3 questions on flank/rear contacts

JanChris · Post by **JanChris** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:14 pm

Hi,

A friend and I played a game yesterday and we have 3 questions, hopefully enlightened by these pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Greuthungi/ ... eat=email#

1st: a line of Kn 1 deep is charged bij Cav1 in the flank but also threatened bij Cav2 from the front. My opponent decides to turn only the contacted element and decides not to reform / feed more elements. Cav2 can charge the Kn later on, contacting 1 element facing them but also the one element in contact that turned earlier to respond to the charge by Cav1. Is this considered another flank charge?

2nd: a group of 6xDailami (MF/MF/LF, 2 wide 3 deep) is charged in the flank. Only the middle element is contacted - by an enemy front corner. How do the Dailami line up? Can they reform afterwards and how does it reform, LF in the front rank?

3rd: 1 unit of Cav in a one element wide column charges a unit of LH, that evades, dropping elements back to avoid friendly Kn. The Cav rolls high on the VMD and can contact both the Kn and the LH in their rear

. Is it legal to change direction after rolling the VMD to hit more than 1 BG? Do both groups loose 1 cohesion level? Does the active player decide which BG it fights?

Thanks!

rich0101 · Post by **rich0101** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 2:32 am

1st: a line of Kn 1 deep is charged bij Cav1 in the flank but also threatened bij Cav2 from the front. My opponent decides to turn only the contacted element and decides not to reform / feed more elements. Cav2 can charge the Kn later on, contacting 1 element facing them but also the one element in contact that turned earlier to respond to the charge by Cav1. Is this considered another flank charge?

The answer is no, because the Kn didn't reform so you are still hitting them in the front

2nd: a group of 6xDailami (MF/MF/LF, 2 wide 3 deep) is charged in the flank. Only the middle element is contacted - by an enemy front corner. How do the Dailami line up? Can they reform afterwards and how does it reform, LF in the front rank?

When you reformed the LF would be in the rear, because the enemy hit the 2nd rank MF and not the LF. If they hit the LF then everything would reform behind the LF.

3rd: 1 unit of Cav in a one element wide column charges a unit of LH, that evades, dropping elements back to avoid friendly Kn. The Cav rolls high on the VMD and can contact both the Kn and the LH in their rear Very Happy. Is it legal to change direction after rolling the VMD to hit more than 1 BG? Do both groups loose 1 cohesion level? Does the active player decide which BG it fights?

Kind of because you have to declare your direction of charge before you roll, but if you did hit both then both would drop a cohesion level. No you have to hit the enemy BGs unless you have to take a cohesion test to charge an enemy.

domblas · Post by **domblas** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:38 am

the third buket is subject to controversy becoz the probability that u exactly touch both bases of the 2 BG is infinity small. If u where in 2 base wide u could step forward, but in column that mean ur BG had to be exactly lined up paralelle to the line passing by the corners of the two BG.

I would propose to agree with ur opponent, and roll a dice to decide.

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 6:52 am

Is it legal to change direction after rolling the VMD to hit more than 1 BG?

You can only change direction if the target of the charge moves out of the path of the charge.

expendablecinc · Post by **expendablecinc** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:24 am

philqw78 wrote:
Is it legal to change direction after rolling the VMD to hit more than 1 BG?
You can only change direction if the target of the charge moves out of the path of the charge.

And even then, only to go towards the evaders.
And even then, only if you would not contact less troops than if you went straight ahead

The only time where I can see that youd contact two groups is were they were a battel line at one time and one BG move forwards the same distance as the evad move. (ie they'd be exactly lined up after the evade).

MCollett · Post by **MCollett** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:32 am

domblas wrote:the third buket is subject to controversy becoz the probability that u exactly touch both bases of the 2 BG is infinity small.

So you contact one of them first, and then step forward into the other one.

Best wishes,
Matthew

domblas · Post by **domblas** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:14 am

MCollett wrote:
domblas wrote:the third buket is subject to controversy becoz the probability that u exactly touch both bases of the 2 BG is infinity small.
So you contact one of them first, and then step forward into the other one.

Best wishes,
Matthew

its a column, it can't step

Martin0112 · Post by **Martin0112** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:42 am

I think, the problem is, that 1 base cannot fight 2 other bases.
In this case, if you declared a charge on the LH, and you can catch them, you have to fight them, and not the Knights

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 11:49 am

Martin0112 wrote:I think, the problem is, that 1 base cannot fight 2 other bases.
In this case, if you declared a charge on the LH, and you can catch them, you have to fight them, and not the Knights

If both bases were contacted, although very little chance of that happening, both would be disrupted and the player with most bases in contact decides which fight

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:53 pm

I agree that you would have to wheel to follow the light horse and avoid the knights since you can't impact more than one base of enemy troops, and the light horse were your original target. If you had been 2 wide you could easily have hit both in the flank and rear.
The knights should breathe a sigh of relief that the light horse have saved them.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:16 am

deadtorius wrote:I agree that you would have to wheel to follow the light horse and avoid the knights since you can't impact more than one base of enemy troops, and the light horse were your original target. If you had been 2 wide you could easily have hit both in the flank and rear.
The knights should breathe a sigh of relief that the light horse have saved them.

You can impact more than one enemy base, the issue is that as your chargers were I believe a single base wide column that they could only contact both BGs if they happened to charge at exactly the right angle so that they hit both BGs at exactly the same time. It is highly unlikely that you would be in a possition for your charge to be made such that this could happen anyway and as the final possition of the light horse is uncertain until the evade is rolled then even if you could have setup the charge to make it possible it would only have been possible at best 1/3rd of the time.

JanChris · Post by **JanChris** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 9:00 pm

hammy wrote:You can impact more than one enemy base, the issue is that as your chargers were I believe a single base wide column that they could only contact both BGs if they happened to charge at exactly the right angle so that they hit both BGs at exactly the same time. It is highly unlikely that you would be in a possition for your charge to be made such that this could happen anyway and as the final possition of the light horse is uncertain until the evade is rolled then even if you could have setup the charge to make it possible it would only have been possible at best 1/3rd of the time.

Yes, it was a single element wide column. We thought the player with the initiative is allowed to wheel to contact more bases. I subsequently thought it's possible to state that the direction is such-and-such so that the front element of the column would hit both enemy BG's. So it would not be by chance that the column would hit both groups which I agree would be highly improbable.

awesum4 · Post by **awesum4** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:22 am

In the third example you are not charging the flank of the knights as you didn't start behind their flank. Therefore if you contacted them they would not drop a cohesion level and would almost certainly beat the snot out of your cavalry. Therefore the prudent thing to do would be to contact only the light horse, hopefully rout them and and then pursue too fast for the knights to charge you, Andre

philqw78 · Post by **philqw78** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 6:05 am

awesum4 wrote:In the third example you are not charging the flank of the knights as you didn't start behind their flank. Therefore if you contacted them they would not drop a cohesion level and would almost certainly beat the snot out of your cavalry. Therefore the prudent thing to do would be to contact only the light horse, hopefully rout them and and then pursue too fast for the knights to charge you, Andre

They were contacted in the rear.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:26 am

JanChris wrote:Yes, it was a single element wide column. We thought the player with the initiative is allowed to wheel to contact more bases. I subsequently thought it's possible to state that the direction is such-and-such so that the front element of the column would hit both enemy BG's. So it would not be by chance that the column would hit both groups which I agree would be highly improbable.

Actually if you do the moves properly you will I suspect find that it is very hard to engineer such a double contact when there is an evade involved.

To get a double contact your troops need to be moving along the right line and at the right angle. Remember that in a charge you are only allowed one wheel, this is not like DBM where you can make as many wheels as you want in one move to end up in exactly the right place. One thing a lot of players who played plenty of DBM miss when playing FoG is that most maneuvers limit you to one and only one wheel which is actually surprisingly restrictive.

When you add in the fact that the location of the evaders is variable depending on their VMD then even if you can get your charging column to the right place and at tha right angle you will only contact both groups if the VMD was the value you needed it to be so you would have at best a 1 in 3 chance of getting this contact.