Intercept question

piffle · Post by **piffle** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:22 pm

Hi guys,

Possible this question has been answered before but I couldn't find anything doing a search.

Say I have two units of HF (BB and AA in the attempt at a diagram below) both beside each other but one exactly two MU's back. An enemy unit of HF, which is a wide as both (EEEE) declares a charge on the unit in front, can the unit further back (BB in the diagram) declare an intercept charge, moving forwards 2 MU's bringing it in line with the charged unit (AA)?

EEEE

---AA
BB

It would end up as follows:

EEEE
BBAA

Is this possible or is BB not allowed to declare an intercept charge?

thanks for your help

Robert241167 · Post by **Robert241167** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:28 pm

I think the intercepting unit would have to move slightly in front of AA but then EEEE would step forward into AA so would impact both units.

Rob

david53 · Post by **david53** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:49 pm

Robert241167 wrote:I think the intercepting unit would have to move slightly in front of AA but then EEEE would step forward into AA so would impact both units.

Rob

I would have said no, bullet 4 page 63 covers it

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:05 pm

If BB gets level and gets touched by the chargers then it is on the path of the chargers. I would go for 'yes'

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:14 pm

If E is capable of stepping forward into B without losing contact with itself, then B counts as being charged - in which case it cannot intercept. Instead, E will hit A and step forward into B.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:20 pm

rogerg wrote:If BB gets level and gets touched by the chargers then it is on the path of the chargers. I would go for 'yes'

"A Battle group that is itself chargerd cannot intercept. This applies even if a charge was not declared on it, if it is in the path of a charge and would be contacted (including by bases stepping forward...."Page 63

This would stop the BG intercepting because if its at 2MU it could be contacted by charging group stepping forward.

Also in the original question it was stated that the BG was 2MU back from their friendly BG being charged. Being that the interception move is 2MU it would place it in line with is friendly BG and therefore could not intercept the chargers before they hit their target.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:21 pm

Beaten to it must type faster..........

Robert241167 · Post by **Robert241167** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:23 pm

Is that unlikely if all BG's are heavy foot? E would have to be more than 3 ranks deep.

I'm at work so I may be wrong.

Rob

rbodleyscott · Post by **rbodleyscott** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:27 pm

Robert241167 wrote:Is that unlikely if all BG's are heavy foot?

No it isn't, which is why I said if.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:28 pm

Robert241167 wrote:Is that unlikely if all BG's are heavy foot? E would have to be more than 3 ranks deep.

I'm at work so I may be wrong.

Rob

You might be right with the steping forward Rob but I'll fall back on the interpecting BG only moving 2MU and therefore not in front of the BG that is being charged, so it can't intercept as it will still allow the BG charged to be hit at the same time.

I'm sure there was a thread about a game at Devizes with something like this as well may be wrong?
viewtopic.php?t=11586

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:57 am

Sorry for my hasty post, I missed the point of the question. As noted above, if the chargers can step forward the potential intercept is cancelled because they are a target. I presumed the question implied that the chargers were not able to step forward. I thought the question was about whether an intercept getting to the line of the contact was OK or whether they had to step inside the zone.

Robert241167 · Post by **Robert241167** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:00 am

Back on the point of stepping forward, in this case it wouldn't happen as the BG is heavy foot 4 wide which therefore cannot be more than 3 deep. Any deeper and it would need to be a BG of 13 elements+, I don't think there are any in the books.

Rob

piffle · Post by **piffle** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 9:19 am

rogerg wrote:Sorry for my hasty post, I missed the point of the question. As noted above, if the chargers can step forward the potential intercept is cancelled because they are a target. I presumed the question implied that the chargers were not able to step forward. I thought the question was about whether an intercept getting to the line of the contact was OK or whether they had to step inside the zone.

Well yes you did not miss the point of the question as it is about whether an intercept getting to the line of the contact was OK or whether they had to step inside the zone.

Just to give a bit more info, EEEE couldn't have stepped forward into BB as it was only two ranks deep and so would have broken up the unit. Also the situation was more like this:

--EEEE

---AA
BB

In the game AA and BB were my units of Pikemen, BB being superior and EEEE was the enemy superior, armoured Romans.

Amusingly having looked in the rulebook to see whether I could intercept I decided I couldn't and my opponent decided I could. This would of course make a huge difference to the outcome due to either my average pikemen being overlapped or me overlapping the Romans with my superior pikemen come the melee phase. In the end in order to help towards the finishing of the game, and as we have never yet finished a game in one night, we went for allowing the interception as hopefully more combat would end up in a quicker game.

Even though the Romans were eventually crushed in this combat it did not alter the result of the game where my other flank decided that despite being uphill winning combats and passing cohesion tests was not for them. But still woohoo we actually managed to finish a game!

So I suppose my question is if the ZoI only just touches the chargers line of first contact, be that at a corner or all along the front, can you still do an intercept?

sagji · Post by **sagji** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 10:40 am

B can't intercept because while the charge touches the ZOI E doesn't charge throught the ZOI.
Also B has no valid interception move as a move of 2MU while it will touch the charge path doesn't crossthe charge path.

rogerg · Post by **rogerg** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:02 am

Usually the definition of on the limit would be included as inside the zone. I don't have the book to check the exact wording. Intuitively the intercept rule is about being contacted by the chargers. I would expect the rule to be that the intercept is valid because when on the line of contact there is contact with the chargers. However, what matters is how it is phrased in the book.

deadtorius · Post by **deadtorius** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 2:27 pm

As has been pointed out the rear pike unit could not move ahead of the target pike unit so it can not intercept the charge ending up lined up with the target therefore no intercept is allowed.

piffle · Post by **piffle** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 10:11 am

deadtorius wrote:As has been pointed out the rear pike unit could not move ahead of the target pike unit so it can not intercept the charge ending up lined up with the target therefore no intercept is allowed.

Well thats what I thought, just wanted to check to make sure.

thanks for all the replies.

donm · Post by **donm** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 9:14 am

As has been pointed out the rear pike unit could not move ahead of the target pike unit so it can not intercept the charge ending up lined up with the target therefore no intercept is allowed.

If you look at the illustration of an intercept charge on page 62 of the rules, you will see there is no need to get level.

Having allowed chargers to wheel and avoid interceptors, I suspect the example in the rules is now redundant.

Don

lawrenceg · Post by **lawrenceg** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:34 pm

donm wrote:
As has been pointed out the rear pike unit could not move ahead of the target pike unit so it can not intercept the charge ending up lined up with the target therefore no intercept is allowed.
If you look at the illustration of an intercept charge on page 62 of the rules, you will see there is no need to get level.

Having allowed chargers to wheel and avoid interceptors, I suspect the example in the rules is now redundant.

Don

You don't need to get level, but IMO you do need to get across on to the enemy side of the line of first contact to count as "crossing the path of the charge."

The example in the rule illustrates the point it is intended to illustrate, so it is not redundant. The possibility that the chargers might have adopted another charge path (or, indeed, not charged at all) is irrelevant.

david53 · Post by **david53** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:54 pm

donm wrote:
As has been pointed out the rear pike unit could not move ahead of the target pike unit so it can not intercept the charge ending up lined up with the target therefore no intercept is allowed.
If you look at the illustration of an intercept charge on page 62 of the rules, you will see there is no need to get level.

Having allowed chargers to wheel and avoid interceptors, I suspect the example in the rules is now redundant.

Don

I don't think the example is redundent looking at the picture even wheeling will still alow the intercept to happen just closer to archers ie hit by the file of cavalry closer to the archers instead of being the further file?