conforming into terrain

[deadtorius]

Our last game we had an odd situation, I had a unit of determined horse that was standing about minding its own business when a unit of German P&S pursued into them. I had at one point been in a flank charge position, but the P&S unit had wheeled slightly so they were at more of a front/side angle to me kind of a 30 degree angle at impact.

Off to the left and rather close was a Plantation. Since the P&S impacted me in their turns melee phase during a pursuit, after the impact phase I had to conform to them. (it was now my turn) After conforming I expanded out my rear base ( I was down to just 2 bases out of 4) and fortunately I had enough room to stay out of the Plantation.

Assuming a similar situation occurred with horse that have to fight 2 deep or I was still a 4 base determined horse unit that was 2 deep (due to circumstances of previous maneuvers) then I would have been forced to stick my rear rank in rough and would lose dice in the melee, and my break off would be severely shortened.
I find it odd that I start off in the open and then since I am contacted by enemy I am forced into terrain?? Do I have to conform into the terrain or would we stay unconformed in melee? I looked up conforming in the rules and noticed it says only if you will end up in a flank or rear charge position that you were not originally in you do not conform, but this seems rather odd to be forced into a bad situation just because its your turn when the conform happens.

[petedalby]

A conform move can drag a BG into disordering terrain but remember that it is only the bases that are in the disordering terrian that suffer any adverse effects - not those bases that are still in the open.

[deadtorius]

well guess that is somewhat of a relief, just seemed odd to get dragged out of the clear and into the muck is all.
Thanks for clearing it up.

[daveallen]

Not so bad for mounted, but a complete nightmare for pike keils.

Dave

[deadtorius]

And would be a horror for a Tercio too, never tried a kiel myself.