Slitherine

A regular opponent insists that line of sight to a unit you declare a charge/impact against isn't needed. I said it is...BUT...I could not find that "line of sight is needed to declare a charge" in the FoG rulebook.

More info....His reasoning was/is that since the rules do say you can wheel (once) up to 90 degrees during a charge....that means line of sight to declare a charge is not needed.

If the answers are in the rules...please give locations.

Thank you in advance from a frustrated old fart wargamer.

Page 52, "To be allowed to declare a charge, there must be a visible enemy base that can be "legally " contacted by the charging battle group within its normal move distance through the terrain to be crossed."

cheers
Jim

guess that makes for a quick answer.

He can still charge your lights with the intention of hitting whatever is behind them that they are screening even if they are not in sight at the time the charge is declared, being revealed when the lights scurry through their friends. Perhaps that is what he had in mind....

Thanks for the page#. Actually he had in mind that line of sight is NOT needed to declare a impact/charge. He said that because the rulebook says you can wheel up to 90 degrees in one wheel during a charge you don't need the target unit to be in sight before moving and or before declaring the charge.......Go figure.

Line of Sight and Visibility are different. You can be visible but not in line of sight.

Charges require visibility (easy) and the ability to contact the nominated target with a normal move. Line of sight is not helpful in deciding if you can charge since you can have a line of sight to a BG you can't charge as well as to one you can.

However, if the target is not visible (e.g., inside a gully more than 1 MU away from you and not shooting at you), you can't charge.

CrazyHarborc wrote:Thanks for the page#. Actually he had in mind that line of sight is NOT needed to declare a impact/charge. He said that because the rulebook says you can wheel up to 90 degrees in one wheel during a charge you don't need the target unit to be in sight before moving and or before declaring the charge.......Go figure.

As line of sight is in all directions, the ability to wheel is not relevant.

The target must be visible at the start of the charge, i.e. there must be line of sight to it, but the charge path does not have to go along the line of sight.

lawrenceg wrote:

CrazyHarborc wrote:Thanks for the page#. Actually he had in mind that line of sight is NOT needed to declare a impact/charge. He said that because the rulebook says you can wheel up to 90 degrees in one wheel during a charge you don't need the target unit to be in sight before moving and or before declaring the charge.......Go figure.

As line of sight is in all directions, the ability to wheel is not relevant.

The target must be visible at the start of the charge, i.e. there must be line of sight to it, but the charge path does not have to go along the line of sight.

Is there a page number for "line of sight is in all directions" I did not find that.....I must have missed it. At the same time I did not find a mention of "line of sight" other than for shooting.

I think it is a case of as there is no definition that says line of sight is limited in direction in any way then it clearly is not.

CrazyHarborc wrote:

lawrenceg wrote:

CrazyHarborc wrote:Thanks for the page#. Actually he had in mind that line of sight is NOT needed to declare a impact/charge. He said that because the rulebook says you can wheel up to 90 degrees in one wheel during a charge you don't need the target unit to be in sight before moving and or before declaring the charge.......Go figure.

As line of sight is in all directions, the ability to wheel is not relevant.

The target must be visible at the start of the charge, i.e. there must be line of sight to it, but the charge path does not have to go along the line of sight.

Is there a page number for "line of sight is in all directions" I did not find that.....I must have missed it. At the same time I did not find a mention of "line of sight" other than for shooting.

The term "line of sight" is indeed only used in connection with shooting.

As troops have necks and their feet are not set in concrete (so individual men can turn to look behind), there is no restriction on visibility being all round. Even troops in closed helms often left their visors open to see better.

I think RBS comment supporting effective 360 visibility unless thre are intervening obstacles etc is right...someone in a block of hundreds of guys is always looking the wrong way and bad news travels fast!

Martin

However, there is a nice rule detail here. If troops are out of sight and behind evaders, they are not then a target of the charge, even if in normal move distance. The chargers would presumably take a VMD because all their targets had evaded and might not actually contact the new target.

rogerg wrote:However, there is a nice rule detail here. If troops are out of sight and behind evaders, they are not then a target of the charge, even if in normal move distance. The chargers would presumably take a VMD because all their targets had evaded and might not actually contact the new target.

No - the restriction on visibility applies to only to declaring charges - therefore when the visible target evades the non-visible BG becomes a target, likewise if you step forward into the non-visible BG.

The question I have is - what happens if your path to the visible BG is blocked by the non-visible BG? Does it make a difference if the non-visible BG is an ambush revealed by this, or a previous, charge?

Care to point me to that rule? The declaration of charge and evade bits pretty much state otherwise. If the targets you could see (and hence declare a legal attack upon) evade to reveal another BG in range, that BG then becomes a target. As a result you now have a target within charge range that does not evade. Hence you do not VMD as not all your targets evaded.

Troops don't block line of sight. They may block shooting, they may screen a BG from a potential charge. But they do not hinder visibility.
What happens if I declare a charge at a "legal" target, but there is an enemy BG that is not visible in my charge path? Doesn't it become a valid target when I move within visibility range?

Yes

Pete

gozerius wrote: What happens if I declare a charge at a "legal" target, but there is an enemy BG that is not visible in my charge path? Doesn't it become a valid target when I move within visibility range?

No - it becomes a target when you declare the charge, or when intervening BGs evade/rout. There is no requirement of visibility on being a target of a charge the restriction is on the declaration, and once the charge is declared all BGs in the path are automatically targets.

My question was - what happens when a BG can't be contacted only because a non-visible BG is blocking the path?

By a literal reading of the rules the visible BG can't be charged because it can't be legally contacted, and the non-visible can't be charged as it isn't visible.

Even though the rules do not specifically cover this issue I don't think they were intended to be mutually exclusive as you have presented it. If you consider this in the same way that blocking and evading works then it is simple. You had an orginal target A which you can "legally" charge. As the charge was performed a new target B became available and should now be the focus of the charge because it can now be legally contacted. This follows the military adage "no plan survives first contact". I think that if you intepret the rules literally you are applying two different contexts to the situation. One context is from the point of view of the charging BG (which allows the charge) and the other context is a birdseye view of the entire situation (which prevents the charge). Even though we as players can see the entire battelfield the commander(s) on the ground would only be aware of the information as it presents itself. Another way to look at it is like this. Let's say you are trying to move over an obstacle and when you reached it you find that you did not have enough MU to cross. Does that require you to move all the back to your starting point? No - you stop there at the obstacle.