Battle in the Spanish Hills 01

[Blathergut]

Well my cavalry corps fared better this time.

-imported GD division (2 units of Sup Vet Lancers + ye Olde GD Hvy Shk)
-imported INF division (2 units of Ave Vet Light Inf + 1 Conscript unit)(Lights w arty each)
-Cuirassiers division (3 units of Ave Dr Shk)(2 w arty)
-Light Cav division (3 units Ave Dr LCv)

Dead planted a couple units of lights on a large steep hill (he took set up #1)(me = probe). We soon found that standing on the front side of a steep hill is not a good choice. His dudes dropped 1 level for shooting because of terrain, and then when disordered it was even worse for him; while the French light inf units just unleashed from the nice smooth ground in front of the hill.

QUESTION: Why do units drop TWO levels for shooting at close range if in difficult?

The French lancers took a couple attempts to finally crack the end square but then things basically rolled up. I think the early Brit army found it hard to be able to DO anything against such a swarm of cavalry when it had none really of it's own.

As French, I never realized the constraints upon the Brit army. No mixed divisions. MUST HAVE cavalry so 2 units have to go into a cavalry division. But the army can only have 3 divisions so Dead. had two gigantic infantry divisions. Any change coming to this?

[BrettPT]

QUESTION: Why do units drop TWO levels for shooting at close range if in difficult?

The justification for this would be:

Medium range infantry shooting (by line or light units) represents skirmish companies out in front of the unit footprint. The skirmishing chaps are not overly effected by the difficult terrain, so 1 level of drop only. Skirmish (ie medium range) fire is unaffected by rough terrain.

Close range fire (again by line or light units) represents infantry volleys, which need to be controlled and steady to be effective, so are more seriously effected by nasty terrain. Drop 1 level for rough, 2 levels for difficult.
There was also the common problem of firing too high when exchanging volleys on a slope.

The rules have 2 grades of bad terrain, and v1 applied more penalties (to movement, shooting, combat) the worse the terrain was.
To a large extent we have kept this step drop in v2 - the penalties increasing as you go from good to rough to difficult.