Contracting question

[rayfredjohn]

Playing Mad Dog Madigan today and the following situation occured.

I had 2 BG's of 4 LH in a line in combat with 1 BG of 4 LH. My RH BG had 3 elements in combat with 3 of his. My LH BG had 1 element in combat with 1 of his with 1 element overlapping and a further 2 elements to the left of the overlapping element.

y y y y
x x x x z z z z

Can my LH BG contract? leaving:

y y y y
x x z z z z
x x

Ray Duggins

p.s. Mad Dog forgot his camera so no AAR.

[rayfredjohn]

The HTML has cocked up my diagram!!!

I'll try again;

Playing Mad Dog Madigan today and the following situation occured.

I had 2 BG's of 4 LH in a line in combat with 1 BG of 4 LH. My RH BG had 3 elements in combat with 3 of his. My LH BG had 1 element in combat with 1 of his with 1 element overlapping and a further 2 elements to the left of the overlapping element.

........y y y y
x x x x z z z z

Can my LH BG contract? leaving:

.....y y y y
x x z z z z
x x

Ray Duggins

p.s. Mad Dog forgot his camera so no AAR.

[davem]

I'll do your gloating for you

You had 2 BG's of 4 Lh, Bw, Sw. I put 1 BG 4 Lance, Sw and 1 BG 4 Bw, Sw. Lost both of those and the 3rd Bg of 4 Lance, Sw as well!

I didn't kill a single base from your army when we (mercifully) called time!

I'll get you next time.....

Cheers

Dave M

[neilhammond]

........y y y y
x x x x z z z z

Can my LH BG contract? leaving:

.....y y y y
x x z z z z
x x

The answer is yes. It's covered on p72 Feeding more bases into an existing melee. You can contract the bases that aren't fighting or contributing as part of an overlap.

[hazelbark]

........y y y y
x x x x z z z z

Can my LH BG contract? leaving:

.....y y y y
x x z z z z
x x

The answer is yes. It's covered on p72 Feeding more bases into an existing melee. You can contract the bases that aren't fighting or contributing as part of an overlap.

Agree with Neil it is very clear assuming the ascii art shifted your X that was in frontal contact with Y. You can't shift out of frontal contact. But if the core of your question is could you get those two bases doing nothing to go into the 2nd line to count dice in melee then aboslutely yes.

[davem]

Ah, if we'd realised that Lh fight in 2 ranks then it may have been more obvious the spare bases could have contracted.
Oh well, my LH got a kicking anyway!

[hazelbark]

LH are very interesting and shaking the old habits is hard. I had one game where my opponent's LH went after my camp. And I got a general with a gaggle of mob in front. I figured to make him flee away but instead let my mob hit him.

Whent he 4 LH got 2 dice and the Mob were up too six dice he was not a happy camper even with a + POA

[hammy]

I dissagree. You can only move bases using the feed extra bases into melee rule if the base you move is not fighting. By the look of the diagram one BG was entirely in frontal contact.

Tries to confirm, if the situation was like this then you cannot feed in more bases as all the bases in Y are in contact and cannot be moved

Code: Select all

....AAAA
XXXXYYYY

If it was like this

Code: Select all

...AAAA
XXXXYYYY

Then X could feed in more bases and end up like this:

Code: Select all

.AAAA
XXYYYY
XX

And all the XY light horse bases would fight.

[davem]

The Lh were more like your 2nd example. Ray had 3 Lh with 1 bank rank vs 3 of mine. The 4th Lh of my Bg was fighting 1 Lh of Ray's 2nd BG which was 4 wide.
Now as I understand it, Ray could have contracted that 2nd BG, retained the o/lap _and_ got 2 ranks fighting?

Where R,D are Ray's Lh, M is mine.
(spaces to right of MMMM are where my 2nd Lh Bg autobroke)

---R
RRRDDDD
MMMM

Does it become?:
---RDD
RRRDD
MMMM

So what dice are rolled in the above?

Regards

Dave M

[hammy]

The Lh were more like your 2nd example. Ray had 3 Lh with 1 bank rank vs 3 of mine. The 4th Lh of my Bg was fighting 1 Lh of Ray's 2nd BG which was 4 wide.
Now as I understand it, Ray could have contracted that 2nd BG, retained the o/lap _and_ got 2 ranks fighting?

Where R,D are Ray's Lh, M is mine.
(spaces to right of MMMM are where my 2nd Lh Bg autobroke)

Code: Select all

  R
RRRDDDD
MMMM

Does it become?:

Code: Select all

  RDD
RRRDD
MMMM

So what dice are rolled in the above?

Not quite, Ray can only contract BG D by one file each movement phase so after the first contraction things will look like this:

Code: Select all

  RD
RRRDDD
MMMM

Ray will roll four dice for BG R and three for BG D each of his BGs and you will roll three dice against BG R and one against BG D

[davem]

Hammy,

Thanks for the explanation. It made little difference anyway, Ray didn't need the extra dice to whack my Lh anyway

Regards

Dave M