Another charge and evade question

[Svejk1914]

Interesting.
We had a related situation in our first test of the rules this evening.
A battleline of three light horse BG was charged by a foot skirmish unit on one flank and a cavalry unit from the front.



The foot skirmishers vs BG A seemed simple enough, BG A either had to stand or evade through BG B and C correct?

We ran into trouble with the cavalry charge though. I could have chosen to wheel a bit and charge both B and C, but didn't want to contact both. So I declared a straight ahead charge into unit B, which promptly evaded. Now, I had more than enough movement left to continue straight ahead into C, and thats where we got stuck.

Do I have to wheel and follow unit B?
Can I instead continue straight ahead into unit C?
If I do, can they choose to evade as they weren't a legal target at the declaration?
Or, must C take an evade check as they are skirmishers now being charged by non skirmishers?
Or do they have to stand and fight?[/img]

[hammy]

Interesting.
We had a related situation in our first test of the rules this evening.
A battleline of three light horse BG was charged by a foot skirmish unit on one flank and a cavalry unit from the front.



The foot skirmishers vs BG A seemed simple enough, BG A either had to stand or evade through BG B and C correct?

Partly correct, As LH A has been charged in the flank it can only evade away from the charge. If LH A choose to turn 180 rather than 90 they would then wheel round and end up being able to evade down the back of the line of the other LH. There is a good chance that if they did this they would be caught though as to wheel 90 would use about 5 MU of their move and leave them less than 4 MU from the starting possition of the charge.

We ran into trouble with the cavalry charge though. I could have chosen to wheel a bit and charge both B and C, but didn't want to contact both. So I declared a straight ahead charge into unit B, which promptly evaded. Now, I had more than enough movement left to continue straight ahead into C, and thats where we got stuck.

Do I have to wheel and follow unit B?

You can wheel to follow B if you want to but you don't have to do so.

Can I instead continue straight ahead into unit C?

yes

If I do, can they choose to evade as they weren't a legal target at the declaration?

yes

Or, must C take an evade check as they are skirmishers now being charged by non skirmishers?

They only have to test if they wish to stand, they can always choose to evade.

Or do they have to stand and fight?[/img]

No, they can evade.

[sagji]

You don't show any terrain - so did you miss the rule that says LF can't charge anything in the open?
Did you miss the rule that LF only get half dice vs LH and non-skirmishers?
or the one that gives mounted, including LH, + versus LF and MF in the open?

[hammy]

Light foot can charge skirmishers in the open. Six light foot against 4 light horse if the light foot get a flank charge is not a dissaster for the light foot.

The light horse would be disrupted on impact so the impact in this situation would be 2 dice at ++ vs 3 at --, if the light foot manage to frag the LH by beating them at impact it would be all over, if the light horse stay disrupted it would still be an even fight so not that bad for the light foot.

[Svejk1914]

Thanks for the reply Hammy, that pretty much jibes with what Simon said in the other thread this post was originally in:

1. You can declare the charge in whatever direction you like as long as it can physically contact one BG by doing so. So its up to you as the charger to make use of this when it is helpful. In the example above the Cv can wheel to charge just B, or B and C, or even A and B. If a target can be contacted by stepping forward it counts as charged and has to respond. So for instance if you wheeled left and charge A and contacted with the front left corner then B would be contacted with a step forward.

2. A revealed BG - see page 52 middle section at the end. If an evade causes a new target to be revealed it too gets charged. So in the above if you charge B and it evades, C is revealed and must now respond as well, likely evading.

3. Quite correct on the evade of the BG A. It cannot evade to its rear as it is charged from flank or rear and can only evade away from the charge. Note that is the Cv also charged A then the evade would then split the angle of the two charges and the LH woud need a CMT to stand and received anyway.

4. You only wheel in an attempt to catch evades if all targets evade and have moved out of the path of the original charge - page 68 end of top section. So if both B and C evades and are no longer to the front of the charge you can wheel the charge from its original line in an attempt o catch them. Similarly you only VMD if all targets evade.

Hadn't considered wheeling 180 in this case, though as you said he probably wouldn't have gone too far after the wheel. Reading the rules again it does state "players choice", dunno how I missed that lol.
I assume after the answers given here I could have continued into group B if group A managed to get clear.
The biggest question we had was the part about group C, and you and Simon have answered that clearly. We just couldn't find in the rules what options, or lack thereof a revealed target had.

Sagji, page 60 at the top says LF cannot charge non-skirmishers in open terrain. Doesn't say anything about charging skirmishers in open.

We read the POA as being ++ for the LF due to the flank charge. It says "Net POA regardless of other factors".
So I don't think the POA for mounted vs foot in open applied.

We fought the impact as Hammy states, and the LF won with 2 hits to none, then the LH failed their Cohesion check and dropped to Fragmented.

[BrianC]

Thats interesting Hammy,

I would have assumed that you would have to turn either 180 or 90 degrees and choose the one that would line you up more with your path of retreat (charge direction), this case being a 90 degree turn to the left for the LH. Then they would move their evade distance interpenetrating their friends along the direction of charge.

So when it says players choice it means that. I take it you can manuever as needed to avoid hitting friends etc and once clear then you have to continue evading in the direction of charge? Even if you only move the last MU facing the direction of charge that is legal? The last MU eg is the most extreme but if I understand this example and how you applied the logic it should be ok.

Brian

[Svejk1914]

We assumed that too Brian. We read the part about not being able to choose between your own rear and the direction of the charge if you are flanked, and assumed that meant no choice whatsoever. Never occured to us you could do what Hammy describes. But it does say "player choice" so I guess that's what it means lol!

Part of me flinches at the idea, seems awfully maneuverable for a unit hit in the flank, but the other part of me sees the bigger picture of the LH being faster and probably starting their evade before my LF even started moving.

[BrianC]

Hi Bardolph,

I guess it does make sense in that you are probebly right in saying that the LH would have started their evade before the LF got near them. Why would they evade into their own troops if they didn't have to. They would probably take the path of least resistance so to speak. And really its only skirmishers and cavalry that can evade anyway so it would have little impact on other troops anyway as they are expected to evade.

Still glad its not just me with questions : ), I would hate to feel alone in my journey of discovery.

Brian

[sagji]

Light foot can charge skirmishers in the open. Six light foot against 4 light horse if the light foot get a flank charge is not a dissaster for the light foot.

The light horse would be disrupted on impact so the impact in this situation would be 2 dice at ++ vs 3 at --, if the light foot manage to frag the LH by beating them at impact it would be all over, if the light horse stay disrupted it would still be an even fight so not that bad for the light foot.

I had mis-remembered both rules.

If the LH have swordsmen or better armour then it is a even fight if they are fragged - except they have minuses on their CT and break on any loss of cohesion. If the LH aren't fragged by the impact then it is likely to be 3v3 with the LH at +, ++ if the LH have better armour or swordsmen, or even if the LF have better armour.

[hammy]

Light foot can charge skirmishers in the open. Six light foot against 4 light horse if the light foot get a flank charge is not a dissaster for the light foot.

The light horse would be disrupted on impact so the impact in this situation would be 2 dice at ++ vs 3 at --, if the light foot manage to frag the LH by beating them at impact it would be all over, if the light horse stay disrupted it would still be an even fight so not that bad for the light foot.

I had mis-remembered both rules.

If the LH have swordsmen or better armour then it is a even fight if they are fragged - except they have minuses on their CT and break on any loss of cohesion. If the LH aren't fragged by the impact then it is likely to be 3v3 with the LH at +, ++ if the LH have better armour or swordsmen, or even if the LF have better armour.

Alan, I am not sure where you get the + for the light horse from. There is no + for mounted against light foot, it is assumed that the fact the light foot get half dice is penatly enough. There are almost no protected light horse and swordsmen light horse are pretty rare beasts too.

If the LH stand or are caught the LF will get 2 bases in contact so 2 dice and the LH 4 less 1 per 3 so 3 dice with ++ to the LF.
If the LH stay disrupted they will get 4 dice less 1 per 3 so 3 dice and the LF will get 6 dice less 1 per 2 so 3 dice and it will probably be evens
If the LH fragment the LF no longer get their dice halved as they are fighting fraggmented troops so it would be 6 dice vs 2

[hammy]

We assumed that too Brian. We read the part about not being able to choose between your own rear and the direction of the charge if you are flanked, and assumed that meant no choice whatsoever. Never occured to us you could do what Hammy describes. But it does say "player choice" so I guess that's what it means lol!

Part of me flinches at the idea, seems awfully maneuverable for a unit hit in the flank, but the other part of me sees the bigger picture of the LH being faster and probably starting their evade before my LF even started moving.

I have to admit my initial thought was that the LH would have to evade through the others but when I checked the options the 90 or 180 turn is players choice and then the wheel would get the LH behind the other LH. That said I think that if you actually tried it in a game the LH would either get caught (they loose a lot of move in the wheel) or end up behind the middle LH which would then evade through them and which might evade through the first LH after they have been hit in the rear by the LF.

All in all the three LH BG's are in a hideous position and really should not have been anywhere near there in the first place. If they fail a CMT to fall back facing the enemy just turn round and run away.

[Svejk1914]

All in all the three LH BG's are in a hideous position and really should not have been anywhere near there in the first place. If they fail a CMT to fall back facing the enemy just turn round and run away.

This is the part I will relay to my opponent!
Or perhaps, on second thought, maybe I won't...

[shall]

I have to admit my initial thought was that the LH would have to evade through the others but when I checked the options the 90 or 180 turn is players choice and then the wheel would get the LH behind the other LH. That said I think that if you actually tried it in a game the LH would either get caught (they loose a lot of move in the wheel) or end up behind the middle LH which would then evade through them and which might evade through the first LH after they have been hit in the rear by the LF.

Yep true you could do that but looks even worse than bursting through the other BGs to me.

Si

[chaosalex]

I as the other player would like to point out that the diagram does not show my other BG of Cav getting ready to flank and destroy those weak little LF. They were unfortunately outside of intercept range. Thanks for the rules clarifications, now I know (no thanks to Bardolph relaying it) how to run away better. And that will lead me to victory.
Thanks
Alex

[Svejk1914]

Hehe, hi Alex.

As I was reading the rules again last night it occured to me that had I wheeled the LF a little further the LH group A would have had to wheel to their front to evade following the direction of charge.
The rule says you can wheel 180 or 90 degrees, players choice, unless the direction of charge is closer to the front. Since I charged straight at the flank the direction of charge was perpendicular, and Hammy's suggestion applies. A little more wheel would have changed that though. Not sure if having them run out in front would have helped or hindered my Cav unit though.

Alex, we will have to try it again

[shall]

Basically this means that if the current facing has less of whell needed than using a turn you just wheel from your current position. So yes if you angled your charge you may well have been able to engineer it as you - although I suspect it would have been less good.

Also if you angled the charge to go through the second LH block you could probably force a burst through.

Si

[BrianC]

Shall can you expand on bursting through?

The reason I ask is that this came up in a game and the rules kind of led us in 2 directions.

1 My stance was that skirmish evaders do not burst through friendlyl troops when evading as long as they can normally interpenetrate. But if it was a BG that cannot normally interpenetrate during the maneuver phase then it must burst through.

2 The other side is that any BG evading whether skirmish or not if it needs to go through a friendly BG it will burst through them. I am looking at page 48 and page 67 simply points to Interpenetration.

So the way I read and understood it was as 1 above but you can read between the lines and think 2 is correct.

Which side of the fence should I jump off : )

Thanks

Brian

[shall]

1 My stance was that skirmish evaders do not burst through friendlyl troops when evading as long as they can normally interpenetrate. But if it was a BG that cannot normally interpenetrate during the maneuver phase then it must burst through.

Depends on what sort of skirmishers......Correct if you can interprenetrate you do so. It say this in the evade section page 67 left column. So LF can pass through anything. LH not so pretty - they tend to burst through anything but LF.

2 The other side is that any BG evading whether skirmish or not if it needs to go through a friendly BG it will burst through them. I am looking at page 48 and page 67 simply points to Interpenetration.

48 defines what can and can't interpenetrate for you

Si

[BrianC]

Hi Shall,

That was what I meant. If it can normally interpenetrate per the interpenetration rules then its not a burst through. I should have been more clear about the distinction between LH and LF.

Thanks again

Brian

[shall]

yes it looked like what you meant but just to be sure...

Si