Slitherine

Can a battlegroup move into frontal contact with enemy in the movement phase if they are moving beside a friendly BG already in combat?

Looking at the overlap definitions it looks like you just need to be side to side and corner to corner contact with friends in frontal combat. Nothing about whether you are frontally contacting anyone yourself.

No rulebook with me so am quoting from memory but I was looking for this when thinking about how to use armoured SW Cav with some with and some withoug lancer POAs.

If the above is fine you could have them side by side, charge with the lancers when the POA lance matters and the overlaps dont then move in alongside with the nonlancer cav in the movement phase.

I'd see this as fairly intuitive in that the lancers woudl be champing at the bit to get in a nice charge whereas the non lancers might hang back and only join into an existing fracas after the impact outcome is known.

I believe the answer is no, but as I am sans rule book like you ...

You can't join an existing combat during the movement phase except as an overlap.
Frontal contact is a charge.

If you want to hang back to see what happens with the lancers, then you'll have to wait until your next move.
Of course if you don't join in the charge they may not survive until their next move.

It does make for extremely careful timing when using both lance-armed and bow-armed cavalry together.

IIRC there is an erratum for the relevant paragraph in the rules that clarifies you can move into melee if only as an overlap.

There may be a slight weakness with this mechanism.

My LF BG is in combat with an enemy LF BG. My opponent brings up a LH BG as an overlap in the movement phase.

In my turn I wish to reinforce the melee but the only way I can do so is to charge the enemey LH. The LH evade - I charge after them - and I still haven't reinforced the melee.

I tried decalring on both the LH and the LF, but the LF are not a legal target as they are in 2 ranks and in melee to their front - mine is not a legal flank charge.

What I wanted to do was to stop at corner to corner contact with the LF (after the LH had evaded) but I didn't appear to be allowed to?

Or did we get it wrong?

Cheers

Pete

petedalby wrote:There may be a slight weakness with this mechanism.

My LF BG is in combat with an enemy LF BG. My opponent brings up a LH BG as an overlap in the movement phase.

In my turn I wish to reinforce the melee but the only way I can do so is to charge the enemey LH. The LH evade - I charge after them - and I still haven't reinforced the melee.

I tried decalring on both the LH and the LF, but the LF are not a legal target as they are in 2 ranks and in melee to their front - mine is not a legal flank charge.

What I wanted to do was to stop at corner to corner contact with the LF (after the LH had evaded) but I didn't appear to be allowed to?

Or did we get it wrong?


Cheers

Pete

No Pete i don`t think you got it wrong and i think realistically you should be able to stop as an overlap if that's the intention (possibly not with shock troops).
But hey these are suppose to be a fast style play and if they start putting every little detail in you start going down the path of WRG 6th or Newbury rules again!

Andy.

petedalby wrote:There may be a slight weakness with this mechanism.

I tried decalring on both the LH and the LF, but the LF are not a legal target as they are in 2 ranks and in melee to their front - mine is not a legal flank charge.

Pete

? I think I must be missing something - otherwise, of course you can charge as long as your BG has the range and the ability to contact the LF - even if only at an angle.

You don't have to have a Flank Charge to go in. If your BG did not have a legal "Flank" charge, they can still go in, the resulting impact would then be considered a frontal charge - even if it is impacting the side of the enemy at an angle. Your opponents BG would have the option of turning to face you (depending on how/where you actually impacted), but would not have to. If your opponent did not turn a base to face, you would hit with no response, but you would not get a double poa for flank, or force your opponent down a cohesion level.

Now melee gets interesting...

Bill

BillMc wrote:

petedalby wrote:There may be a slight weakness with this mechanism.

I tried decalring on both the LH and the LF, but the LF are not a legal target as they are in 2 ranks and in melee to their front - mine is not a legal flank charge.

Pete

? I think I must be missing something - otherwise, of course you can charge as long as your BG has the range and the ability to contact the LF.

Bill

You can't declare a charge on bases that are already in combat unless it is a legitimate flank charge. Bases in the first and second rank of the LF BG are already in combat so cannot be charged. If however you charge the light horse in such a way that the path of your charge moves you along the edge of the light foot BG there would have been a good chance that you would have ended in an overlap.

If however you charge the light horse in such a way that the path of your charge moves you along the edge of the light foot BG there would have been a good chance that you would have ended in an overlap.

Unfortunately my VMD was high!! So no overlap - and no way of getting into the action even in my following turn. Stopping on corner to corner contact would have done the trick - but accept the point that Andy made.

In future I will ensure that my BG's normal move will take it into corner contact - assuming I can throw the right VMD of course!

Live and learn,

Pete

petedalby wrote:

If however you charge the light horse in such a way that the path of your charge moves you along the edge of the light foot BG there would have been a good chance that you would have ended in an overlap.

Unfortunately my VMD was high!! So no overlap - and no way of getting into the action even in my following turn. Stopping on corner to corner contact would have done the trick - but accept the point that Andy made.

In future I will ensure that my BG's normal move will take it into corner contact - assuming I can throw the right VMD of course!

Live and learn,

Pete

In which case you could argue that the light horse managed to distract your new troops sufficiently to stop them helping in the ongoing melee...

I can see situations where allowing a charge to stop short if it ends in contact would be exploited in unintentional ways.