Weird sponno move

[landmeister]

I had a weird situation in my last game. Please look at the diagram. Elements A and B are a column of  Irr LH (S) facing rightwards moving sponno. Elements 1, 2 and 3 are enemy Psiloi facing as indicated by their short front lines. Where can column A-B go? It cannot contact 1 because pivoting on its right front corner as a column would violate 1's TZ. It can contact the front of 2 but it must deviate from a straight ahead move in order to not contact the rear of element 3. For these reasons we agreed the column couldn't move at all.

Opinions?

[Tim Child]

Don't get hung up on the front element of the column wheeling.  The requirement in this case is that the lead element "change direction by the least angle and then move the least distance possible to bring its front edge into front edge or rear edge contact with or to overlap the closest enemy element in reach of which any part is in front of a line extending its rear edge", which in this case is element 1.  The second LH element will move in column behind the first, but in practice that just means that it will end up lined up behind the first , not that it will block the move of the first.

Effectively A can slide its front right corner back toward B as it turns 90 degrees and hit the front of element 1.  There may be a debate about whether element 1 should conform right-wards to the new front of A, or whether B moves simultaneously behind A such that A can line up with 1 without 1 needing to conform (A/B may want to slip left to get further away from P 2 and 3 - see below). 

B will end up lined up behind A, and the LH will attack Ps 1 at 4:2 with a quick kill.   

Of course, having killed Ps 1 and pursued, in the enemy bound you may find that Ps 3 hits the column of LH up the chuff with support from Ps 2.   

[landmeister]

Thanks for your reply Tim. This is where I want to go. Can TZ rules modify sponno target priorities? According to your reply the answer is yes. Modifying angles and distances is a possibility only if there is NO enemy that can be contacted straight ahead. In this case 2  can. So the question is that due to the TZ rules, column A-B cannot obey its first priority because they are already pinned.

Following your logic, if element 1 wasn't there, column A-B would contact element 2, right?

Thank you in advance.

[Valentinian Victor]

What would the situation be if when turning to face element 1 elements A & B end up facing their own rear table edge? ;-)

[landmeister]

What would the situation be if when turning to face element 1 elements A & B end up facing their own rear table edge? ;-)

Excellent question! 

[Valentinian Victor]

Thinking about this some more, if the Lh began in the move in the TZ of element 1 they should have turned to face it as soon as they were TZ'ed. As this would likely have led to the Lh facing their own rear edge that would have prevented them going sponno in the first place. And if they were not initially in element 1's TZ but end up moving through it they surely must either turn in the TZ, preventing any more sponno movement as they will be facing their own rear table edge, or they must move straight forward into contact with element 3?

[landmeister]

This is an interesting point, IMO. According to page 32, lining up ASAP is only applicable to the TZ "...most directly in front". In my example it is 2's TZ. This gives us a legal solution:

Step 1. Column AB moves straight forward as it begins its move in 1's TZ. In this particular case, AB enters into 2's TZ BEFORE contacting element 3, so...

Step 2. AB lines up ASAP as per rules and finishes its move until front contact against 2. Bingo!!  Technically, AB hasn't deviated from a straight move because the EMTLU is additional to anyone previously done. I love it 

And about what would happen if AB should be facing its own rear edge if lined up to 1, a new reading of the sponno priorities was needed. If you can contact an enemy front edge by moving straight ahead, you CAN move closer to your own rear edge. Only if no enemy is available around you, the move is cancelled.