2 Questions: Artillery spell timing & Morale

[Ironhawk]

Question 1: If I cast Flames from the Sky the same turn my opponent casts Gift of Health, will his troops have the bonus health when my Flames hits? Or does it take effect later on in the turn, giving me the opportunity to strike?

Question 2: Morale for a squad is the average of all of thier individual morale scores. If I mix mindless (morale 50) units in with regular (morale ~10) units, does that bring up the average morale of the squad significantly? or are the mindless units ignored or something?

[Saber Cherry]

1) Since healing occurs at the end of a turn, I assume it takes effect later.

2) Don't know... but I think mindless are ignored and never affect a morale pool.

[Ironhawk]

1) That was my feeling as well, but I wanted to get some outside opionions.

2) OK, so only units with less than 30 morale figure into the morale average for a squad?

Saber Cherry said:
1) Since healing occurs at the end of a turn, I assume it takes effect later.

2) Don't know... but I think mindless are ignored and never affect a morale pool.

[The_Tauren13]

1) Probably their maximum health goes up, but like you said, their current health probably stays low until they heal at the end of the turn.

2)From how I believe morale works, there is no such thing as 'average squad morale'. Heres how I think it works, but dont give it any real credit (nobody knows how morale works): Each units morale value is simply its chance of failing a morale check. Every time a unit fails a morale check, the squad loses 1 morale. The starting squad morale is just the total number of units in the squad, and when it reaches 0, they run. Probably then the 50 morale troops are not added into the starting squad morale; but as they cant fail any checks, they probably dont either hurt or help squad morale.

[Saber Cherry]

The_Tauren13 said:
2)From how I believe morale works, there is no such thing as 'average squad morale'. Heres how I think it works, but dont give it any real credit (nobody knows how morale works): Each units morale value is simply its chance of failing a morale check. Every time a unit fails a morale check, the squad loses 1 morale. The starting squad morale is just the total number of units in the squad, and when it reaches 0, they run. Probably then the 50 morale troops are not added into the starting squad morale; but as they cant fail any checks, they probably dont either hurt or help squad morale.

I think that's correct, although instead of all units having to fail morale rolls for a rout, some percentage (maybe 50%) have to fail.

[Ironhawk]

Wait, are you sure this is correct? How then does adding a 4-1 (or so) ratio of hypaptists to a squad of elephants basically keep them from routing?

The_Tauren13 said:
2)From how I believe morale works, there is no such thing as 'average squad morale'...

[Saber Cherry]

Ironhawk said:
Wait, are you sure this is correct? How then does adding a 4-1 (or so) ratio of hypaptists to a squad of elephants basically keep them from routing?

The squad routs when some percentage of members fail morale rolls (or something like that). If 80% of a group is hypaspists, who will (generally) never fail morale rolls, then even if all the elephants fail morale rolls, only 20% of the group will have failed... so it will (probably) not rout.