Slitherine

Blue and red are on opposing sides. Blue is about to start pursuing routers. Red was in overlap against blue in the melee. The front rank of blue is entirely behind red’s front edge. Blue’s pursuit hits the front corner of red’s kinked base. According to the rules as written, is this a flank charge?


SEcond question: IF the pursuit is in blues turn, so the impact is fought in red's turn, in red's manouvre phase who conforms and where?
IF it is a flank charge would red be placed in front of blue, flank on?

Seems like an unlikely position to actually occur but I would rule it as a flank charge if it did occur in a game. As a comment on the diagram, I think that to be properly kinked the right front corner of the last base in the red BG should be in contact with the right rear corner of the base in front of it, so blue pursuing would contact the flank of the rear base rather than its front corner.

Chris

THis shows how the column is formed with the corner sticking out.

It occurred in a game. The column (of knights) was squeezing between the rear of the BG in melee (that later routed) and a wood.

Lawrence, may I say what a pleasure it is to see you go to such trouble to produce nice diagrams when raising rule questions. I, for one, really appreciate it as it makes it so much easier to understand (and comment on) your posts.

While this does seem to be an unusual situation clearly it actually happened. I'm not going to agree with Chris - I'm going to say that because the first point of contact is the front corner of a base it follows the normal rules for such a contact. i.e. it is not a flank charge but a frontal charge.

And in a departure from recent posts I agree with Steve - the first point of contact is the front edge of a base and therefore not a flank charge.

Page 77 covers conforming. The active player must conform if he can. So if it is now Red's turn, I believe they would conform to Blue following the description on page 77.

I think that Steve and Pete are technically correct, but I totally disagree with their outcome!

The very nice diagrams show how a column could end up kinked with extra front corners being exposed and this would be a logical depiction, but it creates an amomaly because, in the second and fourth cases above (and in the original example) first contact at the point of kink is with the frnt corner whereas in the third example it would be with the flank edge. As Chris has pointed out, this is the more normal depiction of a kinked column and provides a better representation of what is simluated, a continlual flow of troops, rather than the other cases where an artificial gap has been introduced. Obviously, this is a consequence of using rigid bases to depict what is in reality a more fluid situation, in effect that little triangle at the join would contain troops and is in essence a continuation of the flank of the kinking base.

My problem is that not counting the impact in this case as a flank charge allows for the deliberate manipulation of this anomaly to prevent what would otherwise be a legitimate flank charge, which opens the door to the kind of cheesy moves that we (mostly) all hate.

I think you may need to look again Kevin - all examples seem to be corner to corner contact to me.

Since it's a very rare circumstance, I'd be happy to go with RAW here myself and from the comment so far looks like that is that it's a frontal charge. In red's movement phase, red will conform to the front of blue.

I think you may need to look again Kevin - all examples seem to be corner to corner contact to me.

Since it's a very rare circumstance, I'd be happy to go with RAW here myself and from the comment so far looks like that is that it's a frontal charge. In red's movement phase, red will conform to the front of blue.

I can see what it looks like but I maintain that it's wrong to use an anomaly caused by the physical positioning of the bases in order to achieve an illogical outcome. A line tracing the flank of the kinked column would be a continuous curve and would not have the gaps and subsequent exposed front corners that cannot be avoided with the use of fixed bases. It may currently be a rare situation, but I can see it as one that could be exploited in a cheesy fashion and I think we should avoid that.

kevinj wrote:My problem is that not counting the impact in this case as a flank charge allows for the deliberate manipulation of this anomaly to prevent what would otherwise be a legitimate flank charge, which opens the door to the kind of cheesy moves that we (mostly) all hate.

Well I'm not convinced it would be a legitimate flank charge. Imagine if the column was not kinked - I don't think blue's charge on red would be a flank charge because blue would have to wheel (albeit a gnat's todger or two) to make contact with red. Otherwise blue would simply run along the side of red and not make contact. From memory the RAW says that if the charger has to wheel while within 1 MU of the enemy flank it does not count as a flank charge. It's a charge, but not a flank charge. In the subsequent melee it would be blue that has to align with red.

Imagine if the column was not kinked

There are two possibilities here. If the column was behind the first base, I agree, there's no possibility of a flank charge without a wheel, which is then not a flank charge. But if it were a column facing in the direction of the rear base, it would be (providing the Blue BG still had a base behind the line of the flank).

Also, the example given is a pursuit in Blue's turn, so Red will align in their Manouvre phase.

There is also the issue that the BG is facing in two directions therefore it doesn't look to be a legal flank charge in any case as it hasn't satisfied the condition of having a base fully behind the flank.

For me, I think this is another of those 'once in a blue moon' cases where there's not too much to get worked up about. Just work it through with the rules as written and trying to avoid any cheese or unintended consequences.

There is also the issue that the BG is facing in two directions therefore it doesn't look to be a legal flank charge in any case as it hasn't satisfied the condition of having a base fully behind the flank.

I said that people would try exploit this to weasel out of tricky situations! Maybe now you'll believe me.

As far as I'm concerned the kinked column is a ridiculous formation in the middle of a fight and should be subject to the least favourable interpretation.

dave_r wrote:There is also the issue that the BG is facing in two directions therefore it doesn't look to be a legal flank charge in any case as it hasn't satisfied the condition of having a base fully behind the flank.

I assume you mean behind the extended front edge of the rear base in the column.

Do non-front rank bases count for this?

If so, I could march my column in a circle so its head caught up with its tail and it would be immune from flank or rear charges .
(Would only count 3 bases for 1HP2B though ).

lawrenceg wrote:

dave_r wrote:There is also the issue that the BG is facing in two directions therefore it doesn't look to be a legal flank charge in any case as it hasn't satisfied the condition of having a base fully behind the flank.

I assume you mean behind the extended front edge of the rear base in the column.

Do non-front rank bases count for this?

If so, I could march my column in a circle so its head caught up with its tail and it would be immune from flank or rear charges .
(Would only count 3 bases for 1HP2B though ).

Yes - non front rank bases do count for this.

Your column example could occur, but it is not an ideal formation and I think it would be impossible to leave. Given you can only wheel 90 degrees in a single turn, it would also take four turns to form.

Forming orb would also achieve exactly the same thing and I would suggest is a more sensible approach

Yes - non front rank bases do count for this.

Only on Planet Ruddock!

This is not a case where the BG is facing in more than one direction.

kevinj wrote:

Yes - non front rank bases do count for this.

Only on Planet Ruddock!

This is not a case where the BG is facing in more than one direction.

Why not?

petedalby wrote:For me, I think this is another of those 'once in a blue moon' cases where there's not too much to get worked up about. Just work it through with the rules as written and trying to avoid any cheese or unintended consequences.

I think this is the most sensible. However...since Ruddock is now aware.

I would also say the ruling should not reward cheese.

Furthermore consider if the column wasn't kinked, but the player claimed the column was in such a position that the point first contacted would be the front corner of the succeeding bases. I.e. That infintessimal place between bases. This is an attempt to move in that direction which is also worse.

So the ruling must be to punish cheesey attempts to manipulate the rules beyond sensibility.

Furthermore consider if the column wasn't kinked, but the player claimed the column was in such a position that the point first contacted would be the front corner of the succeeding bases. I.e. That infintessimal place between bases. This is an attempt to move in that direction which is also worse.

So the ruling must be to punish cheesey attempts to manipulate the rules beyond sensibility.

Exactly. I agree that this one is sufficiently rare that I've never seen it come up, but it makes sense to apply the basic principle of cheese avoidance.

It appears I hijacked your thread Lawrence. Unfortunately I couldn't see any of your diagrams so didn't know what you were on about.
But I reckon its a flank charge as the wheeling troops would be hit in the flank.