Apologies in advance for the long post but I noticed in the combat outcomes that it is almost impossible to kill LH and Ps frontally with foot as well as Cav in their bound, and it got me thinking......
Is it possible that a Cv/LH/Ps command could have so many items spent that you couldn't force the command to be disheartened? I think the answer is yes. Such a command could have up to 50% of the ME spent (lets assume without a single loss) and the command is not actually disheartened because there are no losses.
Once you get over the 50% spent threshold then the command would be broken but if over 50% of the ME is spent then can such a command be shattered? To be shattered a command has to have LOST over half its original ME. From memory 'lost' for the purposes of shattering does not include spent - so I reckon in this situation the command could not be shattered.
So how would this work? Assuming you had a Gen at 4ME and 6 Army Bge @ 3ME then the command would have to be at least 14.5ME for this scenario to be able to occur. Lets say you have a 16ME command and you have 9ME spent (and just the Gen and Army Bge remain), then so long as the Gen stays alive it doesn't matter (for the purposes of this scenario only) if you lose all the Bge, as the losses cannot exceed 50%. Lets say all the Bge was lost and there was nothing else in the Bge command, then the LH/Ps/Cav command would not incur the 2ME penalty because the Broken Bge command (which would be off the table) is no longer visible to the General.
Lets assume just 5 Bge were lost, then the loss to the command would be 2.5ME plus a 2ME penalty, if the Gen is within 800 paces of the surviving Bge. At 4.5ME this is still less than 8ME so technically the command cannot be shattered (provided the Gen survives - which he should if he is mounted). The only way you could shatter this command would be to not kill the last piece of baggage and break 2 other commands - which would most probably give you the game anyway! (Assuming there isn't one massive command without a single loss and 3 broken micro commands - unlikely). Killing the General would shatter the command but only if you didn't kill the last piece of Bge (4 + 2.5 + 2 > 8 ). If you killed the last piece of Bge (before the Gen was killed) then this command can not be shattered even if the Gen was lost and there are no more elements on the table! If another command was broken there would be no 2ME penalty because it is not within 800 paces of any elements of the LH/Ps/Cav command, given everything is off the table. I realise this is a highly contrived but scenario but IMO it raises an interesting question. Given this command is not shattered, does it still roll a dice?
I think one of the lessons here is if you sack your opponents baggage then leave at least one element behind to inflict a 2ME penalty on nearby commands. But if the tables are turned, I think you would want mobile baggage that would rout from the table eliminating the 2ME penalty. Plus, I think the other thing is that where possible you should have mounted Generals such that if you find yourself in a pile of trouble you can at least try to keep him alive (or dead if everything else is spent) to keep the PIP dice coming.
Lastly, if you get into your opponents Bge it might be worth not attacking the 2nd row of Bge as you would the first (i.e. across the table) because in all probability you would compulsorily follow up into the next piece and end up removing all of the Bge from the table.
Any other thoughts on this? Or any mistakes in my logic?
Andrew
