Testing Not to Charge (or not)?

[nikgaukroger]

FWIW I don't think knights charged much in areas naer bad terrain, but I could be wrong.

Most obvious case that springs to mind would be the two French bodies that charged the English lines at Agincourt - they charged the ends of the line next to the woods.

How common, hard to say. Sensible commanders probably kept the knights away from unsuitable terrain anyway so that it never became as issue whether they could charge into it - apart from the Latin lot who charged the Catalans with boggy ground in the way

[shall]

Most obvious case that springs to mind would be the two French bodies that charged the English lines at Agincourt - they charged the ends of the line next to the woods.

But were ordered to do so were they not by over courgeous knightly commanders. You can always do that in FOG of course.

Si

[lawrenceg]

Most obvious case that springs to mind would be the two French bodies that charged the English lines at Agincourt - they charged the ends of the line next to the woods.

But were ordered to do so were they not by over courgeous knightly commanders. You can always do that in FOG of course.

Si

IIRC this was not acording to the army plan, which was for an outflanking movement, so possibly the "knightly commanders" were the battlegroup leaders.

[Ghaznavid]

Sensible commanders probably kept the knights away from unsuitable terrain anyway so that it never became as issue whether they could charge into it - apart from the Latin lot who charged the Catalans with boggy ground in the way

The boggy ground were fields freshly flooded by those sneaky Catalans. As far as we know Walter V did not know the area was boggy until he tried to charge through it. Terrible reconnaissance work, yes. A case of impetuously charging into bad terrain? I think not.

[nikgaukroger]

Fair point - I'm really not that up on the Catalans I must admit

In fact identifying what may be a charge without orders from the historical record can be quite difficult.

[SirGarnet]

Would the "could end in terrain" also apply to the conform. As that occurs in the movement phase I'd expect not but good to be sure. I have seen knights charge the flank (not a legal flank charge though) who fight impact in the open but as the enemy have terrain to their front the conform results in the knight spending the melle phase in severely disrupted.

I'm sure you are right about not considering conforms since conforming is 2 phases later. Moreover, you'd need to look at intervening events.

[shall]

I have been reflecting on this stream overnight and thought I would share the following on it ... al personal reflections as ever.

I have a sneaky feeling we are suffering a little DBM legacy in our minds.
When we developed FOG we tried to start again on many items.
It is important NOT to think of the shock troops rules as analogous to the Sponno of DBM - it is fundamentally different in purpose and mechanics.
bear with me....

When we looked at this issue I for on learned something pretty interesting from the research, and was keen to get rid of something from a game mechanic point of view. Taking the latter first... the idea that a large force of troops would break into uncotrolled advance miles from enemy and get into chaos 1500 yards later always seemed very odd. Non of us wanted this effect or believed it to be real. We didn't want the type of wild chaos that such rules create, nor the ability to simply wreck (i.e. easy path to certain victory over) historically very solid armies.

What we instead felt was that certain troops are naturally aggressive in nature,other not; this is most evident in our decision to have OFF and DEF Sp. In the main aggressive troops are not going to charge without encouragement, because in the main they will get used aggressively fitting their style. I was persuaded that actually Roman legionaries were as likely to break ranks and charge in this situation as anyone. A very interesting realisation.

So rather than being intended to create massive unwanted charges ... it is intended to create realistic difficulties for you all in 2 situations:

1. when you try to use naturally agressive troops to do something defensive and hold position near to enemy in a situation where they feel very confident in themselves having nothing to upset their bravado nearby (terrain) OR
2. if you get baited in completely open terrain where you are very confident (e.g. knights at Hattin perhaps) where confidence or local commanders may try to solve their local problem against your masterplans wishes.

So Agincourt would be a "shock test" issue for FOG if the plan had been to ride up to the english and to try to hold position somewhere along the line -maybe if ordered to hold on the side and charge in the middle. If reflected in FOG it feels more like a 3 ft+ wide gape between woods with 6 BGs of knights in 2 ranks of 3, ordered to ride the English down, who then disccover themselves unexpectedly in uneven terrain on part of the lime. Some get shot up badly and stall. Some get in and break off. In breaking off they mess up line 2. etc. But perhaps never a shock test issue in sight and nicely modelled by the FOG other rules. Not that I am an expert on that battle, more of the game desing and rationale.

Si

[mikekh]

We had similar last night. BG of MF in wood with leftmost element half out of the wood. Enemy knights could charge directly forward and contact the half-in element without entering the woods at impact. Of course in the melee, after alignment, a knight element will be in the wood.

So I think, without wading through all the detail of this post, that the knights must test not to charge as the charge move will not take them into the woods. Is this correct?

Mike

[petedalby]

That's how I've been playing it. But whether that's correct....?

Pete

[SirGarnet]

I think it's clear you can't consider the conform as that occurs in a later phase - so there remains a clever infrequent terrain trap using that if engineered just right.

I think it is clear now that if there are 2 targets, one in the clear and one with terrain risk, the rule only concerns whether you charge the first one.

It's consistent with stated intent in this thread that if there is a legal charge by the shock troops that could end in terrain (including stepping forward and VMDs) then they don't test.

But I lack assurance pending a sanctioned interpretation.

[lawrenceg]

We had similar last night. BG of MF in wood with leftmost element half out of the wood. Enemy knights could charge directly forward and contact the half-in element without entering the woods at impact. Of course in the melee, after alignment, a knight element will be in the wood.

So I think, without wading through all the detail of this post, that the knights must test not to charge as the charge move will not take them into the woods. Is this correct?

Mike

(Inferring from ealier in the thread)

RBS thinks you do need to test.

SHall thinks it depends:
If the knights could legally wheel and charge into the woods and still make contact with at least as many bases as the straight ahead move, then they don't need to test.
If there is no way the knights could enter the woods however hard they try, then they do need to test.

[shall]

Indeed. We are currently having a debate about the implciations of the two views on other situations and will revert soon.

Si