Conforming

Geoff2 · Post by **Geoff2** » Fri May 08, 2009 2:48 pm

Hi,
First of all thank you for your help with my question on Spartans even though I was in the wrong area. Last wednesday I watched a game and saw something that caused me a little concern. There were two lines of 4 LH BG's, each BG being four elements strong, facing each other. One side charged two BG's with two of his own. Due to the way the lines were facing each other the BG"s hit to the right of center on each of the opposiing elements. There were therefor four elements on each side engaged in the impact phase. During the manouver phase the attacking player slid his elements to the right as this was the shortest move to conform. The result of this was that he moved one of his elements that had been in contact with an enemy base into an overlap position and on the opposite end of his line one of his bases disengaged from a base it had been fighting and left that base in an overlap position. As both sides still had the same number of bases fighting, each now having an overlap, both players said they were happy with the move. The problem I saw was that the defending player had lost one base from his left hand BG and the result of the manouver was that that Bg had three bases fighting while his opponent had six against that BG and two against the other BG which had four fighting. I thought that when you conformed you had to line each base up with the base it was fighting in the impact phase.

Thanks in advance Geoff.

petedalby · Post by **petedalby** » Fri May 08, 2009 4:10 pm

From your description it sounds like they did it right.

You move the shortest distance to conform.

Check out page 70

Pete

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Fri May 08, 2009 4:13 pm

With a pair of BGs offset both sides will have an advantage on one side of the melee. Essentially both sides will have one BG on the wrong end of 6 dice (5 if a base is lost) and one BG on the wrong end of 2 dice.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri May 08, 2009 4:18 pm

The players conformed correctly. Usually the phasing player doing the charge can wheel to arrange how the subsequent conforming occurs.

One of the arts of FoG is to keep BG's together and not get overlapped. Although the 4 v 6 effect does happen, it cuts both ways if the lines are the same length. The charger has the initiative as noted above. This tends to give an incentive to get the contact started, rather than waiting to be attacked, the latter being a feature of other rules.

Whatever the situation may look like, I have never found it to be a problem in the ozens of games I have played.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Fri May 08, 2009 4:19 pm

Three of us replying together. Is this the Friday afternoon, can't be bothered to do anything else, lets browse the site time?

Geoff2 · Post by **Geoff2** » Sun May 10, 2009 1:18 pm

Thanks for the reply. The only problem I have with this is that it can be used to disegage completly from an enemy BG. If you charge someone and an intercept charge by a more powerful BG catches you on the corner of your end elelment you could use this manouver to completely disengage and if the intercepting BG was at an angle to your original charge it would not even count as an overlap.
Anyway thanks for your help.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Sun May 10, 2009 2:31 pm

Geoff2 wrote:Thanks for the reply. The only problem I have with this is that it can be used to disegage completly from an enemy BG. If you charge someone and an intercept charge by a more powerful BG catches you on the corner of your end elelment you could use this manouver to completely disengage and if the intercepting BG was at an angle to your original charge it would not even count as an overlap.
Anyway thanks for your help.

I am not quite sure what you are saying here.

If BG is in contact with two BGs at an angle it is normally impossible to conform so no conforming happens.

Geoff2 · Post by **Geoff2** » Tue May 12, 2009 12:24 pm

The way I read the replies above there is nothing wrong with conforming in such a way that an element can disengage from the element it contacted in the imapct phase. If that is correct, and I do not believe it is, than there will arise situations were you can conform to one BG and disengage from another.
Geoff.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Tue May 12, 2009 2:09 pm

Geoff2 wrote:The way I read the replies above there is nothing wrong with conforming in such a way that an element can disengage from the element it contacted in the imapct phase. If that is correct, and I do not believe it is, than there will arise situations were you can conform to one BG and disengage from another.
Geoff.

The conforming rules say:

BGs must pivot and/or slide bases by the minimum necessary to conform to the enemy bases in contact

and

Conforming usually means lining up each base in full front edge to front edge contact or conforming to an overlap possition.

It is not an issue to conform to an overlap possition and in the initial case the BG conforming ends up not in frontal contact.

If there is another BG involved at an angle them it will not be possible to remain in a normal formation and be in contact with both BGs. As you must conform to the enemy bases in contact and conforming so you lose contact with an enemy base is not allowed there is no conform.

I will see if I can knock up a diagram or two.

expendablecinc · Post by **expendablecinc** » Tue May 12, 2009 4:36 pm

The Question relates to the same query I posted a day or so prior:

can a base slide to conform and by doing so lost frontal contact with a battlegroup?

AABB
AABB
__CCDD
__CCDD

eg
A and B charge C and D.
A slightly hits the front of C.
B hits the front of B and a little bit of the left base of D.

We roll 6 dice each at impact (three bases hit three bases)
- in the movement phase A and B slide to conform
- the shortest slide is to the left of screen
- this means that although they were in frontal contact initially they slide out of frontal contact and are much freeer to move, charge someone else, evade etc...

If this is so and there is a general with group A if he fights in the front rank at impact he is then 'released' as overlappers can move away.

Should they have slid a longer distance to the right of screen to line up and not lose any contact with BGs?
Otherwise is this a way of getting an impact phase hit without any risk of having to face a melle combat? eg scythed chariots or unarmoured impact foot.

hammy wrote:
Geoff2 wrote:The way I read the replies above there is nothing wrong with conforming in such a way that an element can disengage from the element it contacted in the imapct phase. If that is correct, and I do not believe it is, than there will arise situations were you can conform to one BG and disengage from another.
Geoff.
The conforming rules say:

BGs must pivot and/or slide bases by the minimum necessary to conform to the enemy bases in contact
and

Conforming usually means lining up each base in full front edge to front edge contact or conforming to an overlap possition.
It is not an issue to conform to an overlap possition and in the initial case the BG conforming ends up not in frontal contact.

If there is another BG involved at an angle them it will not be possible to remain in a normal formation and be in contact with both BGs. As you must conform to the enemy bases in contact and conforming so you lose contact with an enemy base is not allowed there is no conform.

I will see if I can knock up a diagram or two.

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:05 pm

expendablecinc wrote:The Question relates to the same query I posted a day or so prior:
can a base slide to conform and by doing so lost frontal contact with a battlegroup?

Yes, when conforming moving a base to an overlap possition is fine.

If this is so and there is a general with group A if he fights in the front rank at impact he is then 'released' as overlappers can move away.

The commander is not released until your following turn as the overlappers cannot move in the movement phase because they charged.

Should they have slid a longer distance to the right of screen to line up and not lose any contact with BGs?

No, the conforming rule is about bases, not BGs and corner to corner contact is a legitimate place for a base to conform to.

Otherwise is this a way of getting an impact phase hit without any risk of having to face a melle combat? eg scythed chariots or unarmoured impact foot.

It is indeed. I hadn't thought about the scuthed chariot trick but it does appear from reading the rules that this would work.

gozerius · Post by **gozerius** » Wed May 13, 2009 2:26 am

Of course, If the enemy can feed more bases in by expanding into frontal contact with the overlapping BG the ploy is thwarted.

shall · Post by **shall** » Wed May 13, 2009 6:57 am

I think iofone spends a lot of time trying to engineer the Schythed chariot trick - bearing in mind no-one will stand still to let it happen - you are probably investing so much time on detail you will never win in the bigger picture. Just charge them in en-masse and let them try to do what they tried to do!!

Si