Evades, Wheels, and the "Direction of Charge"

[kal5056]

.........X.............YYY
.........X.............YYY
.........X
.........X

BG X is making a legal flank charge on BG Y. They start exacty perpendicular to each other.

Y has an evade option.
What decides the "Direction of the Charge"?

Can X declare that although un-neccassary they will wheel such that they swing the lower end of X forward in an arch. Does this change the "Direction of Charge" and thus the evade path that Y must follow.

Thank You
Gino
SMAC

[expendablecinc]

Hopefully not. Otherwise you will up with all sorts of micro wheels in an attempt to "shepherd" BGs with angular minutae. I agree you should be able to sweep skirmishers away and have a plan for the direction but leaving it to the actual charge path declaration makes it too precise and unrealistic in a Battlefield setting. Chargers are are whooping hollering adn busy blowing trumpets - not performing a bypass.

anthony

[david53]

.........X.............YYY
.........X.............YYY
.........X
.........X

BG X is making a legal flank charge on BG Y. They start exacty perpendicular to each other.

Y has an evade option.
What decides the "Direction of the Charge"?

Can X declare that although un-neccassary they will wheel such that they swing the lower end of X forward in an arch. Does this change the "Direction of Charge" and thus the evade path that Y must follow.

Thank You
Gino
SMAC

Since it is a flank charge yes it is they must evade away fromn the direction of the charge

[hammy]

X can wheel during the charge and provided that it starts more than 1 MU from Y it will still be a flank charge.

The wheel is still restricted by the number of bases that would contact so it may or may not be possible to wheel a lot depending on the distances and formation depths.

As X can only evade away from the charge the direction of charge must be declared before the evade.

As for shepherding evading light troops like this what was Y doing there in the first place? If you let your lights get charged in the flank you can expect a fair degree of pain. The solution is not to let them get charged in the flank.

[kevinj]

As well as Hammy's point about bases contacting, it's also necessary to ensure that your contact would be a legal flank charge. If Y is facing down the page and the bottom part of X wheeled before charging, the first contact would be with Y's front corner, and this would not be a flank contact.

[expendablecinc]

.........X.............YYY
.........X.............YYY
.........X
.........X

BG X is making a legal flank charge on BG Y. They start exacty perpendicular to each other.

Y has an evade option.
What decides the "Direction of the Charge"?

Can X declare that although un-neccassary they will wheel such that they swing the lower end of X forward in an arch. Does this change the "Direction of Charge" and thus the evade path that Y must follow.

Thank You
Gino
SMAC

Since it is a flank charge yes it is they must evade away fromn the direction of the charge

The question wasnt whether they can wheel but what defines the direction of the charge. The direction faced by the chargers when the chargers start moving,when they end moving, a straight line between the 2Bgs at the start or at soem point throughout the charge?.

The evaders move in response to the charge being declared upon them - which is what they are responding to. I just think the starting direction is more elegant of these 4 and eliminate surgical angle changes.

[kal5056]

I have to agree with Expendable on this one.
Which is more 'Realistic"

"Hey Guys, we are being charged by that battle group west of us. Let's run east."
.....................OR.........................
"Hey Guys, we are being charged by that battle group west of us but since they swung to the north east in the last 10 paces we should run to the north east."

An evade happens BEFORE a pursuit so when the guys ran they did not know that you were going to make your silly wheel at the end of the charge, so I contend that they would run away from where you started.

This again gets back to and old Flaw I have found in the rules. Why does it read that you can wheel if it would not bring less bases into contact? Wouldn't it be cleaner to say that you can only wheel in a charge if it is to bring More bases into contact?

again. "Hey if I go straight forward I hit you with 2 bases, I cannot wheel to hit you with just one but I can either wheel to hit you with 3 (Makes sense) or wheel to still hit you with 2 and make you run, break, rout, in a silly unrealistic direction."

Gino
SMAC

I can live with the rules as written and clarified but still have not seen a "Resonable Explanation" of why something so abstract is allowed when there was an obvious (Noble) intent to eliminate gamey-ness from the rules.

[hazelbark]

This is a frequent debate point.

The definiation of which "way" and at what point. It needs to be inthe FAQ when next updated.

[deadtorius]

Page 66 states the charger must declare his charge with a measuring stick or tape, so there is your general direction.
The lights would evade using that as the basis for which direction they are going to go. So I guess if you wheel slightly then that straight line of your new direction is where the lights are going to be heading in.
As for herding them, I have wheeled my units to end up facing a certain way during the previous turn with the intention of driving LH exactly where I want it to go, usually into another enemy unit or right in their way. A little advanced planning can really ruin your opponents day

[kal5056]

Dead,
I understand "The Rule as Written" and how to exlploit it. My point of contention is, "Why allow something so 'Gamey' into a game that has made every attempt to eliminate this type of cheesiness. I know the simple solution is to just not let your lights get charged in the rear or the flank. I am just curious how a group of people (the authors) that pride themselves on historical justification and realism cannot see that they are allowing a loop hole for a rules lawyer to exploit.

No one has explained to my satisfaction yet why the choice was made to have the rule read. Paraphrasing here:

"You can wheel in a charge as long as it does not bring fewer bases into contact than if you went straight"
.................INSTEAD OF..................................
"You can wheel in a charge as long as it brings more bases into contact than if you went straight"

Can anyone justify why this would be significantly more difficult, abstract, or open to cheese than the way it is written?

There may be new cheese opened up (That I can't see) but I see a whole lot of stinky stuff my wording eliminates.

I also do not mean to say that the author's owe me an explanation but everyone just pointing out what the rule says does nothing to pursuade me that THEY got it wrong in this case.

Gino
SMAC

[ethan]

I see three justications (the last being the most important probably):

1: The main effect is on troops that want to flee the charge and this rule makes their life generally worse, which might be a good thing. There are other rule changes in the works in the future to make skirmishers worse off. If you are standing on taking the charge it doesn't matter.

2. This rule allos charges greater lattitude in dodging interceptors. This may seem like a bad thing, but on balance might be a good thing as it let's move charges happen rather than forcing the game into a series of set-ups to avoid/create intercepts.

3. It let's chargers pick their targets. Without the rule all you would have to do to get chargers to go off into the middle of nowhere is stick skirmishers directly in front, then any troops no matter how weak to the chargers are safe. This would make skirmishers almost 100% certain to draw troops off after them, even when a slight wheel could have you slamming into "real" troops.

[kal5056]

#1 )If skirmishers are so worthless and detrimental to the game why do they exist? Just outloaw the little buggers? LOL


#2 My main concern with is that if you can contact 1 base from each of 2 BG's by moving straight forward or 2 bases in one BG with a slight wheel you negate the ability to intercept with the BG that you wheel past (It could be a target of the charge so cannot intercept) and avoid fighting 2 bg's vs 1.

With my rule you could only make the wheel if in so doing you could contact 3 bases in the hit BG which would be more difficult.

Also as you declare a charge my response is to evade. Do the evaders really care if you come straight forward or if you take a serpentine route to get to me? I am just going to see you coming and turn and run. The last 50 paces of your charge should be irrelevant. Remember in my example above the BG's were perpendicular when they started and the charger had not rationale for the wheel other than to push me in a particular direction which I find unrealistic.

#3 If there are multiple BG's that could be struck then perhaps that is an opportunity to allow a wheel if it would contact more bases or more BG's?


Gino
SMAC

[devilforrest]

How about planning and practicing to keep your skirmishers from getting charged from the flank or rear?

That way they can always evade to their rear and the rest of us won't have to keeping writing/learning new rules.

[gozerius]

Gino wrote:

#2 My main concern with is that if you can contact 1 base from each of 2 BG's by moving straight forward or 2 bases in one BG with a slight wheel you negate the ability to intercept with the BG that you wheel past (It could be a target of the charge so cannot intercept) and avoid fighting 2 bg's vs 1.

This can't happen. If you declare a charge and there exists potential interceptors, you must declare your path. You don't declare a charge, then define your charge path after the intercept phase. In your scenario, the BG outside the path is a potential interceptor, so unless you show a path that will contact both BGs it is not a target of your charge.
Basically, if there is more than one targetable BG, you need to identify which one(s) are targets. Then you must follow a path that would contact all if none evaded.

[SirGarnet]

How about planning and practicing to keep your skirmishers from getting charged from the flank or rear?

That way they can always evade to their rear and the rest of us won't have to keeping writing/learning new rules.

That debbil Forrest done got it right.


Also, Skirmishers are more manoeuvrable than heavies - this allows them a greater ability to avoid malpositioning themselves under the current rules (face the enemy and have your rear pointed in a self direction - simple).

Changing the rules to their advantage would create more room for mischief.

[kal5056]

This "silly" uneccessary wheel in the last 50 paces can also affect heavies that are charged while fragmented contriving a way to force them to burst through freindlies that they would otherwise be able to avoid.

STINKS OF GORGONZOLA!!!!

Gino
SMAC

[david53]

Without the rule all you would have to do to get chargers to go off into the middle of nowhere is stick skirmishers directly in front, then any troops no matter how weak to the chargers are safe. This would make skirmishers almost 100% certain to draw troops off after them, even when a slight wheel could have you slamming into "real" troops.

I thought that this was part of the art of playing the game forcing an enemy to do what they don't want to do.

[david53]

How about planning and practicing to keep your skirmishers from getting charged from the flank or rear?

That way they can always evade to their rear and the rest of us won't have to keeping writing/learning new rules.

How thats a new thought?

[grahambriggs]

I like the rule, although I see it mostly as a game mechanism to keep skirmishers honest. I've found that the threat of my Light foot being herded by light horse from the flanks has forced to support them with proper troops.

I'd agree with the approach that says "if you don't want bad things to happen, don't let the enemy get on your flanks". After all, when the enemy put those troops there, you then got your move to do something about it.