Pursuit into contact? (Challenge 3)

[pbrandon]

Red is friends. Light and dark blue are enemy. Red (facing up the page) has broken dark blue and caught it in the impact phase rout. In the JAP dark blue routs again. Red fails a CMT not to continue pursuit. If red is skirmishers, can it stop short of light blue given that it starts its JAP pursuit <1MU from light blue? See p. 108.

Paul

[terrys]

The rule states:

However, skirmishers can choose to halt their pursuit 1 MU away from fresh enemy non-skirmishers. If they do so, all their front rank bases stop on that line.

I would certainly rule that they should be allowed to choose not to contact.
The only question would be: should they fall back to 1MU away?
Logically there could easily be some pulling back to reform.

It's pretty irrelevent in 99% of cases.

[grahambriggs]

Part of the red bases is 1MU away. Would that count. It doesn't qualify as "the front edge" being !MU away does it?

[babyshark]

What would happen if red and blue were farther away from light blue, and red were not skirmishers? If blue shifts or drops back to get past light blue, how does red move to follow blue?

In other words, will red plow straight on ahead into light blue, or will it wheel to follow blue and potentially miss light blue altogether? Does it matter whether red wants (or does not want) to hit light blue?

Marc

[philqw78]

What would happen if red and blue were farther away from light blue, and red were not skirmishers? If blue shifts or drops back to get past light blue, how does red move to follow blue?

In other words, will red plow straight on ahead into light blue, or will it wheel to follow blue and potentially miss light blue altogether? Does it matter whether red wants (or does not want) to hit light blue?

Marc

Friends can shift in rout/evade to avoid friends. Pursuers cannot so would plough in, unless skirmishers who did not want to I believe.

from memory

On the first Q above I think the spirit of the rules is they can choose to stop if in pursuit (must stop if they did not pass a CMT if chasing evaders). But the thing is they can "choose" to stop one MU away, they have already passed one MU, so do they still have the choice? I would say yes, but thats an umpire call.

[SirGarnet]

I think it's obvious that "stop 1 MU away" for skirmishers must mean "stop 1 MU away or, if starting less than 1 MU away, remain in position without moving".

The reason is that the purpose of the rule is to give skirmishers a choice of stopping before pursuing into formed troops, and the fact that they start their move less than 1 MU away is either an artifact of VMD results or a result of opposing player movement to less than 1 MU.


----

Pursuers can wheel to follow pursuers, but a wheel in this case would not avoid the enemy.

[shall]

Yes they stop and I would rule they stop where they are.

Our intent is clear even if wording a little sloppy.

One could make a case as TS says to drop them back to 1MU but I think this is a new rule rather than an intent badly worded and we should leave at just

stop at 1MU (or where you are if closer already)

Si