Setting the East Ablaze melee question..

[atompunkray]

So I looked around a bit and couldn?t find any answers to my question, hence starting a new thread. So it seems like melee combat is resolved on a figure vs figure basis, rather than rolling for the entire unit at once. The rules mention that the player whose Action Card has been drawn nominates pairings before the round begins. Does this mean they simply pick the order that the fights go in, or does the Active Player get to pick which fights are carried out? (meaning that they could decide to not roll pairings that aren?t in their favor.)

Also, I?m assuming that these pairings are decided more or less randomly when the attacking unit engages the other in melee, and these pairings last for the entirety of the melee, but the rules don?t really explain that either. Can a figure who kills their opponent then join another pairing in the next round?

[joekano]

They way we've played it is that the attacking player matches up the combat figure to figure in the units until everyone is paired off.  Any excess figures are added to the paired combats of the owner's choice. We then roll results for all figures in combat.  The next round, if there are figures that are no longer paired with anyone, we again attempt to match them into new pairs and excess figures mix in as before.

[Dr Bogo]

Sorry for the delayed reply, a quick run through of how it should work:

Melee is determined on a figure-by-figure basis. So at its most fundamental: a player leads one 10-man infantry unit into another 10-man unit standing out in the open, each figure would line up against his opponent and each player then rolls 1D6 for his man in each of the 10 combats taking place.

If the winner in a given combat has a modified dice roll of at least two higher than his opponent, the opposing figure is removed. If the difference is less than two, the melee continues until the next unit card in the melee (either the attacker or defender's) is drawn.

After the first round of melee (i.e., the one in which the attacker moves to contact), you can move any excess figures to 'gang up on' ongoing melees, thus contributing the +2 bonus for an additional fighter in a given combat. This leads to a situation where if you take our two unit example above it could look like this:

Round 1: Bolshevik player draws the card for his unit of 10 Bolshevik infantry to move to contact 10 Chinese infantry in line in the open. The Bolshevik player has sufficient movement dice to get his entire unit to close contact. 10 combats are rolled for, the Bolshevik player wins 6, draws 2, and loses 2. At the end of this round you have 8 Bolshevik troops fighting 4 Chinese troops.

Round 2: The Chinese unit's card is drawn, and the surviving figures are redistributed, the Chinese having lost 6 men initially are down to 4 against 8 surviving Bolsheviks, so the excess Reds move to support the remaining combats and thus provide the +2 bonus for outnumbering the opposition. Four combats are rolled for, and all 4 Chinese troops are destroyed, so the Reds now have 8 surviving infantry after two rounds of combat.

The main exception would be where a melee attack is going in through a defended defile or passageway (a trench, doorway, gate etc.) whereby you can only get a limited number of troops to contact one another for space's sake. If you had four defending figures fighting 6 attackers but the space only allowed for one to fight one at a time, you wouldn't be able to begin assigning the excess attacking figures until they had broken through by destroying the initial defending figure (think Thermopylae, or Helms Deep on the causeway).

Does that clarify things?

[atompunkray]

oooops I’m sorry- just saw your reply now. But yes! That’s exactly the info I was looking for; I’m sure I’ve got melee combat understood now.

I do have another question though: this one is about Leaders. I understand they can be either attached or unattached to a unit, and if they are attached then they would move/fire/etc. when the unit draws an action card. I believe that if they’re UNattached they would take their action on their own action card. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about any of this.)

My question is: if a Leader is attached to a unit, what do you do when the Leader’s action card is drawn? Assuming you want to remain attached to the unit, so you couldn’t move away from it.

[Dr Bogo]

No worries!

On leaders the answer (hopefully) is straightforward.

1. If the leader's individual card is drawn before the unit has acted that turn (fired, moved etc.) then the leader is free to do as he/she wishes as an individual figure).

2. If the leader's individual card is drawn after the united has acted, then the leader has taken their turn and added their bonuses to the unit and moved/fired/melee-d as part of it and cannot move independently.

Should a unit card come out with a leader attached (before the leader has acted) and you know you want to move them independently, then the player can declare when the unit moves that the leader is detaching, and you can leave him/her behind to move separately when their card comes out.

[atompunkray]

So let’s say that a Leader is currently attached to a unit and I want to keep him attached. And then let’s say the Leader’s card is drawn *before* the unit’s card. If I want to keep him attached, do I basically just have to skip the Leader’s action?

[Dr Bogo]

Yes so you would say "leader is attached to unit X" so he's going to move then, and use/add his bonuses when the unit card is drawn and they act.

Once the game gets going you can usually just say 'attached' for shorthand.