8th Ed. Declaring a charge from front arc with no room

I had a large saurus unit in combat with a unit of skaven that were not as wide as me. Next to my unit and a bit further back was my ancient stegadon. I wanted to declare a charge with him into the Skaven unit, he had very clear line of sight to the flank of the skaven unit and could easily move the distance, however, he was definitely 100% in their front arc. There currently was no room at the front since my saurus unit was wider. Pic:

sssss
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s = skaven, L = saurus, S = stegadon.

What can happen here? I don't think he can get into their flank since he is definitly not on the flank arc, however, it is the most obvious point to charge. Having agreed that he couldn't hit the flank, it came down to a choice of allow the charge, shuffle the LM unit across and put him at the front; OR disallow the charge. I would be surprised if the charge wasn't allowed given how watered down and easy the charging rules are now, some ridiculously long charges happen in games. But not really sure.

From my understanding of the rules, you would not be allowed to charge. You are in the Skaven's front arc, so you cannot charge them in the flank. And there is no room in the front of the Skaven to make a charge. If you were to "slide down" your Saurus to make room for the Steg, then you would be taking Saurus models out of combat which wouldn't be allowed even in a combat reform.

So I don't see any other option but to disallow the charge. You'll have to position the Steg for a flank charge next turn.

You could combat reform your Saurus and shuffle them to the left, as long as the same number of Saurus models are in contact at the end of the reform.

Your Steg could then charge in and just clip (would be caddy corner) to the Dirty Sewer Dwelling Rattlings.

plus side is then only 1 Skaven and 1 supporting attack could be targeted against the Steg.

Illegial charge, you should have charged with the steg first then there would have been room for the saurus in the front,
you will have to manuver to the flank this turn and flank charge next turn.

I will check again when I get home but iirc:
- there is no requirement to be able to see the front of a unit while declaring a charge on them even if you are in the forward arc area. So you can declare charge.
- if you have the charge distance and legal path to the target then the charge is successful.

So far no grounds to cancel, but:
- reforms should keep the centre of the unit in the same place so a combat reform can't move a unit sideways
- a friendly unit is impassable terrain so if there is a requirement to actually contact front of unit then charge would fail legal path test.

As I cannot recall a requrement to actually contact the face of a unit you count as charging then I would put this as a case where "finagling" is required. As this should be minimum required, I would move saurus the minimum sideways to allow steggie to contact corner to corner.

If anyone can find a requirement to contact side of unit you count as charging then my opinion would change to failed charge.

Strewart where your saurus already in cc when you declared the charge with the steg or did the steg and the saurus declare a charge at the same time. This is very important as it will effect the ruling.

BEEGfrog said:

I will check again when I get home but iirc:

- there is no requirement to be able to see the front of a unit while declaring a charge on them even if you are in the forward arc area. So you can declare charge.
- if you have the charge distance and legal path to the target then the charge is successful.

As I cannot recall a requrement to actually contact the face of a unit you count as charging then I would put this as a case where "finagling" is required. As this should be minimum required, I would move saurus the minimum sideways to allow steggie to contact corner to corner.

If anyone can find a requirement to contact side of unit you count as charging then my opinion would change to failed charge.

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He doesn't have room. There are no rules in 8th ed for "finagling". You cannot slide a unit to the side mid charge to fit your needs. I'm not even sure what your last statement is implying, you can't charge something that you can't actually touch.

I'm assuming the Skaven charged your saurus, and purposely positioned themselves to not let you charge them with your steg later. If this is what happened, that was good planning on their part.

yeah the Skaven charged me. It wasn't so much about clever positioning, just maximizing and my unit happened to be wider than his.

BEEGfrog said:

I will check again when I get home but iirc:
- there is no requirement to be able to see the front of a unit while declaring a charge on them even if you are in the forward arc area. So you can declare charge.
- if you have the charge distance and legal path to the target then the charge is successful.

Click to expand...

Thats pretty much how I see the charging rules these days. There is no concern for careful manouvring; just check LoS, measure the minimum distance between units, and if its in your charge range its fine.

However, with their being no room at the front arc where I was it does certainly cause a bit of a problem. I honestly think in that case there should be no problem with having the steg hit the flank of the unit; if he turned slighty he would pretty much plough straight into their. But I know from the rules, it doesn't work like that.

Ok, I guess this is an odd case where a charge isn't actually allowed. Thanks for the replies.

You're allowed a free (up to) 90 degree wheel, right? So why can't you declare a charge go straight until you are in flank area and then wheel towards flank? Unless you had to wheel a little bit first to get on charging path?

You must be in the enemy's flank (at least more than 50%) in order to declare a flank charge.

TheRolfgar said:

You must be in the enemy's flank (at least more than 50%) in order to declare a flank charge.

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Right. This has come up a couple other times in past games (with different armies) and what we ended up doing is approach it with common sense. If it was a clean LOS but not enough room in front and there was within charging distance, we allowed the charge into flank. Frankly, on the table top, the front 90 degree arcs are debatable where they draw their invisible marker lines.. not the case here, but it seems very subjective.

Anyways. Right, wrong, or indifferent, we allowed it because we don't think a rule should override a military common sense manouvre - especially an easy one. However, we also agreed that if the rules are not clear on anything in debate, we do a die roll-off (and keep that result for remainder of the game and/or until rule can be clarified).

I agree that it makes perfect sense that it should be allowed, so house rule it. We will probably allow it in the future, but I still think hitting the flank when you are completely in the front arc is not really in the spirit of the rules and will probably continue to shuffle across and make room at the front. Otherwise why not charge with the big unit first, put them in, then leave only room at the flank for the steg? I think you could do that in 6th ed, and it worked well enough.

TheRolfgar said:

BEEGfrog said:

I will check again when I get home but iirc:

- there is no requirement to be able to see the front of a unit while declaring a charge on them even if you are in the forward arc area. So you can declare charge.
- if you have the charge distance and legal path to the target then the charge is successful.

As I cannot recall a requrement to actually contact the face of a unit you count as charging then I would put this as a case where "finagling" is required. As this should be minimum required, I would move saurus the minimum sideways to allow steggie to contact corner to corner.

If anyone can find a requirement to contact side of unit you count as charging then my opinion would change to failed charge.

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He doesn't have room. There are no rules in 8th ed for "finagling". You cannot slide a unit to the side mid charge to fit your needs. I'm not even sure what your last statement is implying, you can't charge something that you can't actually touch.

I'm assuming the Skaven charged your saurus, and purposely positioned themselves to not let you charge them with your steg later. If this is what happened, that was good planning on their part.

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Again not with rules so cannot provide a page quote but "finagling" is in the 8th ed. rules, it is in the part with the example with the rock in the way and the charged unit closes the door instead of the charging unit. Finagling is in 8th, whether it applies here is debatable (that is why we are debating!).

Re.: last sentence, in the actual rules in the book (rather than the versions in our heads, that I at least am relying at the moment as I am not with my rules books to verify exact words) the rules for charging require sight at charge declaration, a charge distance at least as long as the minimum distance between charger and target and a viable path to the unit. It is this last requirement causing the problem, in my memory it only requires the UNIT be contacted without a requirement for the required side to be contacted. The last sentence was saying that a requirement that I hadn't spotted for a charging unit to reach the eligible side would change my mind if someone could find and quote it.

Also the general rule in combat reforms, etc. is to not reduce the number of models in combat, adding the charging model corner to corner with the target would not reduce the number of models in combat as it would replace the one already there.

I wouldn't be happy with allowing the charge to be a flank charge as it would give too much advantage to the charger.

The rules are supposed to be representing a fluid situation where the troops on both sides are actually in movement over the whole of both players turns not just during their own movement phase. Abstracting that the new unit shoved the other one slightly out of place in the chargers rush to get to grips with their target doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

BEEGfrog said:

Again not with rules so cannot provide a page quote but "finagling" is in the 8th ed. rules, it is in the part with the example with the rock in the way and the charged unit closes the door instead of the charging unit. Finagling is in 8th, whether it applies here is debatable (that is why we are debating!).

Also the general rule in combat reforms, etc. is to not reduce the number of models in combat, adding the charging model corner to corner with the target would not reduce the number of models in combat as it would replace the one already there.

I wouldn't be happy with allowing the charge to be a flank charge as it would give too much advantage to the charger.

The rules are supposed to be representing a fluid situation where the troops on both sides are actually in movement over the whole of both players turns not just during their own movement phase. Abstracting that the new unit shoved the other one slightly out of place in the chargers rush to get to grips with their target doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

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The rules for "finagling" as you put it, are for closing the door where there is impassible terrain, it allows the side that is getting charged a slight wheel. It has nothing to do with sliding from side to side, only a wheel.

As far as allowing a slide reform during a charge, there are no rules to support it. You cant reform during a charge. Since you must declare charges before other movement you wouldn't be able to move over (assuming it was a legal reform to begin with).

I personally like the way it is, it makes positioning your units that much more important and adds some real tactics instead of just chucking piles of dice and seeing who gets luckiest.

TheRolfgar said:

As far as allowing a slide reform during a charge, there are no rules to support it. You cant reform during a charge. Since you must declare charges before other movement you wouldn't be able to move over (assuming it was a legal reform to begin with).

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My problem is that the rules that are there says that the charge succeeds. There are also rules to cover how to allow successful charges to be reflected on the board (if you read the whole section it says that the examples shown only cover some of the possibilities, the implication being to extend the examples to cover analogous situations). What isn't in the rules is any allowance for cancelling charges where the charge meets the criteria in the rules (or converting frontal charges into flank charges).

I am generally laissez faire in games because I do all my nit picking and debating in the forums. But I do like to know what the rules actually say so I know when I am interpeting, interpolating or inventing rules.

(With the evidence so far charging the corner is part interpreting and part interpolating, cancelling the charge is inventing)