interception charges

[Dragondelboy]

Hiya everyone,
we had a situation to do with an interception charge. A BG of LH charged another BG of LH. The charging LH started their charge within the 4" ZOI of a BG of EL. However one of the EL bases would have had to contact a LF unit that had evaded from a charge in the previous round so were facing away from the EL. Would the interception charge be allowed to go ahead? And if it did would the LF have another evade or have to be contacted instead of or as well as? Or is there something else that we overlooked?
We continued as if they were not allowed to intercept and then the right flanked started to fold.
Chalked up as another defeat!
Thanks

Del

[philqw78]

No the intercept could not happen. Interceptors may only contact the BG intercepted and may not deviate to avoid other troops.

[johno]

That was the conclusion we reached, Phil, but we couldn't find the chapter and verse, so we all felt we were missing something.

It was clear what would happen for a friendly battle group, but not an enemy one!

Where, for example, does it explicitly say that only the interceptee can be contacted?

Does that mean a unit in position to intercept two enemy charges cannot intercept at all? That does seem a bit unreasonable!

[kevinj]

Don't forget that, unless it's a Flank Interception, you don't actually move into contact with the chargers, you move into their path. So I think you played the situation correctly.

As for intercepting more than one BG, I don't see any reason why you couldn't, provided you can make a legal intercept move into both paths.

[philqw78]

Unfortunately I can't bring the rules to work. But as Kev states above the important bit is that enemy are not contacted in an intercept charge. The interceptors move into the path of the charge. (So in your case if they could have got into the path without touching the other BG the intercept would have been legal.) The original charger then moves into contact with them, stepping forwards as necessary.

If you can get into the path of 2 or more charges it is OK.

It is explained more in depth in the FAQ IIRC.

And flank/rear intercepts are a bit different in that they do contact and even step forwards, but must contact the charger first.

As an aside light troops always get the chance to evade contact unless they have already evaded during that phase of the turn.

So a BG could evade in impact phase; then manouver phase (if a BG is in side edge and turns onto it); then melee phase (an enemy pursues into it); then JAP (pursued into again). Lights obvioulsy do a lot of endurance training.

[bbotus]

Unfortunately I can't bring the rules to work.

It is explained on pages 62 -64 "INTERCEPTION CHARGES" but there were enough misunderstandings that they published FAQ 4i and FAQ 4iv. FAQ 4iv states that interceptors do not make contact if intercepting from the front. However, per the RAW, they do make contact if intercepting the rear/flank of the charger as it then becomes a charge. The interceptors would then step forward as appropriate. However, as stated in the quote from thread 10099 (see below), it only steps forward into the BG it intercepted, not into any other BG.

As an aside light troops always get the chance to evade contact unless they have already evaded during that phase of the turn.

Not sure where you got this from. FAQ 4iv states that charging skirmishers may neither evade nor halt 1 MU away from interceptors.

A good thread on interceptions is:
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=10099
It is quite lengthy but the authors comments are good and show their intent in writing the rules. One quote from the thread is:

Postby shall » 01 May 2009 22:34
Terry and I are of like mind. If we back to the intent we intended that an intercepting BG would step forward ONLY into its target. This essentially makes it the same for both type of intercept as in the blocking one the other side steps forward. Both times the principle is to get maximum dice into the IMPACT.

We are likely to officially state that the step forward cannot contact a different BG. So there are 2 possibles:

1) blocking interception. Move up to limit. Don't touch any enemy BG at all. Charger moves and steps forward to ma dice at impact.
2) flank interception. Cancells enemy cahrge. Cannot hit any other BG. Stesp forward into target BG to max dice at impact.

Any major issues with this? Another example of where we should have simplified to treated as a charge. What we really mean is: 1) target drops to DISR if if would do so by a flank charge, 2) fight on ++ as per flank charge.

Si

[philqw78]

As an aside light troops always get the chance to evade contact unless they have already evaded during that phase of the turn.

Not sure where you got this from. FAQ 4iv states that charging skirmishers may neither evade nor halt 1 MU away from interceptors.

In that case the skirmishers are making the contact, as interceptors must stop short which you have fully explained, not being contacted. And as I said flank/rear intercept is different.

[bbotus]

As an aside light troops always get the chance to evade contact unless they have already evaded during that phase of the turn.

Not sure where you got this from. FAQ 4iv states that charging skirmishers may neither evade nor halt 1 MU away from interceptors.

In that case the skirmishers are making the contact, as interceptors must stop short which you have fully explained, not being contacted. And as I said flank/rear intercept is different.

Fair enough. How about the other situation where the skirmishers are fighting as an overlap and the enemy BG expands to their side locking them in combat without an evade?

[philqw78]

The skirmishers had already moved themselves into contact with the BG that expanded. They are in corner to corner contact with and fighting the BG that expands.