Slitherine

We had a situation last night where a cavalry BG charged my infantry. It slid sideways to conform in the Manoeuvre phase, putting it in front of a friendly infantry unit. My infantry stood firm so the cavalry have to break off in the JAP, but cannot because of the unit behind them. Does it drop a cohesion level and not break off ?

It depends on what, if any, gap there is between your Cav BG and your infantry. If the gap is less than 1MU then the break off doesn't happen and the Cav BG drops a cohesion level (p.106-107). If 1MU or more it does the smaller break off it can manage.

Paul

Some of us have learned this the hard way. Before charging, always look to see where you will conform to. Same rule applies to feeding mounted bases into melee, been there too.

I hate that particular rule about cav dropping cohesion levels if unable to break off at least 1 MU. Even worse than your cav dropping cohesion levels is that eventually they will end up broken as each JAP they drop another level and once broken they rout through your friendly unit that stopped them from recoiling originally, causing that unit to also drop a cohesion level.

With some careful play it is sometimes possible to force the above situation on enemy lancers. If the lancers are at an angle to other troops of their army you can advance to a point where the lancers have to charge (or test not to charge) your troops. Just remember to avoid a flank change.

If you don't have the rules the cavalry vs foot interaction would have to change as the break off is key to the system. Without a penalty for not being able to break off players would have spare BGs that they would deliberately move to prevent their own break offs where break off would be dissadvantageous.

Knights or cataphracts against spears would only ever charge once because there would be a little BG of LH moved to stick them in place in the melee where they fight on evens etc.

The rule has very good consequences. It obliges players to get combat lines organised. I suspect without it we would see lots of attempts to do 'clever' manouvering. With the rules as they are, mounted charges need a clear path to charge in and break off through. It is difficult to go squeezing through gaps or setting up shock troops to charge through their friends and quite dangerous to have charges at odd angles because conforming may block a break off.

I realise that there has been further discussion on this but feel the need to throw in my penny's worth Apologies if this has already been answered ( and if it has could you point me to it?) I accept the idea that you are blocked by another of your own units and on the subject of a "clear path to charge" I am in agreement. Where I have difficulty is reconciling the straight line charge in the impact phase with the inability to break off after conforming in the melee phase. I am not sold on the idea that the Cav reform before breaking off - surely they are breaking off in order to reform before charging again?
However, to stick to the subject, conforming in the Melee phase is an artificial game mechanism designed to make it easy to see which bases are fighting against each other (if I have understood the rules correctly). In reality the Cav are not arranged in nice straight lines and the direction the base is facing is not the same as the way the troopers are facing ( assuming the straight line charge). Surely they should be able to break off provided the route along which they charged is still open. I can't see how one trooper at the corner of an enemy base can prevent the entire unit from moving.

georgekingston wrote: Where I have difficulty is reconciling the straight line charge in the impact phase with the inability to break off after conforming in the melee phase. I am not sold on the idea that the Cav reform before breaking off - surely they are breaking off in order to reform before charging again?
However, to stick to the subject, conforming in the Melee phase is an artificial game mechanism designed to make it easy to see which bases are fighting against each other (if I have understood the rules correctly). In reality the Cav are not arranged in nice straight lines and the direction the base is facing is not the same as the way the troopers are facing ( assuming the straight line charge). Surely they should be able to break off provided the route along which they charged is still open. I can't see how one trooper at the corner of an enemy base can prevent the entire unit from moving.

This is a very good point, and could if abused cause some amount of cheese by forcing line ups, although difficult to manufacture

This particular situation arose when my opponent had wheeled his phalanx ready to charge into the rear of one of my BGs engaged in melee creating a V shape. When my Cav charged they hit his front corner thus disallowing a flank charge even though,charging in a straight line, half of them would have hit him in the flank. Conforming put them neatly inside the V with no possibility of breaking off even though there was nothing blocking the logical direction for them to move back to their original starting position.

gaming cheese

Many players have questioned the need to conform - for this and other reasons which can hurt - both during and after beta testing.

We are where we are but live in hope that it might change one day.

Pete

The history of fixing this sort of thing with rule changes is that the rules get more complex and usually a new loophole gets opened.

After a couple of times, one usually learns to be careful about being able to break off and it is very much a case of 'look before you leap'.

On the plus side of this, the rules force cavalry charges to have plenty space. We do not have a problem with players trying to squeeze cavalry into small gaps at obscure angles.

petedalby wrote:Many players have questioned the need to conform - for this and other reasons which can hurt - both during and after beta testing.

We are where we are but live in hope that it might change one day.

It also may have helped ease the transition from rule sets.

my opponent had wheeled his phalanx ready to charge into the rear of one of my BGs engaged in melee creating a V shape. When my Cav charged they hit his front corner thus disallowing a flank charge even though,charging in a straight line, half of them would have hit him in the flank.

Rather than charging with your cavalry, why didn't you manouvre them into a position where they could charge the flank of the phalanx ? Then when he tried to charge the rear of your engaged BG your cavalry would intercept and it would be a valid flank charge.

However, to stick to the subject, conforming in the Melee phase is an artificial game mechanism designed to make it easy to see which bases are fighting against each other (if I have understood the rules correctly). In reality the Cav are not arranged in nice straight lines and the direction the base is facing is not the same as the way the troopers are facing ( assuming the straight line charge). Surely they should be able to break off provided the route along which they charged is still open. I can't see how one trooper at the corner of an enemy base can prevent the entire unit from moving.

All true but also in reality bases do not exist and real troopsa re not bound by the tidy 40mm edges we like to use.

The confiorming rules are there to tidy the battlefield at the first reasoanble opportunity. They do introduce some gamey things, but then the minute you write a rule rather than a reality you have this to some degree. Its all a question of balance IMHO.

As for the above I am fine with it in that:

• Ideally mounted want lots of space to charge and rechanrge without interference from any friends or enemy
  You know the rule, so can avoid the situation most of the time with non-shock cv.
  If you are shock troops then the idea is anyway to be up against something where you ride them down first time and don't break off anyway - so if you are lancers why are the enemy not DISRed by now!
  If a <40mm conform gets you into trouble then in real reality you would have some troops exposed anyway as they are not really where the bases are - that's just an abstract centre of gravity after they are let loose.

The current rules therefore reward:

• Getting mounted into charges where they have clean run, break off and have another go if need be
  Getting shock troops in front of things they are going to ride them down

Seems about right to me if one stands back from the detail.

Si

Si