Light Horse 'Pin' Rules Query

[Cerberias]

Gidday blokes . The other day I was having a game in a tourney, neither of us were going to win so I didn't press any issues, but he basically pinned a block of pikemen with two units of light horse and i'm just curious as to what I could have done. The scene looked like this (L = light horse, P = Pike)

LL
LL
PP
PP
PP
PP
LL
LL

Now he was within 1mm since I cant catch him even with a 6-1, but he said that I couldn't declare a direction of charge other than straight forward because he was too close for me to wheel to make a direction of charge. If I had have been able to wheel on the direction of charge it was quite likely I would have had a flank charge against a unit of knights directly to my right but he was positive I had to charge straight forward.. he's a new player so I'm not too sure but I couldn't find anything in the rules relating to direction of charge needing to be before hitting the enemy, only that you couldn't get less men into contact.

Thanks for the help .

[fatismo]

He is correct. You can only wheel till you contact. As he is 1 mm away no wheel

[david53]

Gidday blokes . The other day I was having a game in a tourney, neither of us were going to win so I didn't press any issues, but he basically pinned a block of pikemen with two units of light horse and i'm just curious as to what I could have done. The scene looked like this (L = light horse, P = Pike)

LL
LL
PP
PP
PP
PP
LL
LL

Now he was within 1mm since I cant catch him even with a 6-1, but he said that I couldn't declare a direction of charge other than straight forward because he was too close for me to wheel to make a direction of charge. If I had have been able to wheel on the direction of charge it was quite likely I would have had a flank charge against a unit of knights directly to my right but he was positive I had to charge straight forward.. he's a new player so I'm not too sure but I couldn't find anything in the rules relating to direction of charge needing to be before hitting the enemy, only that you couldn't get less men into contact.

Thanks for the help .

What you could have done was anything you like as Light Troops only can pin other light troops. The two Light Horse units can't pin proper troops your pike for example.

About the charge when you charge because he is so close you can only wheel your troops till you hit the enemy base so being so close you might not get enough of a wheel to do what you wanted.
Dave

[philqw78]

You are not pinned as they are skirmishers and pike are battle troops. Tho this makes no difference to the wheel, which can only be as far as what would be the first point of contact if the lh did not evade.

[Cerberias]

But if he evades I can choose a direction of charge with a wheel in it yeah? Since you choose to evade before you choose direction of charge?

And sorry for the misunderstanding, I didn't mean the ZOD pin, just the fact that he said I had to charge straight forward even when he evaded, and since he had a unit behind me too, i couldnt turn 90 to go in a different direction either.

Once again, thanks for your help .

[Robert241167]

Unfortunately as the others have said your direction of charge can only wheel within the space provided before the skirmishers make their evade move.

I say to my opponents that my skirmishers are on their base edge so that their only option if they charge is to go pretty much straight ahead, stops any confusion.

Rob

[Cerberias]

So the only way to get out of that is to hope that the light horse go 9 and you only go 1 so that you can wheel for a charge next turn i guess... Seems a bit wierd that you can effectively stop an enemy from doing anything but going straight forward - while shooting them - at no risk to yourself if you're against heavy foot, or even more than one unit if you want to expand out to a single rank... a few javelin armed light horse units in single rank could stop an entire battle line of heavy foot from doing anything but going straight forward for an entire game if properly placed then.. .

You could use three units of light horse to pin a lot of units of heavy foot by just standing in front of two units per each unit of light horse and restrict the heavy foot to nothing but forward advances for the entire game quite easily, with 84 (javelin light horse) points of horse surely? Just doesn't seem right to me.

[deadtorius]

I've had armies with lots of LH and its not as easy as you make it sound, the LH cant do much to the HF who can chase it off or bring up their own lights who can charge you or pin you and then the heavies come in and make life miserable and also reduce the number of troops you have to deal with pretty quick. I think you should keep some LH or cav of your own about to chase off the enemy LH or some LF who can stand and engage the LH till your heavies move up and slaughter them

[nikgaukroger]

You could use three units of light horse to pin a lot of units of heavy foot by just standing in front of two units per each unit of light horse and restrict the heavy foot to nothing but forward advances for the entire game quite easily,

Well if the HF players is silly enough not to charge with one BG and then manoeuvre the other as he desires in the manoeuvre phase ...

[Polkovnik]

You could use three units of light horse to pin a lot of units of heavy foot by just standing in front of two units per each unit of light horse and restrict the heavy foot to nothing but forward advances for the entire game quite easily,

Well if the HF players is silly enough not to charge with one BG and then manoeuvre the other as he desires in the manoeuvre phase ...

Or get some of their own cavalry, LH or even LF on the flank of (or even better, behind) the enemy LH.

[Cerberias]

Ah well, rules are rules and youve just gotta find ways to counter it.. thanks for the help .. opened my eyes to some new tactics.

Happy gaming.

[TERRYFROMSPOKANE]

In his initial post, Cerberias said he also had a flank charge on a unit of knights directly to his right. Since a wheel can be performed any time during a charge (pg 53), he could have moved the pikes straight ahead to just clear the front of the light horse and then wheeled up to 90 degrees to hit the knights in the flank - assuming of course this could all be done within the pike's normal move.

Terry G.

[grahambriggs]

It's clear from the FAQ that the Pike are restricted to a very small wheel. I think it would have been better if the BG could wheel greater than that. I think the current FAQ is too favourable to the skirmishers. It seems unreasonable that a formed unit would not be able to largely disregard skirmishers when charging.

The RAW are better, I think.

[ottomanmjm]

It's clear from the FAQ that the Pike are restricted to a very small wheel. I think it would have been better if the BG could wheel greater than that. I think the current FAQ is too favourable to the skirmishers. It seems unreasonable that a formed unit would not be able to largely disregard skirmishers when charging.

The RAW are better, I think.

I agree that it would be preferable if the pike could wheel further if the skirmishers evade as it would force the skirmishers to stand and fight if they wanted to protect the flank of a friendly unit, but the RAW do prevent this, specifically at the end of the first bullet point on p66 (under evade moves) which states:
If they are to evade the charger then uses a measuring stick or tape to indicate the direction of the charge which must be achievable by wheeling and which would legally contact the evaders had they remained stationary.


Regards
Martin

[expendablecinc]

... Seems a bit wierd that you can effectively stop an enemy from doing anything but going straight forward - while shooting them - at no risk to yourself if you're against heavy foot, or even more than one unit if you want to expand out to a single rank... a few javelin armed light horse units in single rank could stop an entire battle line of heavy foot from doing anything but going straight forward for an entire game if properly placed then.. .

You could use three units of light horse to pin a lot of units of heavy foot by just standing in front of two units per each unit of light horse and restrict the heavy foot to nothing but forward advances for the entire game quite easily, with 84 (javelin light horse) points of horse surely? Just doesn't seem right to me.

Its the only anti shepherding rule there, and IMO a damn good one. I wish the same prevention of wheels were this explicit regarding other charges and pursuits. If the skirmishers are the only ones right in your face it seems reasonable that those are the ones you need to respond to (ie preventing wheels for soem alternate on table advantage).

[expendablecinc]

...You could use three units of light horse to pin a lot of units of heavy foot by just standing in front of two units per each unit of light horse and restrict the heavy foot to nothing but forward advances for the entire game quite easily, with 84 (javelin light horse) points of horse surely? Just doesn't seem right to me.

Thats why most heavy foot armies has skirmishers of thier own if they historically faced skirmishers.