Avoiding an enemy ZOC by shifting

[HarryKonst]

During a game in FoG 2.0 the other day at the club we had the following situation. In my round, I pinned with a BG of MF H.Weapon an enemy BG of Elephants. The Elephants were in my ZoC only with a small part of a few mm. of their front base. During my opponents phase a BG which was beside and friendly to the Elephants made a charge against a BG of mine. At the start of my opponents manouvre phase that BG had to conform on mine, so it shifted the friendly Elephants for a few mm., so the Elephants escaped the ZoC of the HW. Then the Elephants were free to do whatever they like , they moved and threatened the flank of my M.Foot. On my manouvre phase I lost the CMt to turn and face the Elephants (the H.W were undrilled) and received a flank charge by the beasts.
I hope everythink was played correct.The shifted BG of Elephants ignores the pinning, correct? And the shifted Bg at the start of a manouvre phase can make a move as usuall, correct? -Tahnks.Harry

[petedalby]

This seems like an unfortunate series of events Harry!

I believe you played it correctly. The chargers must conform if they can - and that includes shifting the Elephants. The restricted area does not affect this.

Just for future reference - you do know that a Commander with the undrilled HW Med Foot could have made a free turn with no CMT? Apologies if I'm stating the obvious.

[HarryKonst]

Thanks for the answer Pete. Yes, I know that, I had no free from combat commander around at that moment. I also had a similar situation a few days later. An enemy BG of Superior Impact foot M.Foot swordsmen was facing a BG of armored Defensive spears of mine in the open. The distance between the two BG was 1 MU. On my round I managed to place a small BG of 4 crossbowmen (2 elements in frontage) perpendicular to the left flank of the enemy M.Foot and at a distance of 7 cm. I had a clear flank charge, so I just waited for my next round to do it. Unfortunately my opponent charged with a mtd. BG (that was somewhere beside his M.Foot) another BG of my spears, and on his manoeuvre face made a conform shifting his M.Foot about 1 Mu to the left. So, now the M.Foot were also in the ZoC of the Cbowmen. Then my opponent, since he was in the ZoC of both the spears and the Cbowmen decided to react to the Cbowmen making a wheel (the whole MU of space between the M.Foot and the spears) trying to get as much parallel to the Cb as possible. As a result I had no flank charge on my round. There was no base of the Cb. totally behind the front edge of his BG.

[petedalby]

Yes, I know that, I had no free from combat commander around at that moment.

Always the danger of committing those Commanders to combat!!

[RobKhan]

The elephant BG thing seems a bit cheesy to me. We are victims of the fact we use bases of a defined size and shape. In the rules for other situations, where bases don't fit to reflect the real situation that has developed, we use the "treat it as if it is really so" principle. In this case the initiative player had consciously pinned the elephants, and was then denied the effects of pinning by a base space problem. Why not be consistant and say that the pinned BG is still treated as if it were pinned?? Afer all the idea of this rule is that when you get too close frontally, your freedom of movement is reduced.
How would we repond if an alignment adjustment pushed an enemy base/BG into a position where it's stands were then in a position to conduct a Flank Charge or an Interception charge??
Cheers
Robkhan

[gozerius]

Chalk it up to events beyond the control of the commander, and move on.
The arrival of reinforcements has allowed your opponent to slightly adjust his lines.
If you want a perfect wargame, where each unit has a specific place on the battlefield, with no "fog of war", play chess

[philqw78]

But we'd have nothing to argue about

[RobKhan]

Yes we would!!
Robkhan

[philqw78]

No we wouldn't

[grahambriggs]

Chalk it up to events beyond the control of the commander, and move on.
The arrival of reinforcements has allowed your opponent to slightly adjust his lines.
If you want a perfect wargame, where each unit has a specific place on the battlefield, with no "fog of war", play chess

Sorry to burst a bubble but chess is not a perfect game in that sense. For example, the specific place on the battlefield. . If you want to adjust the position of your piece in it's square, you're meant to say j'adoube ("I adjust"). If you say it too quietly the opponent might invoke the touch-move rules - basically, if you touch your piece you must move it, if you touch the opponent's piece you must capture it. There are example in tournament play of that happening by accident, e.g. a short opponent not being able to reach and brushing their hand on a piece they did not intend to touch. In chess tournaments the Tournament Director is often called at such times.

[ravenflight]

Chalk it up to events beyond the control of the commander, and move on.
The arrival of reinforcements has allowed your opponent to slightly adjust his lines.
If you want a perfect wargame, where each unit has a specific place on the battlefield, with no "fog of war", play chess

Sorry to burst a bubble but chess is not a perfect game in that sense. For example, the specific place on the battlefield. . If you want to adjust the position of your piece in it's square, you're meant to say j'adoube ("I adjust"). If you say it too quietly the opponent might invoke the touch-move rules - basically, if you touch your piece you must move it, if you touch the opponent's piece you must capture it. There are example in tournament play of that happening by accident, e.g. a short opponent not being able to reach and brushing their hand on a piece they did not intend to touch. In chess tournaments the Tournament Director is often called at such times.

So, what you're saying is that there are wankers in every game?

[RobKhan]

You know If we enforced this touch rule I would probably win a few more games, because I usually second guess myself into dumb positions - ho hum
Robkhan