Question about close combat results

[Sir Humphrey Rtd]

Hi, we had a situation in a game last week that had not happened before and wondered if anyone else has come across the result?

Two Cavalry squadrons charged each other with a win for the Imperials and a loss for the French but the French passed morale .

Each side then reinforced with a fresh squadron and this time a draw, and again both principle units stood on Morale.

French reinforce with a third Squadron and win the melee wiping out the principle Imperial Squadron .

However in the process the principle French Squadron is also wiped out!!

So looking at the rules on page 44 winners of the melee do not take morale but also on page 44 if the principle unit is wiped out the melee is lost.

So much scratching of heads and the decision was that both sides lost and the French should also take a morale test at which point the other 2 squadrons decided to take to the hills.

Is this correct?

Any help gratefully received.

[Brett]

Hi

We had a similar situation in game.

It felt wrong to penalise somebody for winning melee, so we didn't make the winning side take a morale test, even though the principal squadron was destroyed.

Barry may well tell me off, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time! Lol.

Cheers

Brett

[Sir Humphrey Rtd]

was my original argument as the French commander but the Imperialist disagreed

[barr7430]

I would be happy with either decision which is not sitting on the fence but a reflection on the fact that you discussed and came to a decision.
Winning units which end up checking morale are effectively simulating battle shock, exhaustion and having come to the end of their tether. This is highly possible and has happened many times..

'we won, but we'd had enough and.. did it really matter any more?'