Anarchy charges through friendlies

todd645 · Post by **todd645** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:48 am

I just had Drilled, Superior lancers in command charge through my elephants to attack scythed chariots. Can anyone explain the rules for anarchy charges through your own troops? I assumed cavalry through foot or skirmishers. But I must say that this one surprised me.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:30 am

As far as I remember anarchy will go through anything. Lancers are shock mounted and if they are in range of enemy and they have not moved to contact they must make a complex move test each turn and if they fail they will move to contact the nearest enemy, passing through anyone in the way.

The reason for this is that no troops can block anarchy charges so there are no ways to manipulate the system and block your units out with others to control them.

pantherboy · Post by **pantherboy** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:08 pm

Shock troops will anarchy if in charge range and movement isn't blocked by other friendly shock troops. For example you have 2 elephants (non-shock) in front of your lancer so if the lancer fails his check he will charge forward disrupting one of the elephants. In the next example we have 2 MF w/Offensive spear (shock) in front of the lancer. In this situation the lancer will not check for anarchy unless one of the intervening MF move out of the way. In this way you can prevent certain key units from anarchy but the 2 MF would still be subject to anarchy.

todd645 · Post by **todd645** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:07 pm

Thanks for the info. I guess I have a hard time imagining anything charging through elephants.

TheGrayMouser · Post by **TheGrayMouser** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:22 pm

todd645 wrote:Thanks for the info. I guess I have a hard time imagining anything charging through elephants.

As do I, additionally I dont believe they should be able to anarchy thru defensive spears , as the definition of them is simply spear troops that dont agressivly attack the enemy, nothing less dense in their formation that would allow anarchy thru them.

Epicouros · Post by **Epicouros** » Thu Sep 29, 2011 5:32 pm

TheGrayMouser wrote:
todd645 wrote:Thanks for the info. I guess I have a hard time imagining anything charging through elephants.

As do I, additionally I dont believe they should be able to anarchy thru defensive spears , as the definition of them is simply spear troops that dont agressivly attack the enemy, nothing less dense in their formation that would allow anarchy thru them.

If I'm not mistaken, the French knights charged through their footmen during the battle of Courtrai/battle of the spurs (1302). I believe those footmen were (at least partly) 'HF defensive spear' (and also MF crossbowmen). I'm not sure of the details, but if they were only crossbowmen, you certainly have a point.

Xiggy · Post by **Xiggy** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 8:59 pm

French knights were famous for going uncontrolled based a few battle in the 100 years war. Also, knights in the various crusades and against the mongols tended to go uncontrolled, but I do not think they charged through allied troops. The French Knights in the 100 years war were cured of this, since most of them were dead early in that contest. (Darwin award anyone =) )

This rule set extrapolates that into all shock mounted can charge through allies and go uncontrolled. I am not sure sure that is accurate, but that is how the rules work. There are a number of solutions to this that people use. One is that people have the lancers face away from the enemy until they are needed. I just try to keep them out of charge reach of the enemy. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

deeter · Post by **deeter** » Mon Oct 03, 2011 10:11 pm

Having to face troops to the rear to avoid anarchy is just sad. There was a long thread many months ago that examined why anarchy on the PC is broken.

Deeter