Slitherine

Played the inestimable Mr Ruddock last night and my boys gave him a right good shoeing

Anyway at one point he tried to get really rather 'clever' and I have to say I think that if what he claimed was correct there really needs to be a fix.

The situation was that I had a BG of knights (dark blue) that were in a column (they had turned to face a flank intercept) facing a BG of cavalry lancers (orange) who had failed to make a turn 90 and run away move. Dave contracted a BG of light horse (yellow) into a single element column ran them hard across the bacl of my column of knights and down the side such that if I charged I would not be able to feed in more bases on that side. I could not feed in more bases on the other side as there was a BG of LF javelins there.

EDIT - the image now has the two BGs of LF that were further clutering things up.

My other BG (cavalry in light blue) had broken its opponent and ended up in a situation where it could charge Dave's light horse.



If my cavalry charge there are two questions.

1) is it a flank or rear charge? Dave was trying to argue that because one base was actually facing towards me that it was not.
2) Which way do the light horse evade or can the even evade at all? Dave claimed that the column neatly turned 180 and evaded to it's rear popping through a BG of LF that were just behind them to get further from my cavalry.

Thoughts?

I used two special ploys to carry this out.

First off, there was an evade which was seemingly impossible, but actually turns out to be quite easy because your opponent hasn't thought about it enough. We refer to this as "The Porter Gambit"

Secondly, because I had loads of LF at the back, my LH moved through them all meaning it was impossible for the Cavalry to catch me. We refer to this as "The Evans Manoever"

Does a BG in a kinked column have "two fronts"?

No rules at hand, but I think there is something in there about flank charges and the BG's front being defined unless in orb.

Unless the BG has two fronts such that a flank contact is not possible (very hard to stomach), the evade question is easy - away from the direction of the charge, following a 90/180 turn. May not be possible to do in that cluster, though.

Spike

Slippery stuff! And a tough call for anyone.

1) is it a flank or rear charge? Dave was trying to argue that because one base was actually facing towards me that it was not.

Presumably Dave's LH are in a kinked column? Page 56 defines rear and flank charges and to the letter of the rules Dave may have a point. But hopefully an umpire would see this ploy for what it is and rule that it is indeed a rear charge.

2) Which way do the light horse evade or can the even evade at all? Dave claimed that the column neatly turned 180 and evaded to it's rear popping through a BG of LF that were just behind them to get further from my cavalry.

If we agree it is a rear charge then they must evade in the direction of the charge - Page 66. On that basis they are trapped.

Fortunately these kind of situations don't arise that often.

Pg 55 and continued on pg 56.

"The charging battle group starts with at least one base entirely behind a straight line extending the front edge of the enemy battle group. If the enemy battle group has some files stepped forward, its front edge is taken as the front edge of the file on the flank charged. If the enemy battle group is facing in more than one direction, it has more than one front edge for this purpose - the above requirement must be satisfied for all of them"

Wrong again Hammy

If we agree it is a rear charge then they must evade in the direction of the charge - Page 66. On that basis they are trapped.

Why are they trapped? In the game we actually treated it as a flank charge, so I turned 180 degrees and then wheeled to meet the direction of the charge. I was able to shift a base to avoid enemy and ended up directly away from the charge?

dave_r wrote:Pg 55 and continued on pg 56.

"The charging battle group starts with at least one base entirely behind a straight line extending the front edge of the enemy battle group. If the enemy battle group has some files stepped forward, its front edge is taken as the front edge of the file on the flank charged. If the enemy battle group is facing in more than one direction, it has more than one front edge for this purpose - the above requirement must be satisfied for all of them"

Wrong again Hammy

Aha Dave.... does facing in more than one direction apply to a kinked column? I suspect that 'facing in more than one direction' is specifically to cover BGs that have been hit in the flank and then chosen not to reform. If not then what is the point of orb? Can a BG of light horse form circle and be imune from flank charges? Your argument would seem to imply that they can.

I disagree Dave - sorry. You're stooping pretty low if you're trying to pull this kind of stuff.

Is that really how you want to see the game played?

Aha Dave.... does facing in more than one direction apply to a kinked column?

Why wouldn't it?

I suspect that 'facing in more than one direction' is specifically to cover BGs that have been hit in the flank and then chosen not to reform

I suspect "facing in more than one direction" is specifically to cover those bg's who are facing in different directions.

I disagree Dave - sorry. You're stooping pretty low if you're trying to pull this kind of stuff.

Is that really how you want to see the game played?

What do you disagree with? The flank charge or the evade? As I said we treated it as a flank charge anyway so that is a moot point, FWIW I do think this needs to be tightened up as it could lead to very strange situations.

As for the evade - I don't see a problem. I have done this type of evade before and had people do it against me. Just need to be careful about which BG's charge and when.

As the rules are written I think it is not a flank or rear charge as
"The charging battle group starts with no part of any of its bases directly in front of any part of any base of the target battle group". (p56) From the diagram, the cavalry are partly in front of the rearmost base of the kinked column.
On this basis the column can turn 180 degrees and evade.

I am not saying it is right (morally) - but it is how I read the rules.

This reflects a weird situation we had at Guildford where a kinked column was able to claim rear support in a situation that felt wrong. (The column was an L shape, the rear support was behind the rear element of the kinked column).

I can only believe that Dave pursued this to wind you up.

dave_r wrote:n the game we actually treated it as a flank charge, so I turned 180 degrees and then wheeled to meet the direction of the charge. I was able to shift a base to avoid enemy and ended up directly away from the charge?

To qualify as a flank or rear charge, the first part contacted must be a side or rear edge or rear corner.

kevinj wrote:I can only believe that Dave pursued this to wind you up.

I think it was more desperation. I beat him 24-1 even letting him get away with this.

To me the facing in more than one direction comment in the flank charge rules should apply only to BGs that have been flanked and not reformed. At least that makes most sense to me.

The rules do clearly define though that because the rear base has not turned and the cavalry are partly in front of that base that it is not a flank charge which is well...... odd.

Long and short of it is that kinked columns are not particualrly well covered by a lot of the rules and need to be looked at in future.

I think I can claim the moral high ground even if there may be a sleazy escape clause for Dave from his cheesy attempt to stop me expanding.

hammy wrote:

kevinj wrote:I can only believe that Dave pursued this to wind you up.

I think it was more desperation. I beat him 24-1 even letting him get away with this.

To me the facing in more than one direction comment in the flank charge rules should apply only to BGs that have been flanked and not reformed. At least that makes most sense to me.

The rules do clearly define though that because the rear base has not turned and the cavalry are partly in front of that base that it is not a flank charge which is well...... odd.

Long and short of it is that kinked columns are not particualrly well covered by a lot of the rules and need to be looked at in future.

I think I can claim the moral high ground even if there may be a sleazy escape clause for Dave from his cheesy attempt to stop me expanding.

Ah but you did win though and it was a good game to watch

The facing of a kinked column must surely be the facing of the leading element. No bases have been turned ('turned' by the definition of turning bases in the rules). If a BG has not turned any bases, I would contend it can only be facing in one direction. The word 'facing' being applied to a BG as a whole, not individual bases.

However, as already stated, the charge is from ahead of one base. It is not a flank charge.

The normal evade rules must then apply:
The evade direction to its own rear would presumably be the opposite of the direction of facing. I.e. this is defined by the facing of the lead element.
Choosing to evade away from the charge direction, the turn would be 180 and the new facing would be that of the rear element. So far Dave's reasoning looks good.
However, although the leading base might be shifting about a quarter base to pass the knights, I doubt that the other bases in the column can claim to be shifting less than a base width sideways. Shifting sideways is clearly done by individual bases. There are examples in the rules of this when a BG contracts to pass through a gap.

Dave breaks the rule on 'no base shifting more than one base sideways'. Nice try though.

The rules authors need to clarify the definition of facing for a kinked column. This has come up a number of times in the forum without ever being clearly answered. It is obviously an issue for rear support as well as for flank and rear charges. Hopefully one or more of the authors are listening.

Chris

Wow! This is an issue that I think really does need to be clarified nicely for beginners (like me ) If i am understanding this correctly then kinking like this is going to end up similar to what it was in DBM... invulnerable LH does sound catchy though

Dave breaks the rule on 'no base shifting more than one base sideways'. Nice try though.

Actually, Dave doesn't, because in a column all bases follow the lead element, therfore no base has shifted more than a base width.

Nice big win Hammy.
Come on DR.