Shooting Basics

In the last article we looked at the movement basics from there we are now moving on to the shooting phase. There are two phases in which your troops will shoot – the first is the charge phase. The second is the shooting phase. You will only ever shoot in one of these two phases. The reason we have two shooting bases it’s down to the turn sequence. Shooting is something that you will do towards the start of the turn whereas movement and manoeuvre is towards the end of the turn. As such when you are manoeuvring your troops it is always in preparation for fire in the next turn.

We will briefly touch on the full turn sequence.

• 1. Card Phase
• 2. Charge phase
• 3. Shooting phase
• 4. Moving phase
• 5. Fighting
• 6. End of turn phase.

As you could see in the turn sequence charging is very early on in the turn. Therefore, if you are the target of a charge then you will always be able to react by shooting at the chargers. Also in this phase will be the charge combat, which will discuss at a later point. Those units that have not been charged, or shot in the charge phase, will then get to shoot in the shooting page.

Shooting mechanics

When we shoot, we use the CCC dice. Each shooting file will throw one dice. The colour of that dice depends on several factors. The baseline for shooting is a green dice. This will be then modified up and down by various factors. For instance, if you are shooting at long range, you drop a colour. If you are firing at the flank you go up a colour. Black being the worst, Red the best.

Most shooting units are three files wide. Therefore, will usually throw three dice. The arcs of fire in Renatio et Gloriam are typically straight ahead. That is ahead of the front edge of the shooting base, and within lines that extend the side edges of each file.

When a unit has a target directly ahead of the centre file then adjacent files to the centre file can always fire at the same target. So, there is some leeway in which you can concentrate fire. I.E., if you stand directly ahead of the centre of a unit.

There are some exceptions to arcs of fire. For instance, when a unit is charged frontally then each file will fire back to the charging unit unless they are already fighting or have an enemy directly ahead and within one base width. Artillery has a slightly more relaxed and can fire I can shoot up to two base widths to the side.

To determine the casualties inflicted when she turned roll the CCC dice. Rolling a SKULL inflicts 2 wounds rolling a wound ‘X’ inflicts one wound. If you roll an ‘S’ then no wounds are infected however you may drive the opponent back. Drive backs are a very important facet of the rules in Renatio et Gloriam. When shooting, each non-blank pace of the shooting dice inflicts one drive-back effect.

So, for example, if you roll a Skull, and two ‘S’s – you will inflict three drive backs – one for the skull and one each for the two ‘S’s. For each drive-back effect the unit is physically pushed back one base width up to a maximum of its movement distance. There are some factors that may mitigate this drive-back, for instance troop quality or formation. However, what you must consider is that after shooting the next phase is the movement phase so you can subsequently move back to the position you originated from. In real terms the unit is not going back and forth, but this is a measure of the command and control that is being expended to maintain a line of troops under fire.

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Determining casualties.

A unit has a number of wounds equal to its base size times 3. So a Pike & Shot unit of 6 bases has a total of 18 wounds. A unit is broken when it exceeds half of its wounds. In our example of Pike & Shot, when the 10th wound is inflicted, the unit is broken. Bases are removed for every 3rd wound inflicted. In the example of shooting dice scoring skull and two ‘S’s two wounds are inflicted, and wound markers are placed on the unit to indicate such. If another wound was subsequently inflicted, then a base would be removed. Bases lost does have some effect on the unit when it comes to effective ranks for shooting.

Shooting in the shooting phase is all simultaneous. But it does make sense for one player to conduct all of their shooting before the other replies.