Group vs single combat

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I'm having trouble with the group combat when they are facing individuales.

Say you have a group of 3 vs 5 individuals, the group gets a bonus to either attack or defense

initiative: 2 of the 5 go 1st, then the group (with bonus to defense) then the last 3 singles.

start of 1st round the group takes 1 medium wound giving the vangard a -3 (? dont have the book here) The total group stats have now dropped even though only 1 was hit.

The group misses

end of the round the group gets 2 hits (med, and light wound)
-These 2 hits came from different places so do they both go to the vangard? or do they go 1 to the vangard 1 to the next in line?

You can see where this goes, soon the vangard is dead, and the group breaks to individuals. The remaining 2 dont have all the wounds the vangard did so now you have 2 effective fighters rather than 1 with a bonus.

As I read it: the group starts off better but as soon as they get hit they can keep getting hit as the negatives add up. Even though only 1 person (the vangard) is taking the majority of wounds, while if they were individuals they would get more attacks, and wouldn't go down as fast.

Am I missing something?
Does the group get an attack fer each member? (if so then you have to roll just as many dice as individuals)
Do you start asigning wounds to the vangard and go down the list, so the vangard wont get hit a second time until everyone has ben hit once?
Does it only work fer group vs group? (where you have the earlier problem once 1 group breaks up)

2

The vanguard can be changed each turn, and whomever the group is hitting is getting one wound for each person in the group...

So each round the group works as if undamaged (since the new vanguard hasn't been hurt yet), while their opponents are getting hit bad (even 3 light wounds is bound to cause trouble)...

Furthermore, the group uses the best stats, which can be up to 9 better than the worst stats of the individuals involved)

3

Sadly, this is not quite the case. pp.173: "The leader and vanguard may only be changed while the group is not in combat, but... a single round in which the memebers of the group neither attack nor are attacked is long enough."

You got it. No group member should ever have more wounds than the vanguard, but he doesn't by any means take all of them.