Slitherine

Well I'm glad I wasn't the umpire called upon when this came up

nikgaukroger wrote:Why not just a blanket no more than 90 degrees? KISS and all that.

I would agree with Nic that a standard 90 degrees would be simple.
I think the small reduction in LH slipperyness would be a positive step.

It also has the advantage of bringing 15 and 25mm closer in line - since, with the extra frontage, 90 degrees is the effective maximum for 25mm basing.

You could just add that for all moves, except Lights, the front edge of the BG cannot end to the rear where the BG started after any initial right or left turn/face. No need to measure angles and can be used for all non-impact phase moves.

MattDower wrote:

nikgaukroger wrote:Why not just a blanket no more than 90 degrees? KISS and all that.

I would agree with Nic that a standard 90 degrees would be simple.
I think the small reduction in LH slipperyness would be a positive step.

It also has the advantage of bringing 15 and 25mm closer in line - since, with the extra frontage, 90 degrees is the effective maximum for 25mm basing.

Another good argument to limit it to 90 degrees is that this already makes it effectively 180 degrees (since you can do a 90 degree turn before the wheel).

A turn + 180 degrees makes it 270 degrees which makes it look more like a right turn by a Sopwith Camel than a movement by a large body of horse.

philqw78 wrote:Well I'm glad I wasn't the umpire called upon when this came up

You were the unpire and you called it right according to the rules, must say sorry to both you and Matt over the heated discussion over the movement at the end of a long hard fought game.
Dave

must say sorry to both you and Matt over the heated discussion over the movement at the end of a long hard fought game.

There's nothing wrong with being competetive Dave. I just cry when decisions go against me.

Important that you agree the best solution with the other authors Richard but FWIW I'd prefer the 90 degree maximum please.

It keeps it consistent with the current restriction on charge wheels.

Pete

david53 wrote:

philqw78 wrote:Well I'm glad I wasn't the umpire called upon when this came up

You were the unpire and you called it right according to the rules, must say sorry to both you and Matt over the heated discussion over the movement at the end of a long hard fought game.
Dave

Apology more than accepted. Your frustration was very understandable.
I must admit the game was great, though we both did get a bit serious over what was after all a training game!!!

Matt

The alternative to stopping light horse turning more than 90 degrees could be to measure each 90 degrees in a turn of more than 90 degrees. I.e. if I turn 120 degrees by wheeling then I measure the movement to the 90 degress position and then add that to get to the 120 degrees. Measuring X bases by 90 degrees is not too difficult I keep a number of thin wooden strips to measure wheels anyway.

titanu wrote:The alternative to stopping light horse turning more than 90 degrees could be to measure each 90 degrees in a turn of more than 90 degrees. I.e. if I turn 120 degrees by wheeling then I measure the movement to the 90 degress position and then add that to get to the 120 degrees. Measuring X bases by 90 degrees is not too difficult I keep a number of thin wooden strips to measure wheels anyway.

Another approach would be to say that the straight line measure of the front corner must at no time in the wheel exceed the move distance. Might not stop slippy light horse but would be a simple way to prevent heavy foot cheese, etc.

Of course, punching has its attractions too, but the judge said not to.

I believe that a 180 degree limit solves the problem. Fast narrow formations will be able to achieve it (2 bases wide in 15mm will cost just under 7 MU) everything else will have the cheese eliminated. If you want to wheel a 1 element wide column of HF 180 degrees it will use almost 4 MU and leave your formation in a very interesting shape.

I agree - a 180 degree limitation is sufficient. I do not like the sound of restricting wheels to 90 degrees as this artificially restrics LH movement in a lot of cases, as well as making it very, very difficult to manage if you are wheeling twice at different points during the move...

Aah. How an apparently nice simplification can led to such fun ...

So just to be clear ... are we worried that someone with units of 2 Quapukulu might wheel 270 degrees, advance and wheel back 90 effectively achieving a turn 180 and move. I can see how this might be possible, but would need to give it a try.

Our intent was that distance is measured around the wheel roughly, and that the rules as written apporximate that in a simpler way. But a fine counter interpretation to mull over I agree.

Si

shall wrote:Aah. How an apparently nice simplification can led to such fun ...

So just to be clear ... are we worried that someone with units of 2 Quapukulu might wheel 270 degrees, advance and wheel back 90 effectively achieving a turn 180 and move. I can see how this might be possible, but would need to give it a try.

Si

Well with 40 mm bases, those two wheels use up 113 mm of your 125 mm allowance, so it's not much of a turn 180 and move.

By the way, I have found that a sharp wheel is a handy way to stop your column from being flank or rear charged when you fail your CMT to turn.

lawrenceg wrote:By the way, I have found that a sharp wheel is a handy way to stop your column from being flank or rear charged when you fail your CMT to turn.

As long as you aren't Undrilled Others.

rbodleyscott wrote:

lawrenceg wrote:By the way, I have found that a sharp wheel is a handy way to stop your column from being flank or rear charged when you fail your CMT to turn.

As long as you aren't Undrilled Others.

Everyone else can turn 90 or 180 as a simple move, so it is most useful for undrilled others, provided you remembered to move a general in in the previous JAP.

Getting back to the main point, I think the simplicity of the rule as written, while admirable, does allow too much rorting if played to the letter. Leaving it to umpires leads to regional/national variations etc. For that reason I'm in favour of either:
- Nic's straigtfoward restriction of 90 degrees; or
- Introducing an amendment/FAQ that says that any wheel over 90 degrees means that the entrire outer path is measured as accurately as possible.

I don't think introducing amendments/clarifications that stop foot-cheese but not light horse-cheese is going to do anything to redress the perceived advantage that slippery horsie armies already have.

Cheers,

Steve

rbodleyscott wrote:

hammy wrote:I can live with it for light horse but what about a BG of heavy foot effectively wheeling backwards by wheeling 'forwards' over 270 degrees?

Probably another "Punch him" FAQ, even though, in this case, the rules do not specifically disallow it. As an umpire, I would certainly disallow it, whatever the rules (don't) say.

We probably need to do something about this, although I have never yet seen anyone try to do it. Maybe we need an erratum limiting non-charging wheels to a maximum of 180 degrees.

I don't see anything wrong with a wheel over 180 degrees, at least for LH, wheeling and swirling and swishing about as they do.

My thought was that as to wheel you must travel the wheel path you must stop when you reach your maximum movement allowance as measured along the chord.

This doesn't address the abusive 330 degree wheel, nor the more practical 210 degree LH wheel - the most practical resolution may be to define a wheel as up to 180 degrees so it's an additional second (double) wheel to wheel farther than that, or just that distance beyond 180 degrees is measured as a separate wheel but counts as part of the initial wheel.

2 wide, only LH can get to 180 degrees (using 16cm of 17.8 cm movement in 15s), and not much farther if you measure the rest as a second wheel. I don't see a downside to limiting a BG that turned into column to a 180 wheel.

Mike

Getting back to the main point, I think the simplicity of the rule as written, while admirable, does allow too much rorting if played to the letter. Leaving it to umpires leads to regional/national variations etc. For that reason I'm in favour of either:
- Nic's straigtfoward restriction of 90 degrees; or
- Introducing an amendment/FAQ that says that any wheel over 90 degrees means that the entrire outer path is measured as accurately as possible.

I don't think introducing amendments/clarifications that stop foot-cheese but not light horse-cheese is going to do anything to redress the perceived advantage that slippery horsie armies already have.

Cheers,

Steve

Just to let you know that we haven't forgotten this one. We are considering a simple clarification to the effect that "a wheel must be legally within movement distance throughout its entire move" which means you measure at the end, but you can never go beyond distance to get there. So if anyone tries the clearly silly there is a statement to fall back on.

More news in due course. Clearly taken super literally one could do a 359 degree wheel with most troops, as the end position would be right next to the start position ... whey hey for the circus elephants!!

Si

Excellent. One of FoG's POAs IMO (3 TLAs in a row, do I get a prize?) is that the authors and administrators are responsive to developments in the field. There's no beta test like an actual release to the paying public - just ask Microsoft!

Steve