Please confirm direction of Feigned Flight

[foxgom]

Hi

I find the rules on this point clear, but we are having a discussion, perhaps down to translation problems of the verb "to face".

I use feigned flight.
The elements face their entry table edge and move towards it.
This means they move at 90 degrees to that edge.
It means that a group facing 30 degrees to the edge at the starts of the flight will dissolve into single elements.

Please confirm the above.

I have a friend who argues that the unit turns 180 degrees and if some part of is entry table edge is now in front of it, it can flee as a group at some angle (not 90 degrees) towards that table edge.


thanks.

Neil Fox 

[Tim Child]

I suspect that your friend is exercising some wishful thinking.   

Tim Child

[MikeCampbell]

I agree - the wording is crystal clear & your friend is engaging in that well known wargaming pass-time of reading what he wants to read and not what's actually written!

A logical outcome of your friend's "reading" is that each element would only turn until some small part of the table edge was to its front, and then move directly towards that.......which is not what he's actualy after at all.

[honk16]

only fair.

but still I wonder, how you can than use the stratagem to work as laid in the rules to pull an unwilling foe forward, often towards an ambush.
If someone is not willing to deploy more or less directly oposite your ambush, you can never make him go closer to it using the "feigned flight" stratagem, if this is always at 90 degrees to the entry edge.

Note, a flee move is normaly a 180 Degrees turn. Under "fleing from f.f." it simply says "turn". It then says you need to "face" your entry edge. It does not say "perpendicular, direct path" blabla, as it does under the "routs" section. Is the difference ment to be a difference?

Furthermore, if a flee move from feigned flight should move exactly like a rout move, why does it not simply say so.
"face" sounds like a very vague word (err at least for non native english speakers) to describe "line up paralel to".

I would have read exactly as M.C. says in his negative example, i.e. "turn 180 degrees" (as if fleeing normaly, it IS a flee move, not a rout move, right?) If you are than not "facing" (i.e. with some part of your front pointing towards) your entry edge, turn as far, until you do. No farther, as than the general rule of "not turning farther than necesary" would aply.

This would fill perfectly the aim of the word "facing" in the rule, i.e. not use the "feigned flight" stratagem to rip of an aditional move towards enemy baggage or back edge, which I believe to be the reason for the difference of the rule..

This Interpretation seems to be posible after the wording (at least for me), it offers no "Options" for the fleeing player as would the "facing means perpendicular to edge" Rule do,  and has the additional bonus of making it possible for a feigned flight to be used for what it is written down to be it's aim in the very description of feigned flight stratagem...

a friend... ;-)