Unreliable

[Garry Wills]

A limbered artillery battery with the special rule unreliable, is ordered to unlimber but the command roll ends up being equal to the Staff Rating +1 for limbered artillery. The order is not failed because the die roll does not exceed the modified staff rating. However being unreliable the artillery is not allowed a move. Is the artillery allowed a free move, which is normally allowed in the case of a failed order? I would think so but was interested in the views of others.

Garry Wills

[Big Al]

That is a very interesting question.
I would say that the Unreliable Rule takes precedence. The order has not failed, so there cannot be a free move. The Unreliable Rule does not state that the order has failed and even goes on to state that any Unreliable unit involved in a brigade order would not move, while the rest of the brigade does. It goes on to give a valid reason for this.
The free move only happens, as you have said, when the order has failed. In this case, it hasn’t.

[Charge The Guns]

That all sounds a bit complicated to me. In the spirit of the rules, The Unreliable limbered artillery has some modifications to think about, but the fundamental thing for me is it either receives a command and acts on it, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t receive an order, then it gets a free move as it is limbered artillery.

Surely the idea of the unreliable special rules is to make orders slightly more difficult. As long as it does that then it is working.

[Garry Wills]

Thanks for the replies, as ever Big Al gets the interpretation of the RAW correct. But I suspect that the spirit of the rules might side with CtGs.

Having read the replies and thought about it some more, I conclude that it cannot be right that the limbered battery is better off failing the command test rather than passing it, but that it what RAW says.

Thanks guys

Garry

[Big Al]

Garry, the way I see it is that if the order fails, it gets a free move, which is effectively, the unit carrying on with its previous instruction or acting on initiative.
When the Unreliable Rule kicks in, it is down to the obstinacy of the unit commander, or his inability to interpret the order given to him – possibly due to the commander not writing the order clearly, or having poor hand writing (doctor’s prescriptions come to mind) or even the aide being a little like Captain Nolan starting off the infamous Charge.

[Garry Wills]

Yes thanks Big Al, I am using it for French Revolution infantry and artillery. Simply getting the men to move as directed by their officers was a problem sometimes. I think your interpretation is definitely correct for RAW. For me it is another example of RP not spending enough time tightening up BP2.

All the best

Garry

[Author]

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