During the Warfare competition a ruling on bow fire was made that I would like seek some further clarification on please:
It was stated that if any base within a unit was out of arc (not just blocked line of sight) of the target unit then the rule on page 13 section 1.2 where it may ignore a unit if only some of its bases can shoot at in favour of a unit that all its bases can shoot at.
My questions are:
1. Do you check the arc of each base both front rank and rear rank to see if in arc, or just the front ranks base arc?
2. In the below diagram Unit 1 has its front left most base out of arc of a unit A that can charge it, Does this mean Unit 1 can choose to ignore Unit A which can charge it and shoot at Unit B as all its bases can shoot at Unit B? (The wording to me in section 1.2 page 13 would suggest it must always shoot at chargers - but would like clarification)
3. If unit 1 chooses to shoot at Unit A how many dice would it roll? Only 1 front base is out of arc - all 9 (4 front/5 rear) are in arc.
4. Same scenario as 2 above but lets assume Unit A is not in Charge Range of Unit 1, in this scenario I am assuming that Unit 1 can choose to shoot at Unit B as per the ruling at the competion.
With this change to the rules of shooting I think we are going to see a lot of kinked battle lines of shooting units to avoid targeting certain units and target specific units - ie two bows units side by side, one angles inwards and takes a base out of arc of its directly opposing unit - now we get two units shooting at 1 target - getting to be a bit DBMish.
With this further check to see that each base is in arc of fire I think page 13, Section 1.1 para 3 that describes bases blocked line of sight needs to now include arc of fire.
Lastly, a follow on question - as we are now checking arcs of fire from from each base, should we not check shooting distance from each base instead of centre front of shooting unit? As there will be many occasions, especially with the larger bow units when the end bases are shooting 25", 26" or more.