How about we have a discussion to see if we can come up with some clear rules wording to solve this problem?
The Problem: Situations can occur in KOW, where a unit cannot charge due to kinked lines of units, in ways that if it was a fantasy movie or historical situation seem “stupid”. These situations break immersion and are often offputting to new and existing players. They can also lead to increasing numbers of “gotcha” moments as competitive veteran players wise up to them and make use of them.
Note: These situations are also not unique to Kings of War, and have occurred and been solved in other rulesets over the past 30-40 years at least.
The KOW Rules Committee have made an FAQ ruling to solve this problem stating that charges in such situations are still allowed and cannot be prevented. However, some players are concerned that this ruling is unclear and also has unintended consequences depending upon interpretation.
The issues have been very nicely summarised in Page Neo’s video linked here:
One potential solution that occured to me, is to add this phrase to the FAQ ruling, noting that the charging unit’s front edge position is critical. This would appear to prevent unintended exploits cited to date, but allow those chrages intended to be allowed by the ruling. Thoughts?
“A unit may have no legal charge, though it is able to contact a unit though not align to it because its front edge would overlap another enemy unit if at least minimally aligned. In this situation you can charge the first contacted enemy unit which instead aligns to the charger, shifting other nearby enemy units minimally if necessary to to achieve this.”
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Difficult topic.
And to make it even harder; would you add the boxed in part or leave it out?
I also tend to think “how would this work in a total war game” where the unit would just smash into the enemy somehow. But there is a big difference between allowing it for units lined up perfectly to guard each others flanks, and allowing it for a unit stuck in a stale mate vs two regiments and nowhere else to turn.
I think the boxed in part, which I would define as “no way to improve the situation” needs to be there.
The players who decribe it as “the unit can do something else so it is not boxed in, since it can move backward for instance” I do not agree with. Moving backward or some meaningless amount forward or sideways should not count as having the freedom to resolve the situation IMO.
I think this should apply to terrain and board edges as well. If a unit can be stuck in stalemate as long as the “abuser” holds its position, the charger should be allowed to force a melee as often as possible. A notable exception might be if there actually is no physical space to fit between terrain of course. Such a tactical blunder is hard to fix. But using angles to create defenses, has little root in reality.
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It is tricky - its clearly visually different between flank protecting or covering charges with terrain and 'gaming for advantage" by angling units. The issue is wording the rules/faq where the former is a legitimate tactic and the second isn’t.
“In this situation you can charge the first contacted enemy unit”
Maybe make it closest/most direct, rather than “first contacted”? - so you can still use the tactic to protect units and avoid all sorts of nimble/charge diverting ploys
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The problem is that the final wording from the book has not been posted. This situation and the FAQ dealing with it has existing since 2016. The first bit of the FAQ was missing in the text posted online. The final printed book has the full wording from the FAQ in it.
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“Boxed in” could still use a definition. If a unit can move backwards, or a little sideways or shuffle a bit, although in a meaningless way, which will not make them able to charge the enemy next turn, are they still considered boxed in, or are you only boxed in if you cannot move at all?
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