Close and Loose Formation

[mikecobden]

Hi all,

I have been re-reading the rulebook, and playing solo trying to figure out some things. My current question is why one would choose to deploy a TUG in close if the unit was flexible? As far as I can tell, close formation only has downsides (elephants and terrain). So why would I ever deploy my legions in close formation? What am I missing?

As always, thanks for the help!

Mike

[lionheartrjc]

Two reasons:

Cavalry, camelry and chariots get +1 at impact vs loose foot.
Loose foot can be shoved by close foot in 2+ ranks.

Richard

[mikecobden]

Thank you for this response! And as always your responses on this Forum are very fast and helpful.

I found the close order shove rule, but it is all the way in the back, in the appendix, under "shove". I would never have thought to look there for clarification on "close order versus loose order"!

[sstoker22]

I an just looking at this but not loose are cheaper pts, Less affected by terrain, move faster in difficult going and fair better against elephants  (except drilled). For the 5pts cheaper a loose unit is you can nearly buy a short spear which offset the close advantage v cavalry. But also give you an advantage v others.

I note flexible pay a higher pts penalty