Newby question

[andyinkuwait]

Hi All
getting a bit frustrated here firstly with cav movement (but I understand that now) but my main thing is artillery movement. Can someone explain where they can go and where they can't as my artillery does not move with the stack and frequently will not go across the border. Do I assume artillery cannot ever enter enemy controlled spaces?

As this is pretty important, is there a reason its not in the rule booklet (or maybe I cant see the wood for the trees)?

[tbsfan]

Hi Andy.
From the manual section 21.0 Ground units, readiness and movement. [font=helveticaneue-condensed][font=helveticaneue-condensed][left]Infantry, artillery and HQs may not enter enemy hexes unless they have been activated (see Section 21.1 Offensives).[/left][/font][/font]
 
As for artillery not moving with the stack, I can't find anything about this but I've always
thought that it was done like that to represent the fact that it took considerable time to manoeuvre big ww1 artillery units.[font=helveticaneue-condensed][font=helveticaneue-condensed]
 
 [/font][/font]

[gwgardner]

I think artillery doesn't move with the stack because the player has the option to barrage or move.

Since you now understand that cav momenent, please explain! Even when activated it seems sometimes it is not allowed to move adjacent to the enemy after the stack it was with.

[EdinHouston]

my experience is that artillery can not move into enemy controlled hexes, period. They have to move into the hex the next impulse, after infantry or cavalry have occupied the hex and changed it to friendly control.

Also, as pointed out above, they dont move along with the stack, they need to be moved individually.

[andyinkuwait]

OK, so in summary, artillery cannot move into any enemy controlled hex (move troops first and then later, after the 'attack' on the hex was sucessful, move in arty).

Cavalry CAN enter enemy controlled hexes as long as they start in the same stack as at least one inf unit. They can never enter rough, forest, mountain, marsh or town hexes. They are good for fanning out to capture clear hexes where you would otherwise need inf corps to do it. I find cavalry next to useless on western front due to lots of towns, forests, moutains and rough. Better to use in the wide open east. Not good in serbia either because of terrain.

[OrvalB]

This is actually pretty simple. If you are attacking, you actually don't want your artillery to move with the stack, because then you can't bombard,  and almost all of the time in that situation, you want to bombard (god do you want to bombard), not move. In situations where you are blowing your insanely expensive HQ points to advance into empty ground, yeah, you also want the guns to advance too, and in that situation, you can individually select them to advance after the stack has moved.

I am pretty sure that the left behind guns will always advance into hexes that infantry has always advanced into if you tell them to, they just don't do it automatically, which is a Good Thing. You for sure do not want to advance naked guns into an enemy hex, or all by themselves next to an enemy, they are your most important weapons and have pretty much no direct defense at all.

But you just don't want to blow insanely expensive HQ points on advances into nothing, that is what cavalry is for.

But then your cavalry refuses to do the free advance? If they aren't starting from a stack with infantry, that is because you don't control the destination hex. If they are stacked with infantry, and won't advance, that is because there are bad guys, almost certainly enemy infantry units, there that you can't see (pure cavalry stacks will clash from time to time, with very random results). The visibility rules are kinda opaque and weird, but not having any airplanes on the front really does not help. But usually no damage is done when the cavalry is repelled; in the absence of aircraft, watching what your cavalry does on such advances can be somewhat informative.

One thing you can be 100% sure of, no advance, at least in normal parts of the war, on the Western front, will be unopposed. The Western front is always contested, everywhere and always (except in the rare cases of collapse), and hence all the cavalry there is utterly useless except as very very poor stop-gap desperate situation reinforcements. If you are advancing there, under normal circumstances, you want your artillery staying behind to blast away, otherwise all you will get is a bloody nose. Which is likely all you will get anyway, once the trenches lock down, but that is another matter.

[Snowbart1943]

Cav....I know Cav were supposed to only be able to move into clear hexes......at least with patch 1.24beta, you can move into enemy controlled forrest hexes(if stacked w/an Inf unit). I believe you can move into many more terrain hex types as well, im not sure which though. There was a recent post that explained cav and terrain very well, do a search.

[EdinHouston]

You can advance cavalry into an enemy controlled hex only if it is stacked with infantry and it is moving into a clear, forest, or marsh hex (the manual is wrong when it says only clear hexes). You can only move cavalry into a city hex if it is friendly, and you can only move cavalry into a rough hex via strategic movement (or in rare cases, when your cavalry retreats due to combat and has no other place to go but a rough hex).

Again, artillery can not advance into an enemy controlled hex, whether it is actually occupied by enemy forces or not. You need to convert the hex to friendly control before the artillery can move in. This is an issue when your army is advancing quickly, it means your artillery will always be one hex behind. Once the front becomes more static its far less of an issue.

HQs CAN advance into an enemy-controlled hex, but only if the HQ is activated and if the hex is free of enemy forces. The game will let you advance the HQ if there are enemy units there, but in my experiences, the HQ doesnt actually advance once the turn is resolved.

The manual is not very helpful in these areas. You really learn a lot from playing the game.

[andyinkuwait]

So, summarising:
If cav stacked with inf they can move without activation into enemy controlled clear/forest/marsh but NOT rough/mountain/city
If cav NOT stacked with inf they can move to any friendly space but NOT mountain/rough
Either way, no activation is required for movement but the inf they are stacked with WILL require activation if you want to move it as well
Can anyone confirm this summary?

[EdinHouston]

ORIGINAL: andyinkuwait

So, summarising:
If cav stacked with inf they can move without activation into enemy controlled clear/forest/marsh but NOT rough/mountain/city
If cav NOT stacked with inf they can move to any friendly space but NOT mountain/rough
Either way, no activation is required for movement but the inf they are stacked with WILL require activation if you want to move it as well
Can anyone confirm this summary?

Correct.

Even an activated cavalry can not move into an enemy controlled hex unless it is stacked with infantry.