Slitherine

last nyt we had a divergent point of view on: which file to feed more base in a melee. the situation i was active and my BG is noted A, opponent was B

..........BBBB
..........BBBB
.....AAAA
.......AAA

we fought at impact 1 base again 1 base, when adding more bases time came up, i wanted to add the second file starting to my left to the melee and my opponent argued i had to take the first file. Which add consequences as my first file had one base and my second had 2. Who was right?
please help us reconciliate
Domblas

You were, but can't prove it as no rules here

rules says something like: to take bases at one end and add it at the opposite end

They don't say that, this much I can remember.

You can take bases from anywhere, providing bases are not adding dice or POA. (particularly important for knights who would be stuck in the rear rank, other BG who are 3 (pike 5) deep, and pike who can expand from 4 ranks deep once they are frqagmented)

As well as this you can only expand by one file.

The exact wording I do not remember.

philqw78 wrote:They don't say that, this much I can remember.

You can take bases from anywhere, providing bases are not adding dice or POA. (particularly important for knights who would be stuck in the rear rank, other BG who are 3 (pike 5) deep, and pike who can expand from 4 ranks deep once they are frqagmented)

As well as this you can only expand by one file.

The exact wording I do not remember.

I believe you also may not contract by more than one file but that shouldn't preclude using a rear rank base from the file.

Chris

The detail is on page 79.

There are 3 bullet points that list the specific criteria that must be met to allow bases to be moved. In my opinion the OP file meets those criteria and you can move both bases - 1 file.

Your opponent's interpretation stems from the last bullet on the LHS of page 79 - "Troops can thus be moved out from rear ranks that are not fighting, or from an unengaged end of a line to the other end. This represents a gradual spreading of the melee."

But I believe this to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. As usual others will disagree.

There is no requirement to have the troops fed into melee to come from the same file so it seems clear that two stands can be moved at any rate as long as the frontage of the BG is not reduced by more than one file.

Chris