Slitherine

In dementia land a unit of knights is facing a wall of spears, right behind the knights are a unit of enemy elephants also,

Do the knights have to test not to charge, or don't have to as they could end their move in contact with elephants?

They do not. You do not test if... applies because of elephants I believe it says clearly.

assuming that the elephants could intercept the knights no the knights don't have to test.

Hi Graham as per our chat at weekend p63 bullet 5 if their move could end in contact with elephants,
this implies to me it is the move of the knights that must contact as it says (their move) must end in contact,
so elephants on a flank or rear intercept are rested as any other troop type to me. As it may have said any movement that ends in contact with elephants stops a charge without orders ? Have look and see what you think cheers Dino.

Hi Dino - I wasn't privy to your chat with Graham and this is an area of the rules where I struggled too. But think about it this way....

The Knights have enemy elephants to their rear and other enemy to their front. If they do charge, they might be intercepted by the enemy elephants. Therefore their move could end in contact with elephants. Therefore they do not have to test not to charge.

I think it could have been worded more clearly but I'm fairly sure that most people interpret it and play it this way, at least in my experience.

Hope that helps.

petedalby wrote:Therefore their move could end in contact with elephants. Therefore they do not have to test not to charge.

Yeah, it's a bit of a slippery slope actually.

For example, what if way way way down the right hand flank a BG of elephants is on the flank of one of your BG's. You have a massive long line of 10 BG's. On the other flank is your knights.

"they don't have to test, because IF I charge with the unit way way way over there I could get intercept charged and the elephants could break the BG on contact and continue down the line destroying all in their path and thus I could get contacted by elephants."

I'm deliberately being over-the-top, but my point being where DO you draw the line?

As you say, it could have been a little clearer.

I draw the line where a BG is in the ZOI of a BG of elephants, or will enter the ZOI. If either of these applies, the charger could end its charge in contact with them, so does not need to test.

This is the same as shock foot not having to charge if they could contact mounted. They don't, even if its an intercept.

I'm pretty sure a very similar question was asked a number of years ago.

Since you are suffering dementia perhaps it was you that asked then as well Dino

papsterdino wrote:Hi Graham as per our chat at weekend p63 bullet 5 if their move could end in contact with elephants,
this implies to me it is the move of the knights that must contact as it says (their move) must end in contact,
so elephants on a flank or rear intercept are rested as any other troop type to me. As it may have said any movement that ends in contact with elephants stops a charge without orders ? Have look and see what you think cheers Dino.

The difficulty for me is it isn't clear what is meant by "their move". Could mean "their declared charge movement", in which case I'd agree with you. But equally it could mean "their impact phase" - so in the sense of "their turn". Or it could mean "any bases that move" - well if you are flank/rear intercepted by elephants at least one base will move.

Given the blurriness, I think go with the straightforward solution of they don't have to test.