I am just wondering what the situation is regarding drive-backs.

It states when a company is removed by one round of shooting, this will cause a drive back.

What I wonder is, does this mean a whole company, ie 8 infantry or 2 cavalry figures, or any company, including a depleted one?

So if a depleted infantry company only has say 3 figures left and take 3 kills, does this cause a drive back, or would it still need 8 kills???

regards
Scott

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if there are 3 left and 3 are killed they are driven back

i have this question also

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OK, so that's a confirmation on depleted companies.
Thanks

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www.scottswargaming.blogspot.com

Sorry for resurfacing this question after a few months - but this cropped up last night in a game and we had the same debate - again, apologies if this is answered in the rule book - its brand new for us and last night was our first "proper" battle so obviously we've not got everything fully grasped yet ..

The conclusion we came up was with a full company (or 8 models for infantry). The reasoning behind this was that if a formation consisted of 3 full companies (24 models) plus 1 stray from a depleted company and a hail of arrows inflicted only 1 casualty, then would the entire formation suffer a driveback for the death of one comrade when 24 of them are still standing?? Or 32 (4 comps) .. or 48 (6 comps) etc etc ... ie, "Oh No!!! Gary the Goblin, out of a 100 of us, got a arrow in his noggin' ... Fall back!!!"

I can understand the argument for cumulative effect over time - and that one model is the "straw that broke the camels back" so to speak.

But it doesn't seem to add up - a formation could lose 8 models in hand to hand, for instance, lose the combat but pass the panic roll and stand firm - yet one felled model from arrows could drive an entire formation back and theres nothing the formation can do it about it ...

The rules say that once a company dies you get driven back. This is regardless of how many models died - as long as you remove a tray, that counts as a dead company. The good thing about both SBG and WotR is that often you just have to read what the rule says, not try to interpret or wonder why that is, just play as it says (although it applies more to SBG than WotR, since the 1st edition has a lot of holes in it).

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Some of the rules in WotR are either too simple or at the other end of the scale, too ambiguous for my liking and to me, a driveback on potentially only one dead critter amongst 49 for example, seems a little harsh. A force advancing on archers should be expected to take casualties and to be driven back with 1 dead because of the consequences of a heroic combat 4 turns back, for instance, left them with only 1 model left in a company seems a bit ... hhhmm .. to me. But, I guess thats what house rules are for!!

Thing is that you're removing the last company, while in reality all the shots would be going at the front ranks, so you would be removing models from the front companies, but just for simplicity reasons the models are always removed from the back rank. Now take the following situation:

1 company at the front
3 companies behind

If 7 models died, they really died from the front, but you just removed them from the back. By then removing the 8th effectively the whole formation has lost its front rank and the front rank should be around the place where the 2nd company is positioned.

This would occur even if you had say 3 companies wide and 2 deep - killing a part of the front rank means that the formation needs to reposition itself and the only way it can do that is by moving slightly back to let everyone catch up. Makes pretty good sense to me if you think in these terms. You're not killing models from back companies, you're killing them from the front but substitute with the back ones for simplicity reasons.

Plus I don't think you really need to house rule anything... the formation will move at most 3" back and that's nothing given that everything with a hero inside can move 12" or even 24" per turn. At the same time if you house rule it for killing a full company and moving back you will quickly find that archers have no effect against majority of models because you will require on average 96 S2 shots to kill 1 company of D7 troops and that just doesn't happen because players don't usually have that many (unless playing a 12-wide Gorgoroth Horde). It's just not possible to get that many shots from a solid balanced force and at the same time make all those shots to be in range and unobscured by obstacles.

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Coordinator of the Great British Hobbit League

In addition to the above rationalisation of the rule (and a good one at that), it would've been worded either "one company's worth of models removed causes a fall back move" or "infantry companies losing 8 models and cavalry formations losing two models, etc ".

This really is a basic rule that functions fine in the mechanics of the game and I don't think really requires any hose rule. Trying to over-analyze "why" the formation based threasholds of when plastic models will be scared enough to be driven back is just a sign that you may need more models to paint to distract yourself.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Yeah, this.

Wargames of necessity require a level of abstraction that we just have to accept. You may as well be wondering why one side waits until the enemy is done shooting arrows arrows at them before returning fire.

I accept the rationality behind it - as I said above : Cumulative results

But I also gave another example .. A formation loses 7 models in Turn 2 to archers ... On turn 6 (having lost zero models since) - the formation advances on another enemy formation of archers and loses 1 model in that turn .. they are driven back as they have now lost a full company over 6 turns. But turn 2 and 6 are unrelated and I would assume any troops lost in the front line have already been replaced from the back. It seems strange that they wouldn't be driven back when losing 7 troops .. but 4 turns later in an unrelated action .. they shy off because Gary the Goblin got one in the eye. But not to worry - after going back 3 inches they are quite happy to advance again even if they lose a further 7 in the next turn ..

Yes yes, over analysis - of course it is. But as I said above - we just got the rules and started playing and so still getting to grips with things. A couple of occassions this cropped up and raised an eyebrow ..