Sorry to revisit this topic, but I’m still a little confused as to precisely how units in mixed order are targeted by artillery when they are within 12 inches.
– My starting assumption is that a unit in mixed order is not a ‘unit of enemy skirmishers’ as referred to on p56 of the main rule book. Rather, as per page 90, it is a separate formation treated as a single body.
– According to page 90, artillery firing from the front quarter of the unit in mixed formation ignores the skirmish screen and may target the parent unit instead. My interpretation of the rules in this section is that the artillery does not suffer a -1 modifier to hit. Is this correct?
– As a corollary, a unit in mixed order would generally present a clear target to artillery (terrain, other units etc allowing). So if it were the closest target to the battery, it could not be ignored in favour of other targets. (This is important because a casual reading of p56, could leave the reader with the opposite impression if they were to ‘mistakenly interpret the skirmish screen as a ‘unit of enemy skirmishers’).
– This is distinct from a situation where a dedicated unit of skirmishers (ie not a unit in mixed formation) that happened to be within 12 inches of a battery would block LOS to another target beyond it, but could be ignored in favour of another target further away.
Hope I have this right! Grateful for corrections or confirmation.
