Rout direction when fighting two enemy at 90 degrees?

[Plainsman]

We had an incident where one battlegroup was fighting one enemy to the front and a second enemy battlegroup charged the flank so that we ended up with TWO enemy battlegroups fighting the one at EXACTLY 90 degrees to each other. The single battle group ended up breaking and having to rout. This doesn't seem so complicated if both groups are at least more 90degrees to each other, but at 90 degrees makes it more complicated it seems...

How do you handle the rout move?

Do you place the battlegroup at 45degrees to each for bisecting the angle and then measure the rout move distance from there?

How do you handle the pursuit of both battlegroups?

Thanks for any/all guidance!

[Plainsman]

It seems nobody is sure how to handle this situation!

[BillMc]

I believe you simply turn the broken battle group 180 (if you have even amount of bases fighting in both directions I assume the bg owner gets to pick which direction is 180). Then the broken unit makes a wheel move out of contact with the other enemy unit on its flank still, when the bisect angle is reached with the wheel move, then move straight away from both. Remebering to measure all movement - wheel+straigth away move.

There is a diagram out there from a previous discussion about this.

First pursuing battle group is the one that moves fastest after vmd roll. If tied then their owner picks which one pursues first.

Bill

[deadtorius]

It says in the rules if you are fighting 2 battle groups and you break the broken BG splits the angle for the rout direction, so you would turn the broken BG around and they would start their rout by wheeling to the 45 degree angle and if they have any more movement would then move straight away from both enemies.

If its a HF unit most likely the moving to a 45 degree angle will be about as much routing as they will get, faster units will get a bit of a run away move in but most likely the pursuers are going to catch you.

[Plainsman]

Yes, bisecting the angle and the amount of movement is what caused us to question how to handle this as they were medium foot fighting HF to the front and MF to the flank. They got -2MU and the pursuers got normal and plus, so they easily got to them. With the turn and wheel, the router was still less than 1" away at the one corner of the HF before the heavies even moved. This seemed a little unusual and so we had to ask...

It seems we did it correctly, shows how one shouldn't allow a BG to get contacted in more than one direction at a time!

Thanks for helping us out!

[deadtorius]

Been there had to deal with it myself, and yes it is a nasty situation to get caught in, and one that your most likely not going to be able to escape pursuit from.

[BlackPrince]

In a one on one fight the 180 turn is free when one side routs. You only pay for wheeling from VMD to avoid friends and other enemy once you start moving (running) away from the winner of the combat. The principle would imply that VMD is for working out how far you move away from your opponent once you rout. So in the spirit of this I think the BG that routs from two opponents gets a free wheel to bisect the angle. The wheel in this case is only a game mechanic for determining the position of the BG when it starts its VMD rout move.

[hammy]

In a one on one fight the 180 turn is free when one side routs. You only pay for wheeling from VMD to avoid friends and other enemy once you start moving (running) away from the winner of the combat. The principle would imply that VMD is for working out how far you move away from your opponent once you rout. So in the spirit of this I think the BG that routs from two opponents gets a free wheel to bisect the angle. The wheel in this case is only a game mechanic for determining the position of the BG when it starts its VMD rout move.

I am not sure where you get the idea that the wheel is free distance.

If routers get that then evaders should as well and that would mean that evaders are safer if they are at an angle to start with as the 'free' wheel you propose would end up effectively giving them a bonus evade.

The broken BG reforms then wheels to 45 degrees and then moves. If it is a HF BG and it rolls a low VMD it may end up barely moving at all.

[SirGarnet]

Being caught when routing when hit in front and flank seems a reasonable outcome unless you are a lot faster. If hit in flank you are, in reality, probably being enveloped in the rear as well, and rolled up somewhat, so it should be ugly.

[BlackPrince]

While the rules treat an evade and rout in the same way for the purpose of the game mechanics but they are not. An evade and a rout are not the same type of move. An evade is a (relatively) controlled manoeuvre made on a command given by the BG commander. A rout all command and control has broken down and individuals start acting on their own rather than the BG as a whole. The type of movement is different the evade were the BG largely keeps formation as the ends up back together at the end of the turn/ action. Whereas a rout the BG is moving as a mass of individuals not in formation here of course the the base structure makes in hard to duplicate which I feel why a free wheel maybe warranted. There is a case that any troops fighting at the junction of the two enemy units are more likely to be toast because of being hemmed in on two sides. Though at the junction of the two units pursuing there will be some confusion as the two BGs become intermingled.

[deadtorius]

Intermingled or not at least one of those pursuers is most likely going to catch you. I have been the router in these cases many times and yes the pursuers normally end up tangled up as they run into each other, which is a small comfort since at least one of them catches the routing pikes regardless. Thats where the VMD wheel ends up with little or no forward movement.