As it's caused some debate, I'll go back to Jeff's orginal question of wedges and answer it below. Before I do, however, I thought I'd explain why the wedge rule is the way it is. Basically, in AoA there simply isn't enough room to put in a rule along the lines of the wedge rule in the Bretonnian army list; you need space for diagrams and such-like which I wasn't going to be able to provide. The wedge rule in AoA is therefore sort of stop-gap, which I would imagine would be expanded on or modified in a 'proper' army book covering this period. Even the simplified rule in AoA can cause problems (as seen here), and if you can't resolves these, I recommend simply not using the rule. Now, onto the questions...
I have been having a hard time figuring out how to play the wedge rules for Alexandrian cavalry. Since I play Brettonians in WFB and they have different rules for the "lance" formation maybe that's what is screwing me up. The rule states that all figures in the wedge can fight, and for every two figures that "arent in base contact" one extra enemy figure gets to fight, which is basically all of the wedge except the front guy . So the issue is, who is in base contact with the wedge- since normally only the figure on the apex will contact the enemy, and do these "extra enemy figures" get added on even if enough base contacted enemy are eliminated... so here's my question with an example of how I've been playing this...
(Veteran Roman Cohort, Lt./Lg.shield +4 save, 11 Rnf + ldr, Mus, Stnd, 328 pts.) |
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| (Macedonian Shock Cavalry wedge, Lt./shield 4+ save, 7 Rnf + Ldr, Mus, Stnd, 315 pts.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A: Basically what you do is work out the combat normally (i.e. work out who is in base contact and therefore allowed to fight using the normal Warhammer rules). Then to this number add the rest of the models in the wedge, and for every two models in the wedge that this allows to fight, add one figure from the unit being attacked (assuming they have this many figures that aren't fight available). In a nutshell, work things out normally first, then add the extra models in, then roll those dice!
Based on Jeffs example, and assuming that the cavalry man at the apex of the wedge is fighting two legionaries, and that you are *not* using any overlap rules, then the Macedonians will fight with the one model in contact plus unengaged nine models from the wedge, for a total of ten models, while the Romans will fight with two models in contact, plus two models from the rear ranks as they are armed with pila, plus one extra model for every *two* extra models that the Macedonians fought with, giving another four (as the ninth model is not an 'extra two' and therefore doesn't add another Roman), giving a total of eight models. Note that the extra Roman models don't allow 2nd rank models to fight.
If you get more complex situations (i.e. multiple combats against wedges), simply stick to the principle of working things out normally and then adding in extra models to each side if they've got them spare, and you really shouldn't go to far wrong.
Jervis