Slitherine

Having deployed these at the weekend we had a situation almost come up but my opponent did not press forward so we never had to resolve the query, which was:

A colunela defending FF was obliterated by artillery and Italian arquebus fire( yes, I still can't roll anything but a 1 on a death roll). Now the supporting colunela hustles up but is about 5mm short of the rear edge of the FF which are therefore undefended. If the Italian arquebusiers had subsequently moved forward would the colunela have had to move back to make room so they could cross the FF?

And secondly the FF turned 90 degrees at this point and the Italians were three bases wide but if they advanced one file would have been outside the FF(to the side) and two files inside. Is this correct or is there shifting or contraction involved?

In my opinion*, moving the Colunella back would be the easiest way to handle this. The alternative of putting the FFs behind the advancing Arquebusiers means you have to remember exactly where they were when the troops move on.

Technically, FFs have no depth so it would make sense to split the BG to accomodate an FF to the flank, but treat them as if they are in contact as usual for measuring arc, range, overlaps, etc.

Dave

* I'm not an umpire, so don't take my word as authoritative.

daveallen wrote:In my opinion*, moving the Colunella back would be the easiest way to handle this. The alternative of putting the FFs behind the advancing Arquebusiers means you have to remember exactly where they were when the troops move on.

Technically, FFs have no depth so it would make sense to split the BG to accomodate an FF to the flank, but treat them as if they are in contact as usual for measuring arc, range, overlaps, etc.

Dave

* I'm not an umpire, so don't take my word as authoritative.

As an umpire I mostly agree. The concept of moving troops to fit isn't unusual, so that would be my take. The only difference is that you don't move troops to fit terrain, but this (I think) is different, in that the fortification ONLY really counts if it's manned.

The other ruling Id make (depending on how badly it affected subsequent play) would be similar to conformance. If you can't conform you fight as if you can... therefore you could do that. Fight the battle as if you're in frontal contact and resolve it as such.