I for one do not want to go into a debate about advances and gaps, so let me try and bring this all to an end.
My job does not involve me working in front of a computer and so my replies to the various post/points have to wait for a free evening for me to reply. It has been very interesting to see the assumptions people have made of the game situation and somehow felt that my question had come about from my infantry being in trouble.
The infantry was a unit of Dailami, drilled, armoured, Superior, impact foot, swordsmen with an attached general. The charging unit of cavalry was Ghilman, drilled, armoured, superior, bow, swoardmen with an attached general. Not allowing for any unusal dice, both impact and melee would be at equal POAs and the result would probably be a break off from the cavalry. So nothing for the infantry or the cavalry to worry about.
Rick's cavalry had spent his preceeding move stationary expanding out to allow him the option of evading.
In my preceeding move, another of my units of Dailami had charge a similar unit of Rick's Ghilman. In this instance Rick had decided to evade, but was nearly caught.
In veiw of this near miss, I decided to move my infantry as close as I did, to give me the best possible chance of catching him when he evade again. The final postion was also effected by a wheeling unit of infantry to their left. The cavalry moved up a full move to get as close as possible to the Ghilman. I had already thought there was no point in charging in conjuction with the Dailami, as they would have less chance of catching them than the infantry.
After a sort discusion with his partner, Rick declared a charge with a wheel. This was a good call as he knew the probable out come of the combat and the resultant break off. Far better than the risk of evading and being caught in the rear.
As the charging Ghilman where directly to my cavalry's front I said I would intercept.
Richard was asked to give a ruling. This he did and we continued with the game.
The combat went as expected the Ghilman broke off.
The out come of the game had always looked a draw from the start, when two pieces of terrain did not remain, leaving a very open plain. This situation was not helped by Steve and I making a complete 'pigs ear' of our deployment. I think it took us 3 or 4 moves to sort ourselves out and get an advance on. I am still not sure if these moves would have made a difference.
Over the weekend several of our opponents had pointed out things we had not realised. I remember looking at the rules when told a Fragment unit could advance provided it passed a CMT first. I had been sure that this was not so.
When I got home on Sunday night I sat down and started to look at the situation again and that was when I started this post. What I did not realise until Monday night was that the ruling had come from the FAQs.
Unfortunately, in the mean time others had made postings and the situation got very clouded. Number of elements fighting, could you wheel in a charge etc etc.
I then wanted to try to understand why the rule writers had decided to change the situation so differently from the published rules. I after all had been a play tester and I could not remember an issue with this. No one as yet has taken up that challenge, any takers?
Having read the FAQs I could clearly see how the situation had come about. What I find interesting is that no one has quoted the most important part
'Charge path
Although this is not normally necessary, you do need to declare the path of your chargers at the time of declaration if there are potential interceptors around, in order to determine whether your chargers will cross their zone of interception.'
Fair play to Rick he did declare this at the time of his charge, whether he did this to avoid a possible interception I do not know. If he had not done this then it is very possible he would have had to contact the interceptors.
Would I move the troops in the same way again, probably. I think it was the closeness of the infantry that decided Rick not to risk the evade . As an infantry commander you want to get shooty cavalry into combat so that you can kill them. So I was certainly not unhappy with the situation.
I think the main lession I have learnt from this, is that FoG is no different from DBM when it comes to the movement of elements.
I thought all this millimetric precision was supposed to be largely eliminated
from the process of getting into combat? Dave M
I don't have a problem with that, I just thought things had changed.
Thank you everyone who posted, hopefully any further discusions will take place at Britcon with the aid of a drink.
Don
PS. Never a storm in a tea cup, more like an over froffy cappuccino
