<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
If you melee a hex through the rear but include one unit that is meleeing through the frontal hexside you lose the attack bonus.
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For all I know that's incorrect. It's true that the largest hexside modifier is used, so there is no benefit for having *some* units attack across unobstructed hexsides when others don't, but the same logic does not apply to the rear attack. One unit from the rear suffices to give the whole attacking force, regardless of direction, the rear attack modifier. It's the morale effect of being taken from the rear which this modifier represents, and that applies regardless of where the main attack is coming from.
(I was pretty sure of that, but I ran a test just to be completely sure. If you add the unit in the enemy's rear to the melee first, all units subsequently added, regardless of from where they attack, get the same modifier.)
Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
3/2/VIII AoS
West Point Class of '01
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You are correct. I made a quick check with HPS Gettysburg and it did keep the modifier for rear even when one melee units wasn't. I don't know how the rule I guoted got into my Melee notes. It could have been a Battleground rule but I can't verify that since I no longer have BG games installed.
I could have sworn I had verified it on HPS and will have to check a bit further on other games in series just to be sure. Melee has a lot of different handling from fire combat so one has to be careful with assumptions like I made. It would have helped clarify things if HPS used separate parameters for melee and fire but since they are combined only manual testing of melees can verify the correct ones.
LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)