Enemy BUA on a friendly hill

[landmeister]

An interesting question raised in my last game. I was the attacker and put two hills on the table. Immediately after putting the second one and before putting any of his features, my opponent decided to put his BUA on my second hill. After reading the rules, I couldn't find anything impeding that. Is this the intention of the rules or just an unforeseen side effect?

Thank you in advance.

[gibby]

Not sure that sounds right.

I would have thought that the BUA on a hill is declared as such when the defender is choosing his terrain pieces and that he has to declare it on one of his own hills.

If we give it a big stretch and say it is allowed then I would further contend that it should be specified on said hill before dice are thrown.

cheers
Jim

[landmeister]

I agree Jim. The problem with DBMM is that many times what is said and what is not in the rules has been decided by Phil himself (at least this is what he says). As there is nothing in the current text specifying it cannot be done, I understad it is permitted, but even Phil is human (I think) so maybe he couldn't see this "unexpected" situation.

Something similar happens with the repulsed combat outcome. Nowhere in the rules says that a repulse move is a close combat outcome only. According to the combat outcome rules (p. 38), Light horse must make a repulse move "...against foot or train" if losing but not doubled. As there is no specifiaction there about close or distant combat, I understood that Bw or Artillery shooting could make LH be repulsed. Then I read the Repulsed rules (p. 41) where it is defined so:

This represents a semi-organized retirement as a body ending out of contact...


This implies that having conctact is a previous necessary condition, but it says what the rule represents, not how has to be played on the table. Here we play it is a close combat only outcome, but I can't find any rule impeding it can be a distant combat one. 

[gibby]

Hi,

I don't think this is a Phil only rules problem. I play many rules and periods and to be fair, how can any rules writer cover every eventuality.

Yes it is easy to miss bits as well.

cheers
Jim

[DaveMather]

You need to dot between three bits

Placing Terrain features p 21

under point 9 its BUA unless on hill - so a BUA cannot be placed on a hill at this point in the terrain sequence - and this is the only point that you can place a BUA

Bottom of page 21 last para (b) provides the facility to have a hill combined with a BUA

so how

page 19 under BUA half way through the para - if on a hill .... so you have a terrain feature that is a hill with a BUA on it  - hill fort for example - much as any other terrain piece I would expect it to be clear at this point as to what it looked like - eg the BUA in respect to the hill - the dice then determining where it goes

and to answer your next question ;-) - depends on the type of hill

So clear but scattered ;-)

Kind Regards


David Mather
 
 

[landmeister]

Ok. David. It's clearer now. 

Thank you.