Gen. CP

I'm looking at your example from Feb 9 with four blue elements with a CP at the end contacted by five red elements. Red is blocked by a single blue element from conforming as a group. What happens to the long blue line of elements? Does the whole group not conform because of the CP even if the Red elements and the remaining blue elements would have the movement allowances to conform? How would you umpire that?

Cheers

Jim

Oh, you mean this Jim:-


Weeellll…since I can only follow rules that are written in the rule book,
and not made-up rules that only seem to exist in people’s imagination,
so I maintain that conforming ‘IS’ a form of moving (unless someone
can point me to where it says “Conforming ignores all movement rules”),
we get the following:-

The CP element shouldn’t be allowed to exceed it’s normal travel distance.
(The top of page 9 Move Distances doesn’t say “…except when conforming.”)

The CP element shouldn’t be allowed to end in contact, let alone close combat.
(The bottom of page 9 Contacting The Enemy doesn’t say “…except when conforming.”)

And if there were a small piece of Bad Going between the red and blue groups,
the bottom of page 8 Tactical Moves doesn’t say:-
“Travelling across Bad Going must be by column…except when conforming.”
While we are at it, the page 9 Move Distances also doesn’t say:-
“WWg and Art cannot deploy or move in Bad Going…except when conforming.”

So what can the blue group do?
Actually it has several options.
It could stand where it is, and let the end element (the one contacted) fight as if overlapped.
Or it could be split by its owner, and three of the elements conform leaving the CP behind.
So it’s not entirely blocked from reacting at all.

Either way the blue group will be at a disadvantage…
…but that’s what you get for not aligning with the enemy and being out-manoeuvred.

I'm leaning to another corollary that a required conform by a GROUP cannot exceed its MA. So you would either have to break the Group or fight Overlapped.

Stevie as always I apprecaite the attempt to solve it by trying to parse the rules but I can gurantee that Phil never comtimplted any of this and therefore did not write any rules to cover the situation.

So we need to move toward agreed corollaries to resolve how to deal with a few of this notty problems. Its really only the forced conforms from non-moving Groups that are causing trouble. I think limiting the forced conform to the Group's MA solves this but it is definitely an "imaginary rule" so if you don't like "imaginary rules" you will just have to spin your wheels when this situation arises.

But for everyone else let us imagine a rule that says must finish the conform up to its MA and if unable or unwilling fight as if Overlapped.

TomT

Sorry Jim, but how would forcing the red group to break-up benefit the red player?
Seems to me you are rewarding the blue player and penalizing red.
In my diagram red just needs to advance for one PIP, can’t conform, so the blue
group has the responsibility of conforming and is the one that is at a disadvantage.

And Tom, I do agree with you that troops should conform as much as they possibly
can, and only when they cannot do so fully should the stationary non-bounding troops
have to complete the conforming, if they are able.
(Hell…I’d go even further…I’ve never liked this “or choose to fight as if overlapped” stuff.
Don’t give ‘em a choice…MAKE the buggers conform if they can!
But Phil Barker says they should have the choice, and we must follow his commandments)

Since these situations were never originally conceived of nor tested, we will have to do so.
Firstly, conforming should still obey ALL the movement rules, restrictions, and limitations,
leaving two possible avenues before us; the simple way or the complicated way.

The Simple Way
Only those that have the responsibility of conforming need sufficient movement to do so.
And both front-edges and front-corners trigger conforming.
(Exception: ‘like’ front-corners touching won’t trigger conforming, but ‘odd’ front-corners will.
Compare Figure 16a Bow-Y with Figure 13d Blade-X)
There you go…dead simple, and universal to all troops, be they single elements or groups,
either moving or stationary.

The Complicated Way
A group that contacts a single element just needs to touch it, as the group doesn’t do the conforming.
A group that contacts a group needs sufficient movement to conform, as it has that responsibility.
But a group that forces a non-bounding group to conform still needs enough movement conform to it.
(Tom’s suggestion, which would make the red group in my diagram unable to contact the blue group,
thereby rewarding the blue player for being at an angle and unaligned)
A front-edge, but not a front-corner, touching any edge of an enemy makes one party or the other conform.
(Jim’s suggestion, and also the FAQ ruling. However, this like Tom's suggestion will prevent the red group
in my diagram from making contact, again rewarding the blue player for being at an angle and unaligned.
Also, it requires awkward and fiddly wiggling on the part of groups in order to get their front-edges into
contact with enemy edges, so it is not very practical and it will prevent some rather obvious contacts)
If I have misunderstood anything, please let me know.

Needless to say, I prefer to keep things simple.

Responsibility for conforming is clear from the rules: a moving Group must conform (is responsible) for lining up with a non-moving Group as much as possible.

But sometimes it can't due to blocking Elements and so non movers must attempt to conform. This doesn't change who was responsible to line up just the practicalities of doing so.

I'm more and more convinced the best rule is that the moving Group must have been able to conform but for the blocking Elements. So in Stevie's example its not really the stray blue Element that's preventing conforming its the fact that the moving Group does not have enough MA to reach the angled blue line. This solves a lot of problems because angled Groups aren't teleporting forward because now they have a compelled conform to execute.

So I think we have found the solution to the problem.

TomT

But who created the angle? It could quite conceivably be the army that is seeking contact that actually created the angle in the first place.

Cheers

Jim