How combat works in Optio - Shooting

Shooting in Optio is very straightforward but not like any other ruleset so requires some explanation. First of all, there is no shooting phase. Either player can shoot at any time in either player's turn, i.e. a player shoots twice in a turn: during his move and his opponent's move. Each unit has a shooting counter with four little triangles (or pointers, they're supposed to sort of be pointers). One pointer is red and the other three green. At the beginning of the game the counter is turned so the red pointer is at the side facing the figure base. When the unit is shot, the figure base is rotated counterclockwise, by one side for every shooting hit received. Four shooting hits will get it back to the red pointer. When that happens the unit loses one morale step and the morale counter is rotated appropriately.

 

Here's an example. An early Roman skirmisher foot unit faces off against a Greek psiloi unit (those Greeks from southern Italy so this is historical). I use my VASSAL module for this example as it's easier. Instead of a rotating counter I use arrows on the side of the unit to indicate hits: green arrow, then yellow, then orange then red. When the red arrow is reached the unit gets a morale hit which is shown by the red dot moving along the morale scale. 

The Greek psiloi are at the top, the early Roman skirmishers at the bottom. The Roman player moves first in each turn. During his move both skirmishers shoot at each other. Skirmishers by default score one shooting hit on each other so the green arrow appears for both.

It's then the Greek player's move and both skirmisher units shoot at each other again, scoring a shooting hit on each other (clear enough, no?). Yellow arrow.

Next turn and it's the Roman player's move. Both units score another shooting hit on each other. Orange arrow.

Greek player to move and both units score another shooting hit on each other. Red arrow and both units lose a morale. And so on. An astute player will notice the skirmishers will drop each other's morale by one interval every two turns.

If, however, one of the skirmisher units is already shaken, (morale on white interval) it suffers a -1 shooting modifier. If the default shooting factor is 1, the modifier drops it to ½. This means that that unit can shoot only in the other player's move, i.e. only once per turn. Minus and plus modifiers refer to the Combat Modifier table. You take the unit's default combat factor and find it in the middle yellow column. If it has a +1 modifer you look 1 column to the right, if +2 two columns to the right to find its resultant combat hit. If it has a -1 modifier you look one column to the left, if -2 two columns to the left, and so on. This also applies to modifiers for charging and shooting (BTW that "1" with the "½" in the same cell refers to the resultant combat hit for charge or melee combat).

Which means it will find itself outshot by a unit with morale on firm (grey intervals).

Terrain also affects shooting. Units cannot shoot through hills, forest, scrub or other friendly or enemy units unless they are doing overhead shooting from behind friendly units. Units can't shoot into forest and shoot out of forest with a -1 or into scrub with a -1. Here's an example of the Roman skirmishers shooting from cover in scrub against psiloi out in the open:

The Roman player moves first. The Greek psiloi suffer a -1 for shooting into scrub which means they can shoot only during the Roman player's move, which it is. Both units score a shooting hit on each other.

Greek player to move and he can't shoot, but the Romans can and score another shooting hit on the psiloi.

Next turn, Roman player to move and both units shoot.

Greek player to move and only the Romans can shoot. They shoot the Greeks to red arrow and the psiloi lose a morale interval. Time for the Greek to reconsider their options, i.e. get the hell out of there.

Since there is no separate shooting phase, I recommend as a counsel of perfection that players move one of the shooter bases back after shooting so everyone can keep track of who has and hasn't shoot thus far during a player's move. Like this (but do what you like):

As a general rule, skirmisher class units like javelineers, skirmisher bowmen and slingers will score one shooting hit on armoured targets and each other and two hits on unarmoured targets. Massed shooters like archers will score two hits on armoured targets and three on unarmoured. But there are of course exceptions.

Ranges: javelineers (foot and mounted) can shoot into the square in front of them. Archers can shoot two squares forward and one square to the side so into the 6 squares (3x2) in front of them. Artillery can shoot further.