Interception charges - a couple of odd situations

[hammy]

I had a couple of slighlty odd interception charge situations in a game at the club this week.

The first which I think I got right and worked fine (until I had to roll the dice that is) was like this:



My knights facing up have declared a charge on the archers infront of them.
My opponent had declared an interception charge with the angled BG of knights.
Realising this was likely I declared my charge as a wheel left as far as I could go then forwards so that I would still hit the archers thus:



I figured that the wheel is OK because it won't reduce the number of bases contacting the archers and that the interception charge as it is not contacting my flank or rear does not stop my charge and cannot actually contact me, just put itself in the path of my charge. Is this right?

Also once in melee as I couldn't conform I think that I end up with 2 bases of knights fighting 8 bases of archers and 2 bases of knights fighting 2 bases of knights. The second base of knights from the left of my line can I think only fight the knighs not the archers, is that rught?

The other situation was related to the interception charge question I had the other week where a BG of impact foot could have been forced to charge lancers but after checking the rules we found that this is not the case as a charge by impact foot that would contact mounted is not subject to a shock troops check.

The new situation was:



In this case my pike are subject to a shock troops test to see if they charge the dismounted knights to their front. They cannot contact the knights as they are too far away or behind the men at arms however if the pike fail the test (which they didn't) and are forced to charge then the knights can make an interception charge and the pike will end up charging lancers (not pretty). Have I got this one right too?

I like being difficult

[rbodleyscott]

I had a couple of slighlty odd interception charge situations in a game at the club this week.

The first which I think I got right and worked fine (until I had to roll the dice that is) was like this:



My knights facing up have declared a charge on the archers infront of them.
My opponent had declared an interception charge with the angled BG of knights.
Realising this was likely I declared my charge as a wheel left as far as I could go then forwards so that I would still hit the archers thus:



I figured that the wheel is OK because it won't reduce the number of bases contacting the archers and that the interception charge as it is not contacting my flank or rear does not stop my charge and cannot actually contact me, just put itself in the path of my charge. Is this right?

Assuming that the picture shows the position of the enemy knights before they make their intercept then yes.

Also once in melee as I couldn't conform I think that I end up with 2 bases of knights fighting 8 bases of archers and 2 bases of knights fighting 2 bases of knights.

6 bases of archers. They are only allowed to overlap you on the ends of your line.

The second base of knights from the left of my line can I think only fight the knighs not the archers, is that rught?

Why don't they have a choice?

The other situation was related to the interception charge question I had the other week where a BG of impact foot could have been forced to charge lancers but after checking the rules we found that this is not the case as a charge by impact foot that would contact mounted is not subject to a shock troops check.

The new situation was:



In this case my pike are subject to a shock troops test to see if they charge the dismounted knights to their front. They cannot contact the knights as they are too far away or behind the men at arms however if the pike fail the test (which they didn't) and are forced to charge then the knights can make an interception charge and the pike will end up charging lancers (not pretty). Have I got this one right too?

Isn't this exactly the same as the last one you posted a week or so back? And the answer was that it is covered in the amendments to 6.0 (and in the printed rules).

[hammy]

I had a couple of slighlty odd interception charge situations in a game at the club this week.

I figured that the wheel is OK because it won't reduce the number of bases contacting the archers and that the interception charge as it is not contacting my flank or rear does not stop my charge and cannot actually contact me, just put itself in the path of my charge. Is this right?

Assuming that the picture shows the position of the enemy knights before they make their intercept then yes.

Now I am confused. The enemy knights have made their intercept in the photo but before the interception were about 3 1/2 MU further back. if my knights charge straight forwards then they will hit the archers with four bases but with a wheel to the left they would still hit the archers with four bases, just further left.

If I can't wheel then the intercept would prevent me from contating the archers at all as I am over 2MU away and can't step forwards more than a base depth anyway.

Also once in melee as I couldn't conform I think that I end up with 2 bases of knights fighting 8 bases of archers and 2 bases of knights fighting 2 bases of knights.

6 bases of archers. They are only allowed to overlap you on the ends of your line.

The second base of knights from the left of my line can I think only fight the knighs not the archers, is that rught?

Why don't they have a choice?

OK, reading the rules as published the overlap section is a lot simpler than the one in V6.0 I am still not sure where you get only 6 bow though.

In this situation I have a frontage of 4 bases and am overlapped at both ends so my opponent should fight with a frontage of 6 bases. There is no possibility of three bases of knights fighting so there must be 8 bow. Otherwise I have engineered an advantage by not having the base one from the left of my line in contact which seems wrong.

Looking at the melees that can't conform rule I think I should have fought with 3 bases against the archers and 1 against the knights while the archers fought back with 8 bases and the knights with 2.

The other situation was related to the interception charge question I had the other week where a BG of impact foot could have been forced to charge lancers but after checking the rules we found that this is not the case as a charge by impact foot that would contact mounted is not subject to a shock troops check.

The new situation was:

In this case my pike are subject to a shock troops test to see if they charge the dismounted knights to their front. They cannot contact the knights as they are too far away or behind the men at arms however if the pike fail the test (which they didn't) and are forced to charge then the knights can make an interception charge and the pike will end up charging lancers (not pretty). Have I got this one right too?

Isn't this exactly the same as the last one you posted a week or so back? And the answer was that it is covered in the amendments to 6.0 (and in the printed rules).

Checks nice shiny new rulebook OK, it isn't quite the same situation as I will only contact the mounted if they intercept but as the troops who may charge without orders rule says "if they are foot whose move could contact or be intercepted by mounted" then it is the same as the previous question.

Note to self: now you have the real rules check things with them. It helps a lot.

[rbodleyscott]

I had a couple of slighlty odd interception charge situations in a game at the club this week.

I figured that the wheel is OK because it won't reduce the number of bases contacting the archers and that the interception charge as it is not contacting my flank or rear does not stop my charge and cannot actually contact me, just put itself in the path of my charge. Is this right?

Assuming that the picture shows the position of the enemy knights before they make their intercept then yes.

Now I am confused. The enemy knights have made their intercept in the photo but before the interception were about 3 1/2 MU further back. if my knights charge straight forwards then they will hit the archers with four bases but with a wheel to the left they would still hit the archers with four bases, just further left.

If I can't wheel then the intercept would prevent me from contating the archers at all as I am over 2MU away and can't step forwards more than a base depth anyway.

Did I say they couldn't? However, as clarified it appears that it is still legal.

[rbodleyscott]

Also once in melee as I couldn't conform I think that I end up with 2 bases of knights fighting 8 bases of archers and 2 bases of knights fighting 2 bases of knights.

6 bases of archers. They are only allowed to overlap you on the ends of your line.

OK, reading the rules as published the overlap section is a lot simpler than the one in V6.0 I am still not sure where you get only 6 bow though.

In this situation I have a frontage of 4 bases and am overlapped at both ends so my opponent should fight with a frontage of 6 bases. There is no possibility of three bases of knights fighting so there must be 8 bow. Otherwise I have engineered an advantage by not having the base one from the left of my line in contact which seems wrong.

To quote the rules:

MELEES THAT CANNOT LINE UP
If it is not possible for battle groups in contact to line up, they continue to fight in an offset position with the same number of bases counting as ‘in front edge contact’ or 'overlapping' as if they had conformed. If two bases would conform to the same enemy base then the one which has the shortest distance to conform fights against it. If the distance is equal their player chooses which fights.

Only the ends of a line of bases counting as 'in front edge contact' can be overlapped, even if it is stepped forward. One enemy file can fight as an overlap at each end.

All of your knight bases will be "counting as in front edge contact", so they form one line of such bases, so they can only be overlapped at each end of that line - i.e. at each end of your BG.

So it may be 8 against 6 dice (the "floating" knight counts as fighting the bows), but it cannot be 8 vs 4.

Far from gaining you an unfair advantage, this rule helps to cancel any benefit from the enemy kinking their line.

Perhaps the meaning of the above is not entirely clear (though I am not sure what other meaningful meaning it could have) - if not, we can put it in the FAQ.

However, the intention is that a a BG like your BG of knights can only be overlapped at each end - not in its middle. The purpose of the rule is to prevent players gaining "internal" overlaps by kinking their line.

[hammy]

MELEES THAT CANNOT LINE UP
If it is not possible for battle groups in contact to line up, they continue to fight in an offset position with the same number of bases counting as ‘in front edge contact’ or 'overlapping' as if they had conformed. If two bases would conform to the same enemy base then the one which has the shortest distance to conform fights against it. If the distance is equal their player chooses which fights.

Only the ends of a line of bases counting as 'in front edge contact' can be overlapped, even if it is stepped forward. One enemy file can fight as an overlap at each end.

So it may be 8 against 6 dice (if the "floating" knight counts as fighting the bows), but it cannot be 8 vs 4.

Perhaps the meaning of the above is not entirely clear (though I am not sure what other meaningful meaning it could have) - if not, we can put it in the FAQ.

However, the intention is that a a BG like your BG of knights can only be overlapped at each end - not in its middle.

I think the wording in the rulebook is OK on this. I didn't have my rulebook when I played the game and reading it now I think that I would have reached the correct conclusion. The melee should have been:

6 dice for my knights against 8 for the archers and 2 for my knights against 4 for my opponents knights. As it happened it didn't make much difference as the archers managed five hits from 8 dice and the knights added another three to make my death roll a rather exciting one....

[babyshark]

However, the intention is that a a BG like your BG of knights can only be overlapped at each end - not in its middle. The purpose of the rule is to prevent players gaining "internal" overlaps by kinking their line.

Please do put this in the FAQ. There is lots of potential for misunderstanding with this segment of the rules, and the existence of interception charges means that situations similar to the one Hammy describes will arise with some frequency.

Marc

[nicofig]

Yes, it will be a good thing to add many sentence in the Faq

[shall]

We'll put it in the next editiojn of the FAQ out in a week or so i suspect

Si

[hazelbark]

My knights facing up have declared a charge on the archers infront of them.
My opponent had declared an interception charge with the angled BG of knights.
Realising this was likely I declared my charge as a wheel left as far as I could go then forwards so that I would still hit the archers thus:

Curious the phrase "I declared my charge as a wheel left". I did not see anything in the beta about declaring charges this way. It is a chrage with targets. Is this your way of describing how you are moving or do you have some convention about declaring charges in this fashion?

[hammy]

My knights facing up have declared a charge on the archers infront of them.
My opponent had declared an interception charge with the angled BG of knights.
Realising this was likely I declared my charge as a wheel left as far as I could go then forwards so that I would still hit the archers thus:

Curious the phrase "I declared my charge as a wheel left". I did not see anything in the beta about declaring charges this way. It is a chrage with targets. Is this your way of describing how you are moving or do you have some convention about declaring charges in this fashion?

A charge can include a wheel and an evade is either directly backwards or away from the charge. As a result when I delcare charges I always indicate the direction of the charge which is oftern straight ahead but may well include a wheel.

[hazelbark]

A charge can include a wheel and an evade is either directly backwards or away from the charge. As a result when I delcare charges I always indicate the direction of the charge which is oftern straight ahead but may well include a wheel.

Right. I get this. But what i don't understand is if you are doing it because you are a gentleman or believe that is the rule?

Consider this

1..2..3

...Y

Y is my BG that wants to charge lets say 1 through 3 are enemy LH. So I declare a charge on all of them? IS that legal if i am not wide enough to hit both 1 AND 3 if they don't evade.

[shall]

You have to able to reach them to force them to evade. If you can do so by wheels then so be it. If not so be it.

We have found that wheels that are material shorten forward movement sufficiently that it wasn't worth any specific restrictions beyond those in the rules.

Si

[Keith]

What I don't understand is that the Knights charge has been intercepted , and they can still wheel into the archers ?
I thought they could push forward a couple of MU but had to maintain their BG ? Is the interception stopping them from hitting the archers ??

[rbodleyscott]

What I don't understand is that the Knights charge has been intercepted , and they can still wheel into the archers ?

It isn't clear from the photo but the intercepting knights have not quite contacted the chargers (they are not allowed to do so). So the chargers can wheel before they contact them and will thus be able to hit the archers as well.

You should consider that in reality the chargers and interceptors are moving simultaneously. The interceptors are only moved first to simplify game play. Thus, in this situation, the battle group commander of the chargers can be assumed to have anticipated the possible intercept and to have decided to wheel into the charge so as to hit both the archers and the knights (if the latter chose to intercept).

[shall]

Acharge can include a single wheel at any point in the charge so the chargers wheel fully and then charge ahead hitting both. Seems fine to me. If you want to intercept and stop contact it needs to be across a larger part of the charging line. Long lines intercepted on a small part can often still get into things - surely relistic.

Si

[hammy]

What I don't understand is that the Knights charge has been intercepted , and they can still wheel into the archers ?

It isn't clear from the photo but the intercepting knights have not quite contacted the chargers (they are not allowed to do so). So the chargers can wheel before they contact them and will thus be able to hit the archers as well.

Yes, that's right.

The only time an interception charge can actually contact chargers is when it is a flank or rear charge in which case the chagers charge is cancelled and they receive a flank charge of their own.

[Keith]

Ok thanks , read the rules on that now , it's not clear that the intercepting unit doesn't make contact though ?
It says they must cross the path of the chargers etc , it doesn't say that they must stop before they hit the chargers ?
I am missing something ?

[shall]

No it doesn't explicitly state that nor that they contact so we have clarified our meaning in the recently posted FAQ vs 2.0 on the website.

Cheers

Si

[hazelbark]

Big thanks for keeping the FAQ and Errata so current.