I agree with your first point; they are not forced to test and indeed cannot test.lawrenceg wrote:I've always interpreted that as:grahambriggs wrote:I tink this is the part of the rules you want, in the 'declaration of charges' section at the front of impact:
"If a CMT is required to make a charge against certain troops, it must be taken if required for any of the battle groups that can be „legally‟ contacted in the chosen direction of charge, including by stepping forward bases. It need not and cannot be taken for those that can only be contacted if another battle group evades or routs."
I think the last sentence in particular shows that the MF do not need to test if the fragged skirmishers are the only unit in the way.
The possibility of contacting troops B if original target A evades or routs does not force the chargers to test to charge A.
If the chargers want to contact B in the event of A evading or routing, they are not allowed to take the test and hence not allowed to contact B.
On your second point, they need not test and cannot test to charge A. So, if they want to, they just declare a charge.
Once a charge is declared, if A evades (but not breaks?) skirmishers will stop short of some targets as " If any of their charge targets evade, skirmishers must halt their charge 1 MU away from enemy to their front whom they would not normally be allowed to charge without a CMT (unless they passed a CMT to charge them prior to charging)."
However, there is no provision for non skirmishers stopping short, so I think they will charge in. If you don't want to, don't declare a charge!
This has a similar feel to those situations where light foot charge say a routing enemy and are intercept charged by something ghastly like a pike phalanx. People think the LF will do the sensible thing and not charge in, but there's nothing to stop them unless one of the enemy BGs evades.
