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Hi All,
A friend and I can't quite agree on how charging and wheeling works. Basically, I wanted to charge his Stone horn with my Skullcrushers, however there were a group of Ogres blocking a direct straight ahead charge. At the time we played it that the most I could do to get around them was charge straight along the edge of my unit's line of sight (so basically a 45 degree angle from when they started), this resulted in the Skullcrushers clipping the ogres and hence failing the charge. What I'm wondering is, could I have wheeled more as I charged to avoid the ogres? When played it that I couldn't wheel any further than the unit's initial line of sight arc, but could I have?

I've attached an image to try and make the situation a little clearer (not 100% accurate, but you get the idea hopefully), the grey rectangle is where the skullcrushers ended up, clipping the Ogres and no further than their original line of sight.

So could I have avoided the ogres completely and wheeled enough to get into contact with the Stone Horn?

If the distances are right, the wheel would be tricky, but you could have done it if there was space to turn without moving backwards etc

When you declared the charge, the Stonehorn was a legal target. The charging rules allow a wheel of up to 90 degrees. There is nothing in the rules stopping you from moving outside of your frontal arc during the charge, you just have to end up in the same arc of the enemey when you complete the charge (meaning, if you start in their flank, you must complete the charge in their flank). So yes, you could have wheeled a little more to clear the Ogres and hit the Stonehorn.

You can make 1 turn of up to 90°. In this example, you could have easily turned by about 30-40° and then charged the Stonehorn.

It is hard to tell just from pictures, but there's the chance that one of your skullcrushers wouldn't be in contact.

You have to wheel as much as you can to get into combat (ignoring the 1 inch rule, so you just have to barely clear the ogres) then charge in. Since you are partially blocked, you wouldn't be able to maximize.

The line of sight thing doesn't matter at all once you confirm that you have line of sight to charge.

Killjoy00 wrote:
It is hard to tell just from pictures, but there's the chance that one of your skullcrushers wouldn't be in contact.

You have to wheel as much as you can to get into combat (ignoring the 1 inch rule, so you just have to barely clear the ogres) then charge in. Since you are partially blocked, you wouldn't be able to maximize.

The line of sight thing doesn't matter at all once you confirm that you have line of sight to charge.

Huh? You have to maximize, yes, but only the amount of models that *can* fight. If the only way to charge a unit was to charge it in a way that e.g. 1 model in the front rank could not fight, you can still charge it. You only have to maximize the amounf of models that *can* fight.

Yes that was exactly the point I was making...

Ah, just got confused then as you said that he wouldn't be able to maximize despite he is

The point was that he _might_ not be able to maximize all his models. He can only maximize the models that can make it after he barely swings past the blocking unit.

Line of Sight is only needed to declare the charge. You can pull some convoluted charges in fantasy.

Nice pics, good example.

Thanks for all the replies, that makes charging a lot more flexible than i thought it was!

On the topic of maximizing, I'm fairly sure I understand it correctly but just to make sure...

You've got a unit that is 5 models wide. You declare a charge on an enemy unit, but due to another enemy unit being in the way, the most models that you can bring into base-to-base contact is 3. You CAN still charge the unit, and only 3 of your models will fight.

In another example, your unit is charging an enemy unit with nothing in the way. However, the angle is funny. Regardless, you CAN still FULLY maximize, meaning all of your models can get into base-to-base contact. You can make this charge, but you MUST use your single wheel and close-the-door moves to ensure that all 5 of your models are in base-to-base at the end of the charge.

Is all that right?

Yes. You need to maximize the amount of models that can, theoretically, attack the enemy unit you charged - if e.g. 1 model is blocked in the first rank, maximizing means you have to get all 4 remaining ones into battle.

Correct on both counts Tangent.

Excellent. And I'm assuming this applies in exactly the same way regardless of what is causing the obstruction? Meaning, if it's another unit that's in the way, or a building, or whatever.

Correct.

so is this how it should look?

Going from the first diagram to the second, that looks reasonably correct.