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And how exactly do you redirect someone?

I haven't learned how to position my fast cav, skirmishers or fliers in
ways that must absolutely be charged by a heavy cav unit without the
follow up charge going through into a unit. Do I just keep my protected
units further back?

Skirmishers and flyers are very different for this task than fast cav, as the opponent chooses their orientation vs. skirmishers/flyers, while they have to line up with fast cav as with an ordinary unit. Pursuit and flight, however, goes middle of unit to middle of unit.

Fast cav is comparatively easy. Just ride right up into their face at an angle, like a book leaning on a row of books (make sure to keep the guys you are trying to redirect in the right arc). When they charge you can just stand, and they'll end up sideways to the direction they were coming either in place (if they elect to hold) or 2-3d6 inches forward, if they overrun. If you want to preserve the fast cav you can try and flee and hope your 3d6 beats their charge distance (much more likely vs. infantry than other cav).

Skirmishers/flyers are much harder to get it done with, in that you can't depend on your orientation to turn them. They hit at whatever angle they like, and then your skirmishers form up. To counter this, you have to flee, so that they chase along the center to center line and don't hit any other your other units.

Thanks for that. Having learned the game with Wood Elves
(immune to psychology units, skirmishers, etc.) it hadn't
occurred to me how it was done.

40kE is conflating Flyers and Skirmishers there, which may be a bit confusing. Units of Flyers skirmish, and thus they function just like skirmishers for purposes of redirection as well. However single monster flyers force the enemy to reorient to them, just as other monsters do. So Great Eagles are a fantastic tool for easy redirection (albeit at the cost of a Rare slot).

Remember to check out the main rulebook FAQ for more clarifications on fleeing skirmishers. While Dryads and Wardancers are useless for this (as they're ItP and can't declare Flee as a charge reaction), non-ItP skirmishers can pull some pretty nasty redirection tricks by Fleeing.

Thanks for pointing that out Mannahnin, I was thinking of flyers as units of carrion, mostly because the only other flyer I use is a thirster, who has a slightly different purpose than redirecting.

Also what hasn't been mention is the psycology of redirecting. Not on the field, but between the players. What the posters above have discribed is a situation where you jam a fast cav or other expendable into the enemy units face so that if they want to move forward they would have to hit your unit and get repositioned. This can work in most situations but will often cost you your unit. Another way is to make it so the unit you want your opponent to align to is such a threat that you leave your opponent little choice, and usually all bad. This is a common Ogre Kingdoms tactics of setting Bulls at an angle infront of your lines. You either charge them and expose your flank to another unit, stand still and get charged by both units next turn or try to do a change facing-move half-change facing manuever to back up out of range, which only delays the problem for another turn.

I faced a new chaos player with my darkelves awhile back. His mentor had been teaching him how to redirect with his worthless hound units. This had worked well for him in the past as he had played agains Bretonia and empire list that relied on getting cav charges off to win. When he tried the tactic against my Dark elves I simply left them. Either shooting them with repeater crossbows, magic missiles, or letting them charge me. (6 dogs do not scare 24 corsairs). His mistake was that the hounds were no threat to my army, nor were they stopping my charges into his warriors.

When attempting to redirect you must remeber that it has to be a threating jesture towards your opponent, and that you have the means of backing that threat up, or else your opponent will simply ignore your redirectors and deal with them another way.