Here is a precis of the relevant Flight rules from Fantasy Triumph that will be used at Fall In.
14. Flight
Flight allows a stand to move in the air. This gives the stand a lot of mobility, but at a cost in command control and in other ways.
Flying stands retain their troop type (infantry or mounted) and whether they are close order or open order – those describe how they fight, which does not change due to their mobility.
Flying stands use the following modifications to the normal rules:
- Distant Shooting:
- Distant combat against flying stands always counts as from behind, regardless of the relative positions of the two stands. As such flying stands suffer a -1 modifier and ignore a fall back result.
- Line of sight for missile attacks by them or against them is never blocked by intervening terrain or other stands (not even other flying stands). If the shooter or target is inside terrain that would block line of sight (village, woods, or similar) then firing is still impossible. Normal firing arcs still apply.
- Movement:
- Move 2x normal movement rates except for moves that include any movement in or through woods, village, or wooded hills, which are normal movement for the stand type.
- Use the Flight rules for interpenetration.
- May move to Up.
- Terrain:
- Woods, village, and wooded hills are the only terrain types that impact the movement of flying stands.
- Woods, village, and wooded hills are the only terrain types that can apply normal negative combat modifiers to the combat factors of flying stands. (for example, a Heavy Foot with the Flight battle card would suffer the normal -2 combat modifier when fighting in a village, but not when fighting in rough or swamp).
- Group Movement: Flying stands may not group move with non-flying stands, and vice versa.
- Enemy Camps: Flying stands fight at -1 against any enemy camps.
- Combat Results:
- Open Order Flying stands are not destroyed due to blocked recoil. If they are forced to fall back and cannot complete the move because a friendly or enemy stand is there, they are removed from the map and placed Up.
- Open Order Flying stands cannot block friendly or enemy stand recoil. If they would block a stand falling back they are removed from the map and placed Up. If both this and the previous clause both apply (an open-order flying stand would fall back, but its position is occupied by a misaligned friendly open-order flying stand), only the falling-back stand is placed Up.
- Close Order Flying stands suffer destruction if they cannot fall back, and may block friendly or enemy recoil, as normal for other (non-flying) stands.
- Flying stands who suffer a Panic or Evade result are removed from the map and placed Up.
Attacking from above doesn't give the huge advantage you might think -- firing a bow while flying is less stable than firing from a horse is much less stable than firing from the ground, so the few bow-armed flying creatures have to get closer for accuracy (chance of hitting anything) even as they get range advantage from being above the foe. It is possible for flying rabble and other troop types to be throwing javelins, dropping rocks, and the like -- gravity is still on their side, but with that type of combat ammo is limited (large rocks are exactly what nobody wants to carry while flying) so such creatures will still try to get just out of enemy range to drop their rocks etc..
Up (flying movement off-map)
Up represents everywhere out of contact with the battlefield. Flying units that are
Up are out of the battle. Coolest way to represent this would be to glue together an acrylic sheet and some acrylic rods and put this beside the battlefield (storing any stands that are
Up on the acrylic), but any representation would do. Any flying unit can move to
Up; Any flying unit can move from
Up to the battlefield. Not both in the same turn. Flying units can deploy
Up.
Moving to
Up (from the battlefield) requires normal command points. Group movement to Up is possible.
Everything
Up is out of command control. The only exception is if the General is
Up, in which case everything
Up is in command control and everything on the map is not in command control.
Moving from Up back to the battlefield allows you to place your stand (or group) anywhere on the map more than 4mu from enemy. Yes, that means in two turns (one to
Up, and the next turn from
Up to the map) you can be 4mu from the enemy camp. Anyone who is fighting an army with flying units and chooses not to garrison their camp is asking for a quick game.
Everything resident in
Up counts as a casualty until it returns to the battle, but at 1/2 normal cost. So a 4pt stand that is
Up counts as 2pts of casualties. This represents the fact that the REST of the army has no idea where they are or if they are ever coming back. It is quite possible to break your army by retreating a bunch of it to
Up. If you don't want to do that, you have to keep them in the battle. As a side benefit, this stops any army from flying to
Up and saying "Nanee-nanee-boo-boo."
No combat is possible
Up. There's lots of air, and finding each other in it is difficult. This choice is made for simplicity, and to keep the game focused on the ground combat. If you want to play an air combat wargame there are lots of better options than Triumph.
Flying Movement On-Map
Flying stands differentiate between enemy troops who are dangerous to them when they are moving (i.e., who are equipped with missile weapons) and those who are not. These missile-equipped troop types are:
- Archers
- Bow Levy
- Pavisiers
- Skirmishers
- Artillery
- War wagons
- any troops with the Battle Card “Shower Shooting”
Flying stands ignore ZOC for all enemy stands except missile-equipped troop types when moving, except when they end in combat with enemy. If they end in combat with enemy, they are subject to the ZOC of any stand for their final position (only – ignore ZOC as usual for all movement up until that point).
Flying stands may pass over any friendly stand, and any enemy stand that is not a missile-equipped type.
Flying stands may always disengage from combat with non-Flying stands who are not a missile-equipped type. If they wish to disengage from a missile-equipped type or an enemy flying stand, they use the base movement rate of their stand type to calculate whether they can disengage or not.