Charge Examples

[BrianC]

I was wondering if I could post some charge situations and get some feedback? If I understand correctly, you can charge an enemy BG that is in an existing melee as long as you can contact (charge) an enemy base that is not engaged in melee already from the front or you charge an enemy base in the flank or rear that constitutes as a valid flank or rear charge?

Example: The enemy will be the top BG. The enemy's bottom right base is only in an overlap so can be charged?



Next is an offset charge, here is the initial positions:



Here is the end result; this charge is illegal because it can only hit a base in the flank or rear which is already in melee to its front?



However if the BG does a small wheel it can contact the rear base, would this then be legal? And if so would only the rear enemy base then turn to face the flank chargers?

Also what if the chargers were too far forward to qualify for a flank charge? Even though they would be hitting the rear base in the flank, because it only qualifies for a front charge it can not be done in this specific case? Would the enemy base be turned 80 deg to meet the attack as a frontal attack?


And finally a full flank charge. I assume that this is legal and that both of the enemies bases would turn to meet the charge?


I was focusing before on BG's in melee and not individual stands when determining who can charge into an existing melee and who has to move in the maneuver phase as an overlap.

Thanks for any feedback and the patience and advice.

Brian

[hammy]

Brian,

The top one is right

The second one where you only hit the front base is also right, you cannot charge that base

The third question is an allowed charge and there would be a one base on one base impact then the charging BG would pivot backwards to line uop and fight as an overlap. no bases in the charged BG would turn

The final question, the rear base of the charged BG will turn to face (the front one can't), there will be an impact combat with 2 bases against 2 bases. The flanking BG will then conform to the turned base for the melee

[shall]

In the words of Hot Fuzz

"what he said"

Si

[BrianC]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think another layer of the onion is peeled away : ). Regarding the 3rd situation where there is a charge to the flank from the front and the BG has to conform during the maneuver phase to fight as an overlap in melee. Only 1 file will get to fight which is how i understand it. I don't see it in the rules but is there anyway to feed more of its bases into the melee? You can't bump a friendly BG one file on either side so that you can feed more bases in can you? I ask because I fought in the example above but my BG to the right had 8 stands and I was only in combat with 1 file with 1 more in overlap. I wasted 4 bases.

Thanks again

Brian

[hammy]

Correct, the extra BG will only fight with one file.

You cannot 'barge' your mates out of the way as you can only use the feeding in rule to move bases that are not involved in combat.

You may have been better in this situation to move to a place where a flank charge was possible then make a propper flank charge the following turn. Of course if you were undrilled and didn't have general this might not have been possible.

[miffedofreading]

I have had the same situation that you had in your situation 3. Hitting kind of in the side but not enough to count as a real flank attack. This seems to be a very wasteful way of attacking in these rules.

Might be better to keep going another turn to get in a better position for a real flank attack, which I think was your situation 4.

That way 2 files get to fight face to face AND you get an overlap so instead of 1 file adding very little you get to add 3 files and the defender gets a modifier for fighting in 2 directions.

If the flank chargers were not light cavalry/inf they would also lower the defenders cohesion one level.

I think

Andy

[BrianC]

As always thanks Hammy. I didn't think there was a way to feed more troops in to a melee in the example above. I could have actually taken an additional turn to hit the flank as there were no other enemy BG's in the area. For now I am playing the Roman Side and had drilled troops so it would have been doable. Since I really didn't understand many things that game including being able to charge in the impact phase. I believe we just added them to the existing melee because the BG was in melee to the front. Si set that one straight in another thread : ).

I know you guys have thought about this already but in a situation as above would the extra troops not just flood the flank? Was it just decided to leave the rules as they are now and try for the extra maneuver to hit the flank or suffer the consequences. Not a negative comment just curious.

Ya Andy, I was not impressed when I had an 8 base BG fighting in basically an overlap position. I really wanted to get the other 4 bases into combat to add to my dice. The timing was getting critical and the melee taking too long. My legionares were taking a pounding, 25% losses to most Bgs but they were giving better. Numbers really can make a difference. But ya, I will fight for a better position next time.

Brian

[shall]

2 overlaps aside works best. You might have lots fo troops but there are only so many enemy to fight...

That then leaves room for a true flank charge to be much more potent

Si