Slitherine

All evades are made before charges.

No you resolve charges, including all responses thereto, one by one - see p68.

sagji wrote:No you resolve charges, including all responses thereto, one by one - see p68.

No.

Explanation:

There was room on the page to make the sentence less easy to misread, but page 68 still says charges and responses must be actioned in accordance with the sequence of play, not that we run through the sequence of play for one charge and then go back and run through it for the next charge - plus the latter approach breaks down and weird things happen when there are multiple charges and responses which can affect each other, and then sometimes a complaint results that the rules are broken and unrealistic because things are out of order.

Don't skip page 52. It divides the Impact Phase into 4 stages.

Stage 1 is charge declaration. Then is stage 2 with charge responses. Look on p 168 and this Stage 2 involves everything from CMT for skirmishers not wishing to evade all the way up through Resolve Cohesion Tests for seeing Fragmented Troops break + their rout. P68 stresses that the order on p168 must be followed in order and that means across the battlefield.

After this stage is done you go to Stage 3 of moving the chargers into contact.

_________________________________________________________

"The problem is really quite simple once you know the answer."

sagji wrote:No you resolve charges, including all responses thereto, one by one - see p68.

page 68 wrote:Each charge and any responses to it must be actioned in the order listed in the full turn sequence at the end of the book, but if there is more than one charge the active player choses the order in which they are actioned

From the sentence structure, the italicised they should refer to the charges mentioned in the phrase more than one charge and not to the responses.

THe full turn sequence at the end of the book clearly has "make charge moves" after all responses, not "make charge move", so all charges must occur after all responses.

lawrenceg wrote:From the sentence structure, the italicised they should refer to the charges mentioned in the phrase more than one charge and not to the responses.

I am happy to be convinced by this as it means the inactive player can choose the order of evades as discussed above.

Author please comment. As i think people are drawing opposite conclusions from same text.

hazelbark wrote:

Author please comment. As i think people are drawing opposite conclusions from same text.

I think lawrenceg identified the textual basis for evader deciding sequence of evades, which puts us all in agreement on the original question.

Look at p52 and p168 as well as p68 and see if there's a way to get to a situation where any evade response is left undone while a charger rolls VMD if applicable and moves.

p58 does say something different, but this causes problems because the movement of one charge may alter what happens in another.

Example: lf, and sp - enemy facing down
CV, HW friendly facing up.
CV has decared a charge straight forward - this will hit the sp and can't step forward as lf are more than 2 MU back.
HW has declared a charge with the maximum wheel.
At the response step lf doesn't evade as it isn't the target of a charge.
In the move chargers step HW is moved first, which means it crosses in front of the CV.
When moving the CV its path is blocked by friends so it drops back aa base - this means that it also clears the sp, and so hits the lf - the lf can't evade as the response step is over.

All the declared evades are over, yes.

However, BGs that first discover they are a charge target as a result of charges respond after that with evades if applicable, which would be the case here if the LF was the only target in range of the Cavalry because the HW completely blocked the Cav charge and contacted the front rank bases so the left file is counted as being already in melee under p57.

MikeK wrote:All the declared evades are over, yes.

However, BGs that first discover they are a charge target as a result of charges respond after that with evades if applicable, which would be the case here if the LF was the only target in range of the Cavalry because the HW completely blocked the Cav charge and contacted the front rank bases so the left file is counted as being already in melee under p57.

They are not already in melee yet as they were charged this phase. The Cv could hit the flank of the Sp, counting as a frontal charge.

The rules don't cover all cases where charges obstruct each other. Requiring chargers to hit their declared target if possible would be within the spirit of the rules and so would allowing new targets in the revised path to evade.

MikeK wrote:All the declared evades are over, yes.

However, BGs that first discover they are a charge target as a result of charges respond after that with evades if applicable, which would be the case here if the LF was the only target in range of the Cavalry because the HW completely blocked the Cav charge and contacted the front rank bases so the left file is counted as being already in melee under p57.

Untill such time as HW move they are not blocking CV. If the CV move first, or if the HW make a VMD and the roll makes their move insufficient to block the path of the CV then the CV hit the sp.
If the rules mean that you do all responses, and then move all charges then the lf don't become a target of the charge untill the move charges stage, at which point they can't respond as the response to charges stage is over.
If the rules mean that you choose 1 charge, do all responses to that charge, and then move that charger, and then choose another charger, and so on ... then lf does get to evade as when you choose the CV it is known that HW is (or isn't) blocking the path and the CV can then choose to charge lf, or wheel to (also) hit the sp - the sp haven't fought a round of impact, or melee, combat so aren't already in melee.

sagji wrote:Untill such time as HW move they are not blocking CV. If the CV move first, or if the HW make a VMD and the roll makes their move insufficient to block the path of the CV then the CV hit the sp.
If the rules mean that you do all responses, and then move all charges then the lf don't become a target of the charge untill the move charges stage, at which point they can't respond as the response to charges stage is over.

There are a number of occasions when evades are allowed that are not included in the turn sequence, e.g. in the manoeuvre, melee and JAP phases. Therefore lack of a mention in the sequence does not imply a prohibition on evading. It is clear that the spirit of the rules is that troops who can evade should be able to do so whenever they are about to be contacted by an enemy front edge (unless in close combat).

It has also been found that complex situations involving multiple charges that interfere with each other are sometimes not covered by the letter of the rules. In those cases you have to check the FAQ and if that doesn't cover it, just do what seems to be in the spirit of the rules.