We have a situation which ran as follows :

The French play 'Fast Pace' and move the two hexes to close with a British Artillery unit.

In the second segment of the action phase the French melee in column. Even with the 9 on the dice they only disorganise the artillery. (Ok this is a really poor card result and the artillery was lucky).

The artillery can then use their second phase to reorganise.

In the next turn, unless the French opt to fire instead of melee, the Artillery will get off another shot at range 1 before the French Melee again.

1. Is this right ? is there not a rule that means once meleed, Artillery have to be clear of a melee before they can fire again or similar.

This seems very odd and difficult to justify.

Could someone explain the logic behind this please ?

Rax

The French can fire in the first phase and melee in the second phase of the next turn.

But I agree, artillery is remarkably reslient in melee.

This would be a simple fix by giving all arty a negative adjustment when in melee and being unable to fire! Otherwise yes they are too resilient.

Another area of the rules that need work. THis is beginning to feel like a PC a game issued before it has been play tested..........I expect a big patch to follow.

Lord Mykal said:

Artillery does not fire in melee. In melee, only the attacker rolls. Melee at this scale of abstraction does not necessarily mean hand-to-hand combat. It all too often happened that troops stopped to fire at short range instead of pressing the attack home. That is where the optional rule about grenandiers comes in. These guys are more likely to go all the way.

If the arty has a lower atk order than the inf then they can fire first 'in melee' before the inf can fire and then 'melee'. I understand the abstract aspects of the melee segment however inf would never stop in front of guns once they got within range to close whilst the gunners are re-loading. Once in that range its unusual that arty would survive. Throw them behind a wall, on a hill then maybe they have a chance. Not This is what erks me so we're testing:

We are going to class all arty in melee as 0 and arty start melee Disordered.

Add arty to the modifiers -

General ' Per inf, cav or arty fig in unit (max 2 if arty or in open order) - This means if they survive the initial melee their determination and resistance has an opportunity to repulse atkers but only if in a good def posn and supported.

Target '+1 if arty against inf attacked frontally'

So if they loose they rout.
If they survive they cannot fire whilst in melee but can fight back.