Slitherine

We had a situation in our game last night where it appeared that neither side could conform in their own manoeuvre phase. This meant I could not feed bases into the melee that I would have been able to had they conformed, and I lost a BG as a result.

Here is the situation :



My two Assyrian BGs (A and B) have charged. BG A has conformed, but BG B cannot because it is in contact with two opposing BGs. When it gets to my opponents turn, he also cannot conform because BG Y cannot slide into full frontal contact.

My BG B fights (and would, if it could, conform to frontal contact with) the right file of enemy BG X and the left file of enemy BG Y, so the other two enemy files can both count as overlaps against it. If it could conform with the right file of enemy BG X, then I could expand a file from BG A into contact with the middle file of BG X. However, I am not able to do this because BG B does not conform so there is not room.
Is there nothing we should have done to enable the BGs to conform ?

Both my BGs were fighting at ++, but because BG B was double overlapped I lost it. (yes I know I could have expanded BG B to the right, but I lost a front rank base at impact, and enemy BG Y has more bases out of the picture, so expansion would have made things worse).

If you can't conform you dont'. Quite simple - in this case, as you correctly say, you can't conform. Therefore you don't.

It is very unfortunate, we obviously need another 10 or 20 pages of rules.

No, it wouldn't need that. Some sort of allowance for a simultaneous conform would do it.

Polkovnik wrote:No, it wouldn't need that. Some sort of allowance for a simultaneous conform would do it.

Why? Would it gain anything apart from loads of complexity? In real situations with angles and offsets it would be a nightmare.

20 pages might be a conservative estimate.

Do all bases have to line up full front edge to front edge? Shifting B sideways to the right, then Y conforming to the left in its turn seems eminently sensible, rather than being anal about it.

I would have expanded to the right so that I could at least get more dice even if I was double overlapped. 6 to 10 is better odds than 4 to 8, especially if you are at ++. Average hits is 4 to 3.333 vs 2.667 to 2.667

You can still expand even if you haven't conformed

All that is needed here is to be aware of the rules and play accordingly. If your BG's had been a base width apart when charging, rather than slightly less, there would not have been a problem. Alternatively, an angled charge to increase the gap would have worked.

I would not advocate adding rules to protect players from themselves.

dave_r wrote:You can still expand even if you haven't conformed

Only if there is room to do so

Roger wrote:All that is needed here is to be aware of the rules and play accordingly. If your BG's had been a base width apart when charging, rather than slightly less, there would not have been a problem. Alternatively, an angled charge to increase the gap would have worked.

But the charge could not have wheeled as less bases would have ended up in contact. IMO it is a flaw in the rules, an extra line could be added allowing both BG to be moved simultaneously in the JAP to conform.

But too late for V2 now I'm afraid.

I believe the wheeling rule is 'fewer bases fighting at impact'. If 'B' wheels right in its charge to put 1 base corner against each opposing BG, leaving a sufficient gap for A to expand that should be OK.

rogerg wrote:I believe the wheeling rule is 'fewer bases fighting at impact'. If 'B' wheels right in its charge to put 1 base corner against each opposing BG, leaving a sufficient gap for A to expand that should be OK.

Nope, it states "less bases eligible to fight". This is defined as bases in front edge contact with enemy.

So in this case charging straight forward would end up with five bases eligible to fight.

I concede, 'eligible' does not mean that they will eventually fight. Solution one then, don't leave gaps between your BG's.

rogerg wrote:I concede, 'eligible' does not mean that they will eventually fight. Solution one then, don't leave gaps between your BG's.

What? And have lines of troops marching towards each other? Thats not historical surely...

Remember, we dont want dbm as barker intended

Just for you then Dave: "Don't leave gaps of less than a base width if you want to feed into the spaces later."

rogerg wrote:All that is needed here is to be aware of the rules and play accordingly. If your BG's had been a base width apart when charging, rather than slightly less, there would not have been a problem. Alternatively, an angled charge to increase the gap would have worked.

I would not advocate adding rules to protect players from themselves.

BG B was pursuing a broken BG when it contacted the two enemy BGs. So I didn't have any choice about where it ended up.

gozerius wrote:I would have expanded to the right so that I could at least get more dice even if I was double overlapped. 6 to 10 is better odds than 4 to 8, especially if you are at ++. Average hits is 4 to 3.333 vs 2.667 to 2.667

I lost a base at impact. So expanding would have gone from 2 vs 4 at ++ to 2 vs 2 at ++ and 1 vs 4 at +. I was definitely better off not expanding.

rogerg wrote:Solution one then, don't leave gaps between your BG's.

Yes, but the gap between my opponents BGs helped him in this situation, as it meant we could not conform and therefore I couldn't feed more bases in.

philqw78 wrote: IMO it is a flaw in the rules, an extra line could be added allowing both BG to be moved simultaneously in the JAP to conform.

Make your mind up !

A moment ago is was 10 to 20 pages, now it's a single line !

The explanation of the line in the confoprming appendix would take up the space.