recoiling

[drusilla1998]

I will be running the DBMM tournament at Cold Wars in the USA, this coming March and I want to make sure we are playing this situation correctly;  a stand is contacted both to the front and flank.  Does it receive a -1 for being overlapped, as well as a -1 for being UNABLE to start a recoil.  In the "recoiling elements" section, page 40, it says, "An element cannot start a recoil if its rear edge or rear corner starts in contact with,  and ends its recoil prematurely if it meets: (a) friends it cannot pass through or past or push back, (b) an enemy element (neither has to conform)

Does this mean that having an enemy element contacting your front, as well as your flank and it touches your rear corner, actually gives you a -2?

If the above is true, then how do you handle a situation where you are contacting a double based wedge of Kn, both to the front and flank, where the wedge of kn is deeper then the width of the flanking stand.  In this situation, the flanking stand will not be in contact with the rear corner of the Kn.  Therefore, the Kn do not suffer the -1 for being inable to recoil.  is this true?

This may have been covered and if so I apologize if it has.  I appreciate all your help in this matter.

Lou Cardinale

[Swampster]

The flank contact gives a -1. As you say, the recoiling section says what prevents a recoil and a flank contact isn't one of them. The fact that you tend to die if flank locked, rather than recoiling, doesn't give a  -1.

The rear corner bit is essentially if you are at an angle to something and just touching with a corner. There was discussion on the yahoo group about corner contact in another context and I think this one actually contradicts the other but it isn't played in this instance as the corner being in contact with a flanking element.

[doctormm]

The following seems like such a glaring problem that I MUST be missing something in the rules.

We'll start with the "flank locked" position shown in Figure 13b - it has the front pike dying from the enemy Ps being in contact with its rear corner.  If that example is correct, then that Ps must also provide the additional -1 for enemy in contact with rear corner preventing recoil.

Unfortunately though, I can't find any stipulation that the enemy contact must be from the FRONT edge.  So a KnF that kills an opponent and follows up into the gap provides not only overlaps to either flank, but quick kills.  Please someone show me what I'm missing.

And do I REALLY need to do the "verify human" thing every time I want to post?  The system used is essentially unreadable - i had to listen to it, and even then i couldn't believe that's what the screen said!

[toby]

You shouldn't need to reverify every post, just on the first couple. I had to get a bit more stringent because we started to get some spam on here.

The -1 is for anyone preventing a recoil starting, not just enemy. And it must be on a rear edge, or on a rear corner only. Being in contact with the side edge and rear corner doesn't count.

Its down to Phil's rather imperfect understanding of geometry. He doesn't regard a corner as being part of the edges it connects. Euclid would be turning in his grave.

[Swampster]

You are right about figure 13b though. It does state a contrary view to the accepted play and seems to have a mistake anyway - contact with a rear corner is not sufficient for a quick kill - it has to be edge and corner to corner contact.

As for the KnF example, the relevant bit is the first para of p38. An outcome depends on your element's type and that of the enemy element in front-edge to front-edge contact with it (or, effectively in its rear as long as there isn't also one in contact to the front).

P

[drusilla1998]

Guys,  just so I understand correctly, when there is a stand, which has an enemy element, contacting both it's front edge and flank edge, this will only give a -1 combat factor, but will quick kill if modified score is greater?   

Thanks again, Lou

[Swampster]

Correct.
(Though with the further proviso that train and naval aren't killed by a flank lock).