Blocked Pursuits

[Guthwine]

Last game we had an interesting formation, where we were not sure how to play.

Grey and green are friendly unit and red charges green on initiative. Red kills a stand and wins the combat by 4 and green retreats. The problem now is that red cant get into basecontact with the flank because of the grey units. The queston is, is red able to pursue green in some other way or is that combat phase over because it cant reach.

[Lex]

Played to the Rule as far as I am concerned !

[jchaos79]

what I would do in these situation is:

Red unit could pursuit but found enemies on the way of pursuit, so red had to stop in contact with grey and start another combat. It is a little awkward, but red has won so they sould have the chance of advance into combat.

[Bel]

this is not legal

Where a unit cannot re-establish <edge> contact with a retreating enemy unit it cannot pursue.
A unit that cannot pursue an enemy because it cannot re-establish contact is not allowed to advance instead. A unit can only advance
if all the enemy units it is fighting are destroyed.

[jchaos79]

Yes, absolutly

I have re-read the rules last week, but it seems I have paid not enough attention, sorry for the confusion.

I should do again my homework

[spiritusXmachina]

Rulebook says: "Occasionally, you will find that no stands can pursue by moving directly forward. When this happens take the stand that is closest to the retreating unit and move it against the closest accessible edge of the closest enemy stand..."

So, if terrain is open all around, would'nt it be possible for red to curve around the grey unit below and come into contact with green again?

[Getlord]

Of course. The only situation when reds are not able to pursue greens would be if no green edge is accesible (surrounded by friends, enemies, terrain) or there is no way to get to them "around" grey units.

In the picture attached there are few perfect (but not intuitive) ways to pursue "around" grey units. Not nice but this is 100% what rules are saying and with Slayers/Flagellants-like units you cannot even choose to play differently.

[Lex]

Rulebook says: "Occasionally, you will find that no stands can pursue by moving directly forward. When this happens take the stand that is closest to the retreating unit and move it against the closest accessible edge of the closest enemy stand..."

So, if terrain is open all around, would'nt it be possible for red to curve around the grey unit below and come into contact with green again?

You would still need to make the shortest possible distance move, which you can not legaly make, which means that you can not pursue, there is "no going around obstructions to get in the rear"..   

[spiritusXmachina]

Well, but is'nt the "south route" the shortest possible way as the straight forward move is not possible?

[Getlord]

Exactly. This is my opinion as well Lex. This is just the shortest way which is actually very long 

[Lex]

Exactly. This is my opinion as well Lex. This is just the shortest way which is actually very long 

LOL....  OK, I know this was discussed with Rick when we did the review and rewrote the pursuit stuff. The way the rule should work   

When a unit retreats it will move away from the enemy, in a semi orderly fashion, so you should envision it as a fighting withdrawal. The "more" distance it retreats, the less organized the withdrawing would be, which is represented by giving the pursuing troops "additional" attacks (free hacks). In effect there would be continous contact between the fighting units during that move, which is represented in the rules-mechanism by the obligation of those stands in frontal contact to "remain" in frontal contact. There is one restriction: that move back into frontal contact should not hampered by terrain or other units. Terrrain is hopefully self-explaining, and noticing other enemy units nearby would make your guys cautious to blindly follow-up the retreaing enemy.

The next part of the mechanics is in place to represent the "natural" urge of back-rankers to get into the fighting too. They would step up to replace casualties in the front rank, and start "lapping around" the retreating unit. In the rules this is represented by allowing stands that did NOT move direct forward back into contact, to move the SHORTEST DISTANCE POSSIBLE into some kind of frontal contact with enemy other then coner-2-corner. Note that they are STILL obliged to be in UNIT COHESION, and that there is no obligation to maximise their frontage. Also note that there is no "moving stands all the way around an enemy unit to get back into contact with retreating enemy!  If the SHORTEST DISTANCE POSSIBLE is blocked for whatever reason, and you can make C2C, then you can, otherwise that stand stays in support.