LF Screens

[hammy]

Looking at your diagram it looks as if the knights would contact all 5 bases in front of them just went straight forward - but would only fight 4 of them.
With the wheel it looks as if you contated the one from the end, and thus if there had been no interception you would have contacted only 4 bases - and fought only 4 bases.

I think this is an illegal wheel as you are contacting less bases, though are fighting the same number of bases.

If you look carefully at the picture you will see that the knights are more than a base depth from the archers so if they charge directly forwards they will only hit the intercepting BG and none of the bow.

Which isn't relevant as the chargers determine their path before the knights intercept. Therefore the wheel must be legal without the intervention of the knights.

They do???

According to my set of the rules the first point at which a BG has to actually declare the direction of their charge is when one or more of their targets evades. Now I realise that this might be can of worms time as it is possible to wheel a charge and avoid a ZoI but at present I can't find it.

That said in the picture even after the wheel my lancers will still hit with 4 bases against 4 bases so I don't see why you think they can't wheel.

[hammy]

Indeed, per the FAQ:

"Although this is not normally necessary, you do need to declare the path of your charge at the time of declaration if there
are potential interceptors around, in order to determine whether your chargers will cross their zone of interception."

So in the example the knights could only wheel if that was initially declared and that wheel must conform to the bases fighting at Impact rule.

As far as I am aware there is no requirement that an intercepted charge actually hit the intended target of the charge - have I missed something as Hammy's post seems to imply that he thinks it must.

Not at all. There are plenty of situations where an intercept can prevent a charge hitting its intended target. The photo I posted was however to demonstrate a rather silly situation that could occur if interceptions were allowed to contact the front of a charging BG.

I see now that the FAQ mentions that the charge direction needs to be declared before the intercept but in the situation photographed it does not prevent the wheel and subsequent contact with the bow as even with the wheel and no interception all four of the charging knights would hit the bow.

[BrianC]

To me the way the wording is, you must break the plane rather than just contact it, thats what crossing the path means to me. But then again I can see if the wording is changed, your strategy working as you are intercepting an opponent to help out a friendly BG. You are potentially taking away some heat from them in the impact phase. You are still contacting the enemy in your interception charge (albeit not directly). So the end result of your interception charge is still combat.

The rule states that the intercepters must:
"Cross the path of the charging enemy battle group."

To cross the path they must end up between the chargers and their target. This will mean that the chargers MUST contact the intercepters with a front edge or front corner, and therefore will fight the intercepters with at least one base.
It the intercept stops exactly level with the target base they are not 'crossing the path' - therefore this is not allowed.
If you want a continuous front, then position them earlier!!

The intercepters will not be at a disadvantage if slightly ahead of the target because the remaining bases of the charging BG must still step forwards into their original target.

Thanks for that Terry,

Just wanted to clarify the meaning of Crossing the Path. And I agree that the interceptors won't be disadvantaged as the bases stepped forward will be in combat with the other BG and none will be able to conform during the maneuver phase and will fight in place.

Still, an interesting exchange of ideas,

Brian