Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

That is a different situation.

Moving charge targets (evaders/counterchargers) force some essentially dynamic situations - basically creating an isolated set of charge reach/path determination and responses after the main target-is-not-moving situations.

If you say you are charging and the close enemy countercharges, then you don't know if you can echelon after contact until you know where contact is, so, you'd figure out where contact would be and then have the option to echelon, which might create the same situation again with the further guy.

[Ambrose Coddington]

Assume three units:
Player A:
3 wide x 2 deep loose foot block
Player B:
2 x 2 close block
2 x 2 close block

One close unit is steady, and the other close unit is shaken and 5 paces behind and to the flank of the steady unit. The loose foot unit declares that it is charging and echeloning to contact both close units at the charge declaration the shaken unit would test?
This seems to fulfill the stationary target rules.

However if the steady close unit decides to countercharge and the resulting distances put the shaken unit 58 paces away from contact, at this point the loose foot unit would then get to choose again weather it was going to echelon and the close shaken unit would still have to test due to it being in the original charge reach/path?

[joncleaves]

The actual echeloning takes place during a charge (or follow up) MOVE. Although it is convenient with stationary targets to just say what's happening with an echelon or non-echelon prior to the waver/response of the target(s), you really can't do that for a dynamic situation with moving targets or co-chargers. Those situations have to be played out to see what happens - if charges are cancelled, made illegal, cause wavers, permit responses, etc. Can 6.16 describe in advance every possible combination? No. Neither can I. Am I going to answer a question about every conceivable situation - yes, but only sort of.
Which is to say - with moving targets, play the whole situation out to see what happens. If things need to happen after determining how the actual charge moves and responses played out, then do so. Use 6.16 as your guide.

[Ambrose Coddington]

Thanks Jon,

I think I deeply misunderstood how to execute charges. I made the assumption that reactions to charges could occur before the actual charge move was made. It appears that that is really done for convenience purposes and to make moves against evaders and routing units clearer.

If I understand you correctly we are to make a charge declaration. Execute responses and view the situation that that arises after initial moves are made (Not necessary if the only target is an evader/router)
Once contact is made a reassessment of the situation is made and the choice is made to echelon or not, potentially resulting in a new set of charge responses.

[joncleaves]

Charges use the sequence in 6.16. If the target(s) are all stationary and no enemy chargers are directly involved just apply that order directly. If things are moving on both sides in an area, "play it out" and determine what happens then.

Way simpler than you and Tim seem to want to make it.

And you are not going to get a comprehensive rule or ruling that describes every possible combination becuase they are infinite.

[browntj007]

[joncleaves]

Nope.

You guys gave me two different situations - two out of an infinite set.

But to stick to the basic two, in one you had the close enemy choosing to stand. In the other, the far guy stood and the close guy countercharged.

In option 1, the charger would make contact with the close guy first, so the charger would then say - hey i am going to echelon. Then the far guy is now in charge reach and has to decide its response.

What you quote me as saying in the first quote in your post is:

You can't make the far guy respond by *theoretically* choosing to echelon and then decide not to after all. You either choose it or you don't. When you choose it is contact - sometimes where that contact will occur is obvious, sometimes you have to move some stuff first. If the close guy is stationary, then it is obvious - a different case than if he is moving (charging, countercharging, evading or routing).

What you CAN'T do - and what that first quote is talking about - is telling him you are going to echelon, having him choose to stand as a response and then not echelon after all.

The second quote is about a different situation entirely and about a different aspect of the rule. No contradiction.

[browntj007]

OK...I'm clear on part of this, at any rate. I appreciate that you haven't just told me to go play another game at this point

Let's see if this makes sense...please confirm, Jon...

2 situations: 1 charger in range to charge two possible targets

2 targets, one far , one near. If near target stands, then the decision to echelon is made on contact whether to go on and charge as well the far target. Far target at that point has to make a response and the decision to echelon cannot be taken back.

2 targets, one far, one near. If near target countercharges, then the decision to echelon is determined once the physical location of the near target and charger is established. At that point the charger can state that he is going to echelon to the far target. The far target then has a response. Once the decision to echelon to the far target is made, it cannot be taken back.

[joncleaves]

All good.

[scott holder]

[Ambrose Coddington]

Hey!
Tim is old enough to be my DAD!


Sibling indeed.


Kidding aside. We have definitely turned a new leaf. Primarily with your mental stability in mind.

[browntj007]

Hmm...then driving Jon crazy ahead of time before a tournament is actually doing you a favor, Scott? You can thank me later in person.

Brother Ambrose is not my sibling - think of him as my Padawan. And remember - the Young do not always do as they are told.

Thanks again Jon - I'll go bother someone else for a while. You can certainly count me in on the early armies list rule playtest if you'd like - I run Assyrians and Babylonians semi regularly - be glad to help.

Tim Brown

[Mark Stone]

[browntj007]

Just putting my two cents in ( again), but I thought it had been established that:

Unless a target is actually charged via echelon, then no response is needed for the far target regardless of how the near target responds.

I think Jon earlier said: :Charge reach extends to contact" ( ??) meaning that near target...

I could thus see this situation:

A mounted unit charges a LMI in the open, which forces a test, then decides to echelon at contact to another LMI, forcing another test. If no echelon, then no second test for the far unit.

[joncleaves]

Mark, those are not correct.

But you are so often correct and are so careful in your posts that I suspected when I read this last that maybe I screwed up somewhere. I went back and read through this thread and the related recent one on impetuous charges and I think I have found the cause of the confusion that led you to ask the questions you did.

In the combined discussion we had overlapping examples of charge-related issues that mixed up echeloning with other issues that could be very confusing. So let me sort it out, but first let me say that the lesson here is for us to avoid the trap of "hey that question makes me think of this other issue" and asking that new question right along in the discussion of the original issue. Better to start a new thread. And, also, diagrams help. Part of the problem in this thread and the other is a lot of word descriptions of the relationship of bodies on the table where the description is inexact, but the exact position mattered to the question.

As an illustration of a point brought up in the other thread about echeloning - but having NOTHING to do with echeloning itself - I talked about a 2E wide charging body making one of the two bodies it was charging take a waver even though the other target countercharged and prevented contact with the wavering body. The problem is - that answer was to a question that had nothing to do with echeloning but was about how responses work. I can see where a quick read might lead someone to think all bodies that could be reached by a theoretical echeloner had to waver/respond *whether it chose to echelon or not*. But that was not what that part of the thread was about and is not the case.

All that said...

1. The point of contact is the furthest extent of charge reach. If there are two bodies in front of the charger, but one of the enemy is closer, then that is the one the charger will hit. That is the end of charge reach and the extent of the charge path.

2. If the charger chooses to echelon (or other events occur duirng the charge move like the closer body evading) then yes, indeed, charge reach could change dynamically during the charge move itself and cause wavers and responses the charge the way it looked at declaration did not.

3. If the charger could reach the far body, and make it respond, by echeloning, then wavers and evades and etc. will ONLY be caused by the charger actually doing so because only by doing so does the charger extend charge reach to the target.

Does that help?

Jon