Column fighting in two directions

[petedalby]

The bottom line is that so far all opinions are fair and reasonable.

I guess it's another scenario that didn't arise in beta testing and to have a defibitive view we need the authors' input.

Pete

[sagji]

Reasonable is a matter of opinion here. A column getting hit from both ends may be in such confusion that deploying extra troops to fight anywhere might be considered unreasonable.

It may, but the effect of the rule is that it must be in such confusion. In practice if the BG is that confused it either broke, or is fragmented and the extra dice will have little or no effect.

I don't agree with the logic about once the formation being disrupted a player is exempt from making it worse! That would open a rather large loophole I think.

Not a large loophole - and not as large as the reverse. By your version a BG that steps forward but doesn't conform can't feed extra bases into the melee as it is not then in a legal formation. Note the exception for fighting in multiple directions applies untill the BG reforms while the exception for stepping forward applies only at the instant of stepping forward.