Official Linebattle Rules

Over more than 10 years of competitive linebattles, many common rules have emerged and matured, and they are enumerated here. They help keep linebattles fun, competitive, and short. These rules also serve to educate new players on linebattle etiquette and to provide common ground for competitors.

Any server owner can run the server however they choose. Many servers will have different rule sets for public and private linebattles. For example, a few servers may ban the use of the Long Pattern because it reloads slower. Most linebattles still, generally speaking, follow these rules. Talk to the admins of a server if questions arise.

General Rules:

1. It is forbidden to shoot at enemy commanders, unless no other target can be seen.
2. In all firing formations, soldiers must be close rank; i.e. they are shoulder-to-shoulder.
3. Soldiers cannot fire if they are not in line, even if the rest of the line is firing.
4. Crouching whilst giving fire to enemy is forbidden, unless it is to allow a rear rank to fire over the heads of a crouching rank.
5. If a commander is killed, they must immediately cease to command and a subordinate must take command.
6. Soldiers must not, against a stationary enemy, fire from solid cover which hides their knees. In situations where both teams are stationary and in cover via the same feature, ex. on opposite slopes of a hill, both teams must move immediately and may only fire if fired upon.
7. When charging, soldiers on the charging team may not reload unless the line is reformed.
8. A team can only spread out and skirmish once their number of soldiers has reached the skirmish number. The skirmish number is 1/3 of the highest number of players on either team as it was at the start of a round, rounding down. For example, if a round starts with 12 Britons and 11 Americans, either team can skirmish when their number of soldiers drops to 4. A team cannot skirmish if the enemy is already skirmishing. A team cannot “counter-skirmish”.
9. A line can be split into multiple lines only if there are at least 7 soldier per line. Once such a line falls below 6 soldiers, the line must rejoin another line or charge. Such a line may not skirmish.