Again, we are winning at Rotholz. There is no reason to retreat, we have a forward position with greater numbers, cover and decent morale. There is no advantage to retreating there, we are able to capture units after Trotha's retreat more plausibly if we stay rather than needlessly cede ground.
Having all the exact same arguments about where to put the fortifications again would have been soul crushing and I'm very happy to have dodged that.
There's only one infantry unit unaccounted for. If it's in the Rotholz within charging distance of Guillory it could charge one of his hussars, sure, but it'd be completely alone (since all the other infantry is routed) and exposed to our own infantry. I'm doubtful that 1 morale check would be worthwhile to him when he needs units badly to hold his center together.
Not really? The halfling melee malus isn't that bad and they're in very good terrain. Any unit that charges them has to eat rifle fire and is stuck in open plains with our lancers right there to demolish them. The nymphs are the only really scary unit on that side but they'd also be stuck in open plains.
Thinking on this, does the 28th Halfling have a shot on the 109th Hob? The Hill inflicts a -20 Penalty, but they'd also be attacking at Medium Range instead of long, so only a -40 (-30 after factoring in experience level) instead of a -50 (-40.)
No, wait a second. Does not that plan and those calcs assume the 9th and the 1th just stand there while Guillory charges them? That is, you are assuming they are not set to Ready Charge any of our units coming out of the Forest? Those Units have not moved, so they are absolutely set to Ready Charge, that is the only sensible play woth them. This means Guillory's cavalry will be counter-charged by the 9th and likely the 1st as soon as they reveal themselves, meaning we get no flanking bonuses. I also suspect there may be artillery in the hills north of Rotholz. This meaneuver pretty much guaranteed to lose Guillory's cavalry in exchange for the 9th. Throwing away two cav units to rout one is not a good trade.
So we are back to the 55th and 13th intetcepting him in the center? The 55th is badly positioned for this, and the 13th is one unit. Our intercepted cavalry will also have to watch out for interception (Ready Fire) from his troops in Kirchenholz and his artillery Ready Fire. If he is smart, he covers the movement of his cavalry with artillery Ready Fire orders.
I do not plan on retreating yet, since our position there remains solid. But I also do not intend to leave that solid position to go on a risky offensive that we do not need to do, operationally. I do not agree with your assesment that we have the opportunity for a succesfull attack: the terrain is rough and gives him time to react and reorganize his line, he has better cavalry than us, his best unit is missing and we have issues on the Western flank.
Trotha looses sight on them as soon as they enter the Rotholz due to spotting criteria. The 9th has no ready actions prepared, which we know due to having a LoS on them since the last turn. (Even if the 9th had a ready charge, that just means they collide with us in the forest rather
The only way to intercept them would be prepare 2 charges just to charge in the forest, which I think is a bit unlikely especially with the risk of our infantry subsequently pinning them down. I don't see this happening, you would generally want a ready [charge and disengage]. Why would he prepare the 1st Elv Hussars to potentially get stuck in the forest?
The 55th has 7 movement, they can charge the gap just fine. And yes, they would take fire on the way, but this is maybe one morale check against a routed unit of cavalry. The lancer by itself would induce at least 1 disadvantage morale check (cavalry) plus a second one (50+ casulties); 45% of introducing a rout alone, 74% if they take punishment from the halflings on the hill in the form of 50 additional casualties. If Trotha is actually smart, he will cut his losses and not embark on a plan that has a good chance of those units being encircled once they retreat. Additional note on artillery: Our battery can also fire into the gap.
That does not matter in any way? A Ready Charge with the trigger "any enemy coming out of the Forest" still hits them.
The 9th are not mentioned at all in the combat summary? Are you sure that means they did literally nothing for some reason, and not that we lost track of them at some point (or the QM forgot them)? Why would the 1st Ready Charge but the 9th not do so? And if they are set to Ready Charge, they will change their facing meaning we get no flank attack.
It's not about interception Guillory's hussars, it is also about hitting them back. Again, a Ready Charge order with the logical trigger "any unit coming out of Rotholz" means the 1st Charge the Hussars. This allows them to attack the Hussars three times on their subsequent turn. Guillory's Hussars do not have enough movement to disengage back, they are stuck in enemy territory for the next turn. At best this maneuver trades one of our cavalry for one of their, at worst we lose both Hussars.
Now we are discussing different scenarios: I was discussing the "his cavalry charges through the center and hits your attacking infantry in the flank"-option and you are discussing his cavalry charging our halflings.
I think you are still discussing a different scenario. As long as our Hobbs stay in the center protecting the artillery, I agree he cannot break through in the Kirchenholz. But keeping the hobs in the center makes your Rotholz attack even more ill-advised: you are attacking 3 units of infantry and 2 units of cavalry supported by 6 units of artillery with a force of 4 infantry and 2 cavalry. The math is not in your favour, and this is assuming he has not kept anything hidden in reserve.
True, that would mean he area instantly north of Rotholz is safe from his artillery. But I still do not believe in our attacking chances since we do not know if he has 2 or 4 units of cavalry in reserve. Even with just the units we can see now, the outcome of a potential attack would not be certain, especially with the randomness of the Morale Check system.
The 9th doesn't have the movement to charge 2 tiles deep into the Rotholz, meaning they can't actually perform an intercept charge until the hussars emerge out of the forest. You can't ready charge a unit you loose sight of. Considering one of them literally charges them while they are still on the hill, I don't see this happening mechanically. Even without the flanking attack, we still likely rout them (2 charges, ambush, 50+ causulties) are more than enough checks to take them out.
Ok, that is my mistake on your meaning. So, any cavalry charge through the centre means committing to at least 2 charge actions after reorganization (6 plain tiles, + at least one hill). This leaves very limited movement for a retreat, while also critically depleting his ability to screen the actually battery from a cavalry charge. Cavalry charges on their own are insufficient to rout the our Rotholz infantry (2 disadvantaged morale checks at most, simple checks for the 148th, survivable for the 45th [initial check at +2?, second at -3) and do only deplete the other units. At the same time, it robs Trotha of counterplay against charges from the centre. If we position those units just wrong, it would hit him hard; but we can break his last functional units in the centre if we play this right.
We can potentially bring 4 cavalry units into play there, with our infantry having far superior morale. The artillery can introduce a check or two, but superior morale with a bit of momentum can absorb that (base of +7? at least for most units). Casualties would be high, but the damage would be enormous once we break through. The math isn't in our favour causulty-wise, but is in terms of morale and total damage inflicted on the enemy army.
It comes down to which of the two Hussars hit them first, which we do not control. If the 350th exists the Forest onto the tile E of the 9th before the 341st charges them, the 9th will see them and the Ready Charge the 350th. At that point the 350th also takes Charge damage and Morale loss, and there is no flanking bonus.
Ok, but if you are aware this plan requires careful positioning and absorbing significant casualties to pull off, the question remains, why is this risk justified? From an operational stabdpoint, we are fine with a stalemate here. We were even ready to let Von Trotha retreat intact with his entire army before this battle! So why go for a risky attack now?
This was another thing I wanted to comment on, since to me these calcs imply that trying to ambush the Nymphs with the halflings is definitely not worth it. You seem to calculating correctly, but your worst case scenario does not take into account the subsequent enemy turn.
The 350th has an 8 tile path, the 341st has a 7 tile path. And an ambush, 2 charges plus casualty roll by itself would be enough to rout them (2 rolls with disadvantage, 2 normal rolls; 4 rolls being generally sufficient to rout normal enemy units).
Ok, I think we are finally at the actual core disagreement between us. Thank you for clearly formulating your position, it allows us to cut through a lot of pointless back-and forth.
The 19th Halflings don't need to spend 2 move actions due to being rapid (1+3). This is a waste of an action
This move would be not done, as moving out of melee costs 3 movment (1+2) rather than the 2 a singular movement action provides.
This is unnecessary, the 155th elves are at +20 stress. They are certain to rout from being attacked in melee alone.
The 10th is not given a movement action east, for reasons I can't discern. Such an action would allow them to potentially ambush again next turn, and also reduces the danger of from Kirschenholz somewhat. Additionally, the singular fire of the 10th accomplishes very little, creating only a 57% for even a single morale test. And this morale test would be almost certainly insufficient for actually routing them.
On a previous turn we have seen the 9th Search and Ready Action. It probably likely that that and this ready action, was in anticipation of an attack through the center instead of the forrest.
This assumes that when a unit is attacked they immediately wheel around to face their attacker, which I don't think is true. See round 3 Basly, 1st Elven Cuir attacked from W and NW, but their facing still remained SW. In addition, if this is a problem then we can order Guillory to have one cavalry lead or be a bit behind.
But that's on their next turn. We also get to act in between. And we can probably just rout the nymphs from morale damage from melee attack, our lancers and the 200th will be in play there, reinforcing our position. The risk of rout comes from the Nymphs, during the enemy's turn walking into the ambush and dealing enough damage to rout the Nymphs. Doing the calcs, its decently unlikely.
Good catch, will modify to add either a Brace or another Ready Fire.
Thank you, will change to Melee, Move, Move.
I am fully aware, the intent is simply to do some additional damage with zero risk. I could not come up with anything better for that unit to do.
The lack of move action is simply an error, will fix. The 10th and our halflings are both shooting at the 109th, so the combined fire should cause at least a morale check. I want to weaken the 109th in case he decides to exploit his seeming success on the Western flank. I expect the likelihood that we will be fighting the 109th in the upcoming turns is larger than that of fighting the dwarves in the center.
An attack on the left flank would not surprise me. If he does not intend to attack there, why has he committed his Nymphs, his Hobs and one of his artillery to this flank? I suspect his Horse Artillery and missing cavalry are also here, where else would they be?
The thing is, by choosing to attack we are no longer choosing between a stalemate and a clear win, but between a clear win and a devastating loss. A failed attack against an enemy with superior cavalry can quickly turn into a rout, if the attack fails we may very well lose this battle since we are then threatened on both flanks.
I mean, you could at least out them in the centre to threaten a bigger charge.
The 109th doesn't present a credible threat against our centre. They would be blindly charging, introducing one morale check at the cost of tremedous casualties (1, maybe 2 morale checks on fresh units with a +6-7 modifier in return for trivial envelopment from the sides. Just morale and positioning wise, an attack on our centre is easily repelled. Crossing the centre plain to contest would place the hobs in the perfect position for an entire volley and liable to take cavalry charges. You have made a lot of statements about him pressing the western, but I don't see a specific way to actually achieve a breakthrough there against troops with forces with better morale, running into either skirmishing fire or artillery and cavalry charge while having at best very rough force partity.
Well, if we give him three turns to rest those units, sure. But i am advocating for a plan that continues putting pressure on him and achieving either a retreat or a loss of his battery very soon, rather than giving him to time to recuperate. Additionally, those rested units would increasingly face the problems of momentum and causulties turning against him (-6 ish modifier after all the routs from 2 turns?), meaning they break even more easily. If defeat in detail is achieved over the next turn, we can break them with a decisive charge.
No, we don't. Trotha doesn't have superiority of cavalry either way this goes, and no plausible way to weaken our Rotholz position until they move out. This is not an argument against setting up for a better pursuit, this is an argument against charging from Rotholz when conditions aren't correct. And even if a Rotholz charge fails, this doesn't automatically result in our defeat, we still have the centre. You are pre-supposing a devastating defeat in the centre if we do anything other than stay in place and let Trotha regroup without hassle, and the positions aren't bearing this out IMO.
Obviously a defeat would terrible. And I am willing to have this discussion once you demonstrate a concrete, specific risk from Trotha regarding a a centre charge, one that actually shows how the resulting morale rolls could rout the centre hobs and cavalry.
I mean, Arné is stretched rather thin with 3.5 different fronts (Silver Duchy, Daurstein, Southern Host, Herculian Border). Considering we are sent resupplies once per campaign, the state of Guillory's field army, Arné having some serious internal risk of rebellions and stabilizing the other theatres, I don't expect their reinforcements to come quickly enough to achieve a positive force balance in our theatre within 3 weeks. I mean, Guillory took that time just to muster and send out 2 cavalry units at the end of our campaign, relying on potential future field armies (which we don't even know will be mustered and sent to us!) to secure our positions seems rather fraught. We've run into the issue of reinforcing armies facing constant delays, I wouldn't rely on anyone else saving our hide from a potentially superior force.
Not necessarily. It depends on the exact force strength, plus we have defensible terrain that limits how much of a force the enemy can bring against us (hills can only allow so many units to enter battle). I also don't think "we are either completly fine or completely screwed depending on reinforcements we have no control over" is an accurate assesment or helpful as an argument for either course. Not all of Norn's armies will be sent against us specifically, they presumably have plans to support or prevent the occupation of their ally. Our ability to win locally is influenced by the strength of the last provincial army post battle, with a battered or wounded Trotha, with a greater defeat of him benefiting us and Arné overall by binding more forces.
