FAQs (2)

Will - we played your AWI rules again over the weekend and had a fun set to. It
raised a few questions - hope you don't mind if I follow up with you??

Q1) In the Changing Facing rule

"To allow for the effect of alternative movement the firing player may change the facing of any unit after movement in order to fire or receive a charge. It cannot do this if an enemy unit is within charge reach of its current facing.
To change facing the unit remains in its current formation and rotates up to 180' around the centre point of the unit. If the desired rotation cannot be made due to either an obstacle or
other units then the unit cannot change facing"

Can u tell us what your rationale is on this?? The concern was that if you are the 'moving' player you only get to reface 45' for "free", and after this the refacing is taken as a full move. It seemed a bit generous to
allow 180' of "free" turning when you weren't even the moving player??

It was really introduced to prevent cavalry units wheeling right round behind an enemy unit and claiming a rear attack, it is generous when it happens but it does prevent unrealistic exploitation of the alternative move system.

>Q2) In the melee factors table, what does "overlapping enemy" mean?? Is this a bonus for a unit in line fighting a unit in column, or is this referring to adjoining units not directly involved in the melee supporting one that is (ie.
as per "flanks" in DBA). Also, is this a cumulative total (do you add 1 for each overlap) or a single score??

It is a bonus for a unit in line fighting a single unit in column, flanking units do not count

Q3) Last, in the melee factors table what does the "two or more bases deep" mean? Is this a bonus for attacking in column? We got a bit confused, one because we were sure that the predominant tactic in the SYW/AWI was linear rather than columns, but also because the "overlapping enemy" factor seems to cancel this out???

It is a bonus for attacking in column

You will notice that the two factors net off in most cases, so it can be ignored, this was deliberate as columns were not generally used as assault formations. However in a few cases it is useful to represent the effect of column e.g. assaulting across a bridge, a unit in line defending can maximise its firepower, but the column gets an advantage in melee if it gets there.

French units started using column in the AWI especially in the West Indies due to the restricted room for deployment. The best SYW example is Frederick's "secret" cavalry column in his instructions for his generals