Hi, this evening i played against a high elf army, my shooting was winning against his and we had a multi unit pile up i charged his horde of spearmen with both temple guard and my saurus unit and a turn later got a dragon in the back of my saurus unit a couple of turns later his dragon fluffed his lines and the temple guard and saurus went to town on the spearmen and he lost combat by 6, he rolls the lord on dragon leadership fails re roll still fail, i pursue with the saurus catch him, then he checks the spearmen and they fail their leadership and run into a unit of chameleon skinks dieing in the process temple guard rolled 2 and so didn't catch them something is nagging me about this so a couple of questions should my saurus who were still enganged by a single model to the front have been able to pursue the lord on dragon? is it right that a fleeing unit contacting a foe dies?
So long as your unit is NOT engaged with a foe (i.e. all enemies in contact have been destroyed or broken) then it is free to pursue one and only one of the units it is in contact with. If there was still at least one model fighting the saurus that had not broken, then they would not have been able to pursue the dragonlord. By the sounds of it, the only enemy units involved both broke and thus both the saurus and TG were free to pursue. However, the spears should not have been destroyed as this is a holdover from 7th edition. In 8th edition, units fleeing through unbroken enemy only have to take a difficult terrain test for each model passing through the enemy unit (pg. 25 CRB).
so useing this order should his dragon have got away then? since while the spears were defeated and due to roll on low leadership they hadn't yet broken, it was in the same combat round that they broke and ran. humm i suppose technically i should have chosen the order things happened in since it was my turn so his spears should have tested first and run leaving the saurus free to pursue the Lord on a dragon, which makes the killing of the dragon right, and the lord on dragon dieing meant the game was over, my shooting (salamaders (4 of them) and skinks of 3 pursuasions were doing their part 20 pheonix guard reduced to 3 protecting 2 wizards, the archers fled and the 2 bolt throwers in range, just not quite enough 6's rolled to remove them)
In a combat with multiple units on each side, all break tests by the losing side are resolved at the same time to determine if any unit is holding.(page 60) The summary table on page 46 is quite useful in making sure things are done in the proper order. In the combat described, the break tests and pursuits/flees appear to have been properly resolved apart from the unit destroyed for fleeing through the skinks. Also, note that the controlling player is able to decide the order of break tests for their units. This means you should almost always test the general last so that the higher LD can be applied to other break tests although the use of stubborn or steadfast troops can affect this choice on occasion.