Actually, I've convinced myself to move the 200th NE instead. Either they start immediately tying up the Nymphs, or they can charge or otherwise pressure the enemy flanks without us having the shift our other infantry. Just edited my initial plan since no one's voted for it yet.
That would be quite hard considering the rangers get 7 stealth (3 base + 2 weather + 2 terrain) in the woods. In that scenario, we don't get to melee them immediately, but they get a close range double advantage shot at us 2 turns from now. Not a fan of that.
Hm...Technically, we can attack into the woods as a best guess next turn. Their concealment will negate our Advantage from offensive genius, but this is actually the only way I see to not take an ambush shot from the Nymphs.
Or we could stay in cover. A shot with -20 modifiers is inherently limited in effectiveness, plus we can subsequently blast them with the horse artillery. Also, the enemy can't easily spot our units in the villages (6 conc vs. 5 in the open, so we would also be forgoing our own 2*advantage ambush by moving the Hobs to an open tile. That is in addition to taking more fire from the artillery.
Alright, reverted back if only to keep my plan consistent. Also remembering that the Nymphs have muskets - and that even their rifles don't have the extended medium range ours do - makes a difference. Either of their potential attacks will be taking a -40 on their ambush turn.
To give a bit of feedback on your first plan:
I think your tactical assessment of the current situation is solid and the assault this turn is well coordinated, but your medium tactical perspective needs some further thought. I think your using the 108th overly aggressively. Not only do you attack in the range of 2 artillery units, you would leave them in the open fields in medium range of the enemy infantry, in front of our own infantry. With this charge, they will likely be routed before getting to their target, which will cause issues next turn and you would bleed them excessively.
I think using a double advantage attack on the 90th Elves is wasteful. They need somewhere around 40-50 hits to be routed, something that is likely accomplished with a far more ordinary attack. We get one of double advantage attack with the Hobs, and they should be used against high cohesion units like the dwarfs rather than scouts/canon fodder. This is something I have generally criticized in the thread, the ambush should be saved and used when it counts, rather than revealing our position first time we get.
Huh, you're right. That really is a mistake on Wachenheim's part, considering the village will see an intensive combat. He should have send the humans there. To some extent that may have been due to the unexpected rapid deployment on our part and commitment to a certain infantry structure from his deployment, but it will greatly hurt nevertheless. Drawing the inference here, the 2 other Dwarfs are likely behind the current field line, which isn't going to be great for them. They are going to charge across artillery fire in an open field, with our halflings snipers doing quite a bit of damage. With concentrated field artillery fire, we can break the Dwarfs without to much of an issue.
Yeah, the centre units would take -3 morale from shattering the first line, and need to spend a turn moving into a position that is already in range of our ready fire order. In addition to that, I also think we don't need to use the horse artillery on the village given the fairly fragile units there, so we can use them to flank the dwarfs. This whole battle will turn into an outright slaughter of the enemy infantry line very soon.
Good question. I would guess it's probably still stuck behind the enemy line, with Wachenheim initially speculating on bringing them into use once our initial infantry line (west of the village) is shattered. Of course, this isn't going to work out in this battle, especially with our control over the vital parts of the road.
I think that's a bit overly optimistic regarding the future route phase, considering that much of the line can still move 3 tiles using the road that leads of the edge of the map. Wachenheim will still loose a decent portion of his army, especially the second rank. On the bright side, Wachenheim is a few kilometres south of the river, which would need to be crossed during the retreat (they can hardly attempt to ford a river in this weather). We can presumably keep up with his army until then (we only need to march in good order behind him), and the deal the western army the final blow once to try to escape over the bridge. So confirming the victory isn't that important IMO considering the following battle against a force with the back against the bridge.
Some of this depends on luck, but I think it's going to be very difficult to loose the current battle. And barring some truly unfortunate luck, we will be the general who not only prevented enemy occupation of the border region, but also destroyed an enemy army on her own. Pretty good PR overall, though we still haven't found good political connections in the capital.
We need to break line of sight with the enemy formation before we are able to ambush them again. I don't see where in the south that would be feasible, considering the northern part of the line has a direct LoS to the area near the forest. Plus the hilled artillery, which is going to have a very good line of sight on the area behind the forest.
Some of the infantry is probably going to get away (we can only capture one unit per cavalry, and we need to move them towards them), but point taken regarding the artillery. The Dwarven one will probably abandon their equipment, though the other 2 can flee in 2-3 turns using the road.
This does depend on how far the enemy infantry is away from the road. If they flee while being just one tile east of it, we are going to have hard time blocking it. If they are 2 tiles away, we have a reliable chance of capturing them. The enemy position while fleeing is still uncertain, but you make a convincing argument for us being able to capture a decent chunk of the enemy infantry. If Wachenheim ends up with a rump army without artillery support, we have achieved our goals quite solidly.
For the artillery units, I don't think they would fire on the 108th, maybe the one already in medium range, but the 75th is more likely to fire on the 55th, I don't expect the enemy to readyfire (wouldn't that also hit the 55th unless specified), and I think it's unlikely that the enemy will prepare for the 108th charging. As for being in medium range for enemy infantry, there are only a few of them that would be in medium range, and there would be of other targets that I that I think they would prioritize (other cavalry/halfling). As for routing, I think this is a non-issue. They'll take the road, and the possible places where they could rout are all near the road. They'll likely just move past any friendly units or disorganize the 251st which is fine. There is a chance they rout the 148th that only if they don't move the 20th Dwa unit forward which is unlikely and if it does happen, it gives us more time to prepare. As for the 108th taking casualties, I think it's worth it if they can rout a unit or deal a good amount of damage. For the 108th being in front of own infrantry, I order them if possible to get out of the way for the units in the forest/village, as for the units in the plains, I think their too far away from the enemy for that to be a concern, I don't think combat there will begin next turn.
For the Hobs, I don't think they'll ever be in a good position to hit those units, in the church of the village. In the church, we are too far away from any valuable to hit and other enemy units will likely block line of sight. Even in the village the 102nd Dwa is long range. I think you're being too conservative with the ambushes here, in that we're potentially missing an opportunity, because we could continue to wait for a good enough value target for our ambush that just might not won't show up.
As for having a reserve or second line, this plan has that with the 251st/42nd (42nd is not ideal but better than nothing or them doing nothing). And for the units in the plains, I don't find that to be a big concern, units are too slow and we have the support of our cavalry. I want to try to take advantage as many of our units as we can. Th enemy having 2 lines I think is partly based on the fact they have less room/time to maneuver, but it's also a weakness here in that their back ranks aren't firing or doing much. While having a reserve is nice, we managed fine last battle without it, and the mud makes it less of a concern here.
We're are his halfings too? I would expect them to be in the front, they have the longer range rifle and would be hidden. Maybe they're apart of his second line?
Ok, why do you think that? The artillery was set up to fire on the village last turn, so why wouldn't they set up to fire against the visible cavalry unit that charged them last turn? Our infantry is hidden, so they don't exactly have a large selection of targets. Expecting them to make such an elementary mistake, especially when they have nothing else of real importance to shot at is a flawed assumption.
That is a strange assumption considering the enemy infantry line is moving to be in medium range this turn, meaning the shooting match begins next turn.
I checked it myself, they have a line of fire towards the street east if the village. It's important to note that line of fire doesn't need to connect to the centre square of the field you are firing into, only a corner without crossing a blocked tile. In regard to being conservative, we would be missing out on a single ambush from the 148th, assuming the elves try moving into the village. I can live with that, especially since the upper part of the line is already damaged.
That would be strange considering that his line consists of high morale units like dwarves and humans. If you're trying to charge across a field, you really don't want fragile halflings behind your strongest units near the enemies charging range. My guess is they are stuck somewhere in the third line, with the initial idea being to position them as ambushers once the battle for the lazaret started.
Oh, it just slipped my mind that that cavalry charged last turn. And our infantry in the woods SW of the village and in the village are going to be in medium range. I don't think the rest of the infantry are going to be in medium range, even still they're hidden. But now that I thought about it more, I'll change it so the cavalry won't charge. I'll make the changes when I'm not on my phone.
I knew they had line of sight, but I didn't know about the corner thing so thanks for informing me on that. I don't think being able to hit east of the village with a medium strike is that important. We have support from most of our artillery, plus the horse artillery we set up for just this purpose. As for the ambush we also have to move the 42nd up, and we're going to lose one ambush if the enemy moves next to one of our unit, probably whatever is in the village. Also I think it likely that the 90th might spend their round searching, they get 10 spotting and might reveal a bunch of our units.
