Units driven by back by other unit that is driven back in close combat.....

[Claus]

Hello gentlemen.

Following nice question (no rule question but just to get your opinion)

A brigade in the wood is charged. The charged unit is in line formation meaning the attacker can only charge the first unit and the remaining three units are in column formation.

This would look like this

C = charger

A = charged unit in line formation
D,E, F = units in column Formation


CCC
AAA
DEF
DEF
DEF

A loses the combat and is driven back by 1 cm forcing also units D,E and F to give way.

Are now units D, E and F still defended when Unit A is pursuing and leaping around and make incidential contact to either unit D or F.

O.K. .... from rules perspective I say clearly....YES, they are defended as new contact with unit that were not charged before.......but from logic point of view it sounds stupid as this units had to leave their defended position as they were giving way for driven back unit.

What´s your opinion on this topic ?

Cheers
Claus

[Guthwine]

I would say they are still defended as they are not engaged in the first round of combat.

[jchaos79]

I would say yes, because I can imagine the units D, E and F are giving away in regular formation  until they began a new combat. Is not the same for unit A because they are retreating pushed by melee, fighting in a disoreded way.

just an opinion

[spiritusXmachina]

I would also say the second row is defended. Point is they had no contact before so would have time to hide behind trees and so on until the enemy comes. While row A flees out of enemy contact.

And it won't make too much difference anyway as C will probably concentrate its attacks on A anyway. At least I would.