Banzai charge

[Frank44]

Once a banzai charge is declared and meets all the requirements, does each units must stay adjacent to at least one other participating units?

Does at least one unit must have a LOS to the target all the duration of the banzai charge?

thanks

 

[PresterJohn]

As I read it Impulse Movement has no restrictions on adjacency (as in Platoon Movement).
I also do not read any requirement for LOS to the "target", just the rules for the direction of the HW/Banzai.

 

[klasmalmstrom]

No to both questions....

 

[Doug Leslie]

As long as any participating unit doesn't depart from the rules regarding moving away from the hex grain used for the attack, there is no requirement for units to remain adjacent to each other. This can be a useful of way of allowing attacking units to use a less exposed route as they move forward.

 

[Sparafucil3]

The single thing that most people get wrong about a Human Wave/Banzai is there is only one Human Wave Direction line. Once that is defined, the units may move into a FORWARD Location each impulse. Those which increase the range to the HWD "line" are marked with a Range Counter. After being marked, a unit can never move into another Location that increases the Range again. This is done every impulse regardless of where and when the units started. All the matters in the range in that moment.

A lot of people seem to think every unit gets their own parallel HWD line and this isn't the case.

Pay attention to A25.2322. It can be a doosie if you aren't paying attention. -- jim

 

[Cpl Uhl]

Yup, that's what I thought the first 15 years or so....

 

[Philippe D.]

Aren't the Human Wave rules one of those that changed significantly between the 1st and 2nd edition rules? The "15 years or so" might be a time when you played it correctly

 

[Martin Mayers]

As everyone else has intimated banzai is very flexible in terms of how to utilise it as a movement/tactical/attacking mechanism. Much more so than Human Wave

 

[klasmalmstrom]

Aren't the Human Wave rules one of those that changed significantly between the 1st and 2nd edition rules? The "15 years or so" might be a time when you played it correctly

It was changed under the 1st Edition. In the first edition of Doomed Battaltions, IIRC.

The first version of HW rules was more like "move in the same general direction". The new/current version is much more technical (for lack of a better word)..

 

[Philippe D.]

Just checked my 1st Ed. rulebook, and it's amazing how much the rules have been changed. There was no such thing as a Human Wave hex range, the units were just required to move "forward" and "in the same general direction" - not sure if this was interpreted as requiring that, on each impulse, all units had to move parallel to each other?

Edit: just like Klas said, in fact. The new rule is not just more technical; it is also much clearer in what it allows and disallows, and thus explicitly opens some nice tricks. The Russian Human Wave is still extremely unpractical (though it was relaxed somehow: used to require multiple MMC in each hex, not just on average), but I believe this is intentional - and in practice, you see a Banzai Charge in about every game with the Japanese, whereas you see one by Russian once in a blue moon.

 

[EagleIV]

Under the first edition HW rules if you had a total of more than 3 squads in a HW all ADJACENT to a single enemy occupied Location and that was the only ADJACENT enemy occupied Location and they still had the movement left to enter (including overstacking penalties) they were required to all enter and overstack. It happened in a game I was playing.

 

[GeorgeBates]

...The Russian Human Wave is still extremely unpractical (though it was relaxed somehow: used to require multiple MMC in each hex, not just on average), but I believe this is intentional - and in practice, you see a Banzai Charge in about every game with the Japanese, whereas you see one by Russian once in a blue moon.

Light woods are excellent terrain for Human Waves.