules, and I was reading through it, but I couldn’t really find out what baggage did. Is it just something to fight over (an objective)? I’ve only “flipped” through the rules, so maybe it was obvious and I missed it, but I only found rules for what to do when baggage fights or is attacked. Nothing on whether it increases morale of nearby units, or anything.

When units loses combat and gives ground, I assume that the victorious unit will indeed push forward to maintain contact as long as they are not shaken or disordered.

I would also imagine that when this happens, the combat carries over to the next turn where both units use “Sustained” rolls as opposed to “Clash”, thereby giving the winning unit the +1 to hit. So they would be hitting on 3’s.

Is this correct? Please explain.

My final question is whether it is considered a new charge that uses clash or an ongoing combat that uses sustained?

Yes it can. It is called a Sweeping Charge. Read the Sweeping Advance Rules on page 78. Full details and what test the unit makes for disorder. The only thing that would prevent it is the Proximity Rule. Provided there isn’t another unit to its front quarter,it can turn onto the enemy flank and count its attacks in the “new” combat.

Well, you have issued the order for four units to charge at four units. So, you work out the first charge and the charged unit evades. As you know, the evading unit rolls to see how many moves it may evade in the same way as if it was issued an order. So, it moves that many moves and then you move the Charing unit it’s full number of moves towards the evading unit. If the evadering unit has not moved far enough and is caught, it is destroyed. If it has moved far enough, the chargers are left hanging around.

You then do the same for the next charging unit versus the next target and so on. The charging unit does not redirect against another Skirmish unit because the charge move is direct and they will try to reach their target.

This illustrates the importance of the wording of your orders. You see, if you gave the order to charge the skirmishers, that is what will happen. If there is a formed unit behind the skirmishers and the skirmishers evade through it, your unit will stop short of contacting the formed unit. It will not charge into it because the order did not allow for it.

If your order was just Charge or Charge the line behind the skirmishers, the skirmishers would evade and your unit could continue into whatever was behind. But you can’t drive off one unit and change direction to charge into the one next to it just because the original target ran away.
All of your units will try to chase down their original targets, who will try to evade as far as possible.

I was wondering about the topic of “sub-units,” listed in the “A selection of useful rules” section of the rule book. My question pertains to using auxiliary archers as small units attached to a legionary units? If we can field them as such, can we pay for a full unit of 16 archers and deploy them between into two legionary units? Or does this rule pertain only to Republican Romans? Thank you for the clarification in advance.

As Charge the Gun’s has said, the sub unit is expected to stay as close as it can to the parent unit. The example given in the rules is that of German infantry mixed with cavalry, showing that it is not just for Republican Romans! In fact, the most obvious example is chariot runners for Biblical armies. They have a hard time of it keeping up when the chariots decide to charge off. They are forced to, though. If a sub unit becomes separated from the parent, they have to move towards it until they reach it.