Question related to flanking and rear attacking a unit.

Mdlich · January 2018

AFAIK when a unit gets attacked from rear it should get -75% melee defence against the rear attacker.
But I've just done a small testing and it seems like there's almost no difference at all between rear and frontal attack.
I took 2 groups of zombies and cairn wraiths against 2 units of swordmasters of Hoeth. The first group attacked with both units from the front, while the second engaged with zombies and reared with cairn wraith. When both groups died(which is a sad performance

) the enemy units had a real small difference in hp. The notable impact that I've observed is the penalty to leadership. If the rear attack mechanic was working as intended wouldn't there be a huge difference in 2 groups performance and the target's final HP?
I've tried the same test with zombies and Crypt horrors and got a similar result. Is the rear attack not intended to give a MD penalty after all? Or am I missing something?

psychoak · January 2018

Cairn wraiths have terrible stats, is it just that they suck so bad they're still not getting much damage in before they're cut down? I believe these are temporary impacts, similar to the charge bonus itself.

daelin4 · January 2018

I believe the difference would be larger had you use some more specialized units with significant charge bonus. The purpose being that it gives certain units specific roles in battle mode, ie some are better used for charging flanks while others hold the line.

Try using the test but use something like Blood Knights as the charging unit.

Mdlich · January 2018

I've tried with black knights(charging at the front through zombie unit and from the rear when the zombie unit is engaged in the front) and it seems to give a lot better results. Although I'm not sure if it's a proper test, since in the first case the cavalry is partially stuck in the zombie units. Anyways my guess is that the penalty only applies separately for each entity in the unit, meaning only the first attack at the rear will have the advantage since after that part of the entities will turn to fight the rearing unit. Thus the minimal difference, since only the first attack had much superior chance to hit. This also explains why cavalry charges in the rear are more efficient than just engaging a unit in the rear - the cavalry charge always catches the victims turned with the backs to the cavalry. Can anyone confirm my guesses?

Sagranda · January 2018

It's partly true.

Units that get attacked in the rear receive the debuff to MD.
Then they will turn to face the enemy and thus fighting them face to face, which only happens after the units made contact, so the first attack from every unit will be more effective.

Cavalry charges are more effective because they catch more units and therefor deal more overall damage.
You also usually cycle charge with cavalry which leads to the enemy units turning their backs to them again. So you have rear attacks for every charge on more units.

Now there's also splash to consider.
Units that have a "big splash radious" will not only hit the unit right in front of them, but also behind, etc.
Since splash gets calculated for every hit you may have a normal calculation against the unit right in front, but a "rear calculation" (depending on if they turn) against the one behind it.

Secuter · January 2018

As others have stated. Also I believe that any malleuses from being attacked in the rear disappears after the units reorganizes itself to hold them back.

Helhound · January 2018

Morale impact remains for being surrounded, there is some penalty to MD for being attacked in the rear, and the unit has a great chance of suffering from shock due to how much damage they take in a short time. Meaning their morale will plummet for losses suffered quickly.

Undead infantry units do not hit very hard in the first place. Remember that its a percent melee defense loss for being attacked in the rear. Even after getting hit in the rear Swordmasters will still have a higher melee defense then either your cairn wraiths or your zombies melee attack. So pretty much no effect outside stacking fear on the rest of the morale penalties.

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Question related to flanking and rear attacking a unit.

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