Art De La Guerre

[Three]

This would work so much better with a photograph, but hopefully you can follow this one. This happened in a game at the weekend -

All contacts are legally and fully conformed, and due to angles of charge and conformation the 4 units are essentially in a column. There is less than 1 UD between the rear of Red LH1 and the front edge of Red LH2.

Blue unit facing down the page, fighting Red LH1
Red LH1 facing up the page - carrying 1 hit
Blue Light foot facing down the page, fighting Red LH2
Red LH2 facing up the page - carrying 1 hit

Red LH1 loses the melee and routs. What does it do?
1. Routs, and because it's path is blocked by Blue LI/Red LH2 melee, is simply removed.
2. Routs normally, passing through Blue Light Infantry and Red LH2, giving Red LH2 another hit and so routs it too.
3. Something else

There doesn't appear to be any exceptions to the Rout causes 1 hit on friendly units within 1 UD rule, but it didn't feel right routing through another melee. Opinion was split and we didn't find anything else to help us out.
What does the panel think?

[Ramses II]

Ok, so I think you have a kind of sandwich 

Blue unit
R LH1

R LH2
Blue unit

The question is what happens to R LH2 when his friend breaks

Check the Game turn steps p23, and you find that all melees are completed first (including R LH2), then routs, then pursuits. So the result is;

1. Both melees occur, R LH1 loses and will rout later
   
2. Irrespective of the R LH2 melee result, R LH1 routs into  R LH2, causing a hit, routing that unit as well. 
   Both Red units are now removed, causing no further effects on the game (they don’t actually move as part of their routs)
   
3. Now the victorious units advance. 
   

————
Re-reading your post, the actual situation is
Blue unit
R LH1

Blue unit 
R LH2

Here, the fact that there is a Blue unit in the way prevents the rout of R LH1 from affecting R LH2. Note, the R LH1 does not actually move, we only check the 1UD zone behind the routers. This contains a Blue LI unit which will not rout, even if it is LI and the Red routers are heavier, because the routers do not “move into contact”. However it is just possible that the rear edge of R LH2 is in the zone, in which case they suffer a hit as usual (and rout if this is the final one)

[KevinD]

[Three]

Hi Ramses,
Less of a sandwich and more of a 4 layer cake, blue/red/blue/red. The two blue units are facing in the same direction, down the page, the two red units are facing in the same direction, up the page.
I'm not sure of the significance of Red LH2's rear edge if both red units are facing the same way? It's front edge is definitely within the 1UD zone and it's rear edge out of it.

[Ramses II]

Check p68, 4th bullet. There is no mention of intervening units either friendly or enemy. So I am saying that if any part of a friendly unit is in the 1UD zone behind a routing friend, it suffers a cohesion loss (Routing LI being a possible exception).

Given the situation outlined by Three, there is a 1UD zone behind the routing R LH1 that is partially filled by a blue LI. This allows possibility of a further Red Light unit to be partly in the zone in melee with the Blue LI and thus to be affected by the rout. 

[Snowhitsky]