Greetings! For the past 2 years Corey and I have been working through literally dozens of different sets of ranged rules to help bring the effectiveness of ranged units up to where they need to be. This is going to seem like a lot of verbiage (see below) and it is quite a radical change from the current ranged rules system.
Proposed Shooting Rules RevisionCommand ActionsReload: you may spend 1 Command Action to erase a marked Ammo box.
Standing OrdersAdvance to Short Range standing order: a unit with this standing order will not fire until it reaches Short range.
Removed Orders and Modifiers: the following are deleted from the rules
• Advance to Long Range standing order
• Move & Shoot modifier
Combat PhaseRanged Attacks: If an unengaged unit has a ranged attack it will attack
every turn (i.e. on both player's turns), unless it is Disrupted or Routing.
Some units have special rules that states the unit “may” shoot (ex: Red Dragon). In this case the controlling player may choose whether to shoot or not. If the unit does not shoot, do not mark an Ammo box.
If a unit would normally shoot but some special rule prevents it from doing so, you still mark the Ammo box. Ex: A Goblin Bomb Chukka damages itself instead of shooting or High Elf Battle Mages draw a Command Card instead of shooting.
Ammo: Every time a unit shoots, mark 1 Ammo box. Once all Ammo boxes are marked the unit cannot make a ranged attack. Note: If a unit with all its Ammo boxes marked would gain extra dice due to a Command Card or ability it still may not make a ranged attack.
Unless printed otherwise on the card, the number of Ammo boxes a unit has depends on the maximum range of the attack and whether the attack is Indirect Fire or Line of Sight.
Unit Ammo Boxes | Max Range 10.5”+ | Max Range less than 10.5” |
| Indirect Fire | 8 | 4 |
| Line of Sight | 4 | 2 |
If a unit has multiple ranged attacks, it has one set of Ammo boxes that it uses for all attacks. To determine the number of Ammo boxes on a unit, use the ranged attack that grants the most Ammo boxes.
Units with Javelins or Pila attacks or units with the Skirmisher keyword have a different set of Ammo boxes.
Skirmisher Unit Ammo Boxes | Max Range 10.5”+ | Max Range less than 10.5” |
| Javelin/Pila | 1 | 1 |
| Skirmisher Line of Sight AND Indirect Fire | 4 | 2 |
| Skirmisher with Javelins | 2 | 2 |
Ranged Attack modifiers:
• Closest Target: unless the unit it being Direct Controlled, it gets (-0)-1/-0 this attack if the unit it is attacking is not the closest available enemy unit.
• Moving and Shooting: Units get a penalty of (-0)-1/-0 this attack if it moved this turn or if it’s Standing Order would make it move on the following turn (i.e. it is the opponent’s turn and the unit is on Close or Hold with an Objective)
• Long range: if the target unit is more than 7” away, the attacking unit gets (-0)-1/-0 this attack.
• Extreme Range: This modifier is removed.
Javelins & Pila: in addition the having more limited Ammo, the timing of Javelin/Pila attacks depends on the unit’s standing order.
Range or Hold standing order: The unit makes ranged attacks with the Javelin/Pila according to the normal rules (above).
Close standing order: the unit makes a ranged attack when it charges, regardless of which player’s turn it is.
Errata: Ravenwood Centaurs will have 2 Ammo boxes on their card. Elephants have 2 ammo boxes.
Spells: how spell attacks operate depends on what keyword the spell has.
Attack spells: Spells with the Attack keyword (and only that keyword) use the normal shooting rules (above). They have Ammo like any other attack. Ex: Battle Mages, Lords or Dusk, the Elementalist.
Curse or Bless spells: Spells with either one of these keywords can only be cast on the owning player’s turn, even if they have a ranged attack as part of the spell. These spells do not have Ammo boxes and are unlimited.
Errata: Umenzi Death Curse spell will gain the Curse keyword. Same for the Lashmistress.
A few comments here:
1 – I know this looks like a lot of text. It is, but keep in mind that some of it is differentiating between how the current shooting rules work vs. how they work in the proposal. Some of this text already exists in the rules or would replace existing text in the rules like the javelin reload rule. All of the text you see above won’t be necessary to have in the new rule book.
2 – If you look carefully, these rules really don’t increase the amount of damage most ranged units do throughout the course of the game. What it does is move the damage FORWARD in the game and that’s where the significance of the upgrade lies.
3 – Yes, there are charts for ranged rules now. Keep in mind that these are for reference because if this proposal moves forward, ammo boxes will be printed on ranged units from now on. These charts would only be for reference since the ammo will be right there on the card.
4 – What about ranged units in factions that already exist? Glad you asked! Corey and I have been working on card sleeves that have the ammo boxes on them so you could just slip the sleeve over the card and presto! Instant ammo boxes!
5 – The number of ammo boxes are not absolute yet for some of the fringe cases. 1 Example is Centaurs getting 2 javelin attacks. We’re still trying to figure out how many ranged attacks the Umenzi Giant War Elephant and the Persian Elephants would get.
6 – These rules may possibly fix some balance issues in regards to Skirmishers, Pila equipped units. A good example is the effect on Persian Thanvabara, which has proved to be an annoyance in competitive play. Now they will only get 4 shots unless the Persian player starts spending command actions to reload them. Units like Caetrati and Roman Velites now are limited to a single shot before CAs are spent to reload them.
Edit: I made a couple of boo boos when creating the original post. The following have been changed:
Skirmisher ammo boxes: units with Max range of less than 10.5" should have 2 ammo boxes, not 4.
Moving & Shooting: "Unless the unit is being Direct Control it gets (-0)-1/-0 this attack..." was removed
Errata: the Lashmistresses should have the Curse keyword.
