Slitherine

We had a couple of incidents last night where interception charges generated some odd situations.

In the first an intercepting BG of foot managed to partly interpose itself between a mounted charge and another BG of weaker foot despite the mounted having to move less distance than the foot to get to where they wanted to go. Essentially the mounted declared charged then the foot somehow sprinted to their interception possition.

We also had one where a BG of knights was charged in the rear by a cavalry BG that was just under 4 mu from the rear of the knights. The knights were charging away from the intercepting BG but as the interception cancels their charge the knights just stood and took it.

I accept that the interception rules are trying to be nice and clean but everything else in FoG is easy to justify, this was much harder to explain as it doesn't really make sense to me.

Thoughts.

Hammy

You're assuming that everything occurs at the same time. With alternate moves you have to assume some ovelap of movement. The intercept rules take advantage of this.

Basically in the first instance the infantry saw the threat early and started moving first - thereby getting to their intercept position before the mounted did. We restrict intercept moves to less than a full move for this reason (2MUs and 4MUs)

In the second situation the cavalry are assumed to have charged before the knights really get moving. Seeing this, the knights turn around (disordered) and fight the cavalry instead.

In most cases these moves would have happened in the following turn anyway - had the target not charged. We're just bringing the moves forward by about half a turn.

Let's remember that alternate bounds is an ivenstion of wargamers, not real. So in reality the knights in the rear may well panic at the idea of charging with enemy so close to their rear and the rules are forcing you not to charge really. If the knights hadn't charged then they wouldn't have got clobbered - persumably the player didn't notice they were within intercept range.

The foot one - if they were in 2MU then they are only 100-150 yds away or so. Even I can cover that in 25 seconds if necessary! So getting involved wouldn't be too hard - true it might be as well as the other foot rather than shileding them but it doesn't feel a big issue overall.

Si

terrys wrote:You're assuming that everything occurs at the same time. With alternate moves you have to assume some ovelap of movement. The intercept rules take advantage of this.

Basically in the first instance the infantry saw the threat early and started moving first - thereby getting to their intercept position before the mounted did. We restrict intercept moves to less than a full move for this reason (2MUs and 4MUs)

In the second situation the cavalry are assumed to have charged before the knights really get moving. Seeing this, the knights turn around (disordered) and fight the cavalry instead.

In most cases these moves would have happened in the following turn anyway - had the target not charged. We're just bringing the moves forward by about half a turn.

I can cope with this but in the knight example had the knights charged they would have been out fo the charge reach of the cavalry so the cavalry were getting a jump on the knights.

It is just that while most things in FoG make lots of sense, this one needs a bit of Zen thinking to accept it.

Hammy

You should just consider that the knight on the ground (without your all-encompassing view point), decided that if the cavalry advanced, they'd be better off turning to face (even disordered), rather than charging the foot.

This isn't necessarily the worst option. If for example, you'd charged the foot, who managed to remain steady, you'd have had to break off, and would still be charged in the rear with the mounted, and could well have been disordered before the charge.

This post just reminded me of something from my first game with Medieval French. I deployed a BG of Knights on each flank of a MF Xbow unit to protect it from enemy knights. However, in order to intercept a potential enemy charge I had to angle both units towards the crossbowmen to make sure enemy chargers would enter the interception zone of my knights.

I assume there is a good reason for this but it did look a little silly. Any reason why we can't extend the interception zone by one element's width to either side of a unit then we can have nice solid, straight lines?

Julian

If the knights hadn't charged then they wouldn't have got clobbered - persumably the player didn't notice they were within intercept range.

I did notice. Tragically, I failed my CMT Not to charge. The rest as they say is history...

I personally didn't have a problem with this. Historically speaking when units got surrounded they got clobbered, they didn't really know what to do, usually dithered and then got butchered.