Slitherine

Now had this at club last week.

A BG of Light foot was charged by BG cav

The LF evaded and went back three inchs to their rear(slow walk for them)

Behind them at an angle of about 45 degrees away from them just a nat's heir just less than three inchs from them were a BG of of friendly cavalry.

Now one file of LF touched the cavalry bases but the two other bases did'nt. BTW the enemy cavalry hit the LF in the rear(not slow them).

After Dave R's and Phil's very kind help it was decided that the file that touched the cavalry went through them. The two files that did'nt got hit by the cavalry.

Not worried by the fight it just did't look right the two files on one side of the friendly Cavalry and and one file on the other side. I just thought a BG had to stay together at all times.

The way it was played was after impact the file that passed through was placed alongside the two files fighting the cavalry.(BTW the poor troops survived two bounds and only broke on the second melee against elite cav Lance/sword needing fours to hit reroll 1 and 2 bad dice from my fellow player no less)

Any help...........

IMO, the entire LF BG should interpenetrate Cav, if they didn't exceed over 2MU their move to clear the Cav (see pag 48 ) If the file which touched Cav needed over 2 MU to interpenetrate Cav they couldn't do it, in this case I guess they should shift or stop in contact with Cav.

Solution adopted sounds like a compromise, but if I understood correctly you splitted the LF BG and this is not allowed.

As they are LF - then if a move of 7MU (normal 5 + 2MU) would have got them entirely clear then they all pass through.
Otherwise only those bases that reach the cavalry pass through. From the description one base not one file should have passed through. There is a specific exception to remaining contiguous for incomplete interpenetration - though it isn't repeated in the formation rules unlike the other formation exceptions.

Only the bases contacted turn in the impact phase.

The base that passed through the cavalry isn't in a position to fight as the cavalry is the 2nd rank - so it could expand - however as you loose 1/2 dice 6 bases fighting isn't better than 5, and as you are disrupted the disorder for the incomplete interprentration doesn't matter.

If both bases of a file reached the cavalry then both would be placed beyond. They could then expand on one side of the other files providing there was an existing enemy overlap and sufficient space. In their own turn they can expand to create an overlap. But you will still be fighting with 2 dice.

The split will remain untill the interpenetration is completed, and looks odd - especially when it's the entire center file that is displaced.