Art De La Guerre

[Za Otlichiye]

There is an excellent discussion of wheeling back in June entitled Wheels of change?
Dave Allen raised some concerns about wheeling columns that did not get a lot of attention.

Consider a column of 5 units of Knights in a group.
The first unit wheels until the last element has displaced 3UD. This is a wheel of almost 60 degrees and the first unit has moved about .95 UD. No one has exceeded their movement allowance.
Now since this "counts as" moving .95UD, does anyone think the column can then advance 2.05UD? And, of course , what happens if the Knights are Impetuous?

(I don't have a problem with this, as columns are far more maneuverable in real life than lines. The end results look more like a column "following the leader" than just swinging out 60 degrees. The latter would be a ¼turn, wheel in line, ¼turn and a good deal more difficult in reality.)

[KevinD]

[Dickstick]

Or have they already done 3ud?
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[AlanCutner]

Columns don't kink in ADLG. There are far to many issues dealing with a kinked column. This was the case with both DBM and FoG.

[Za Otlichiye]

Good point, Dickstick. It's the outermost front corner which is arguably the front corner of the last unit...

Maybe it should be the outermost corner of the unit which moved the most. You might have some oddities with irregularly formed groups.

[madaxeman]

I'm afraid this is yet another obscure, old-school rules lawyer-ey semantic point which becomes effectively moot the minute you start engaging in actual real-world gameplay.

You very, very rarely see DBM (or MM)-style "columns in ADLG games at all, and it's even more vanishingly rare to see them doing anything other than being used to redeploy a handful of cavalry or LH behind your lines, or to make a bee line for the enemy baggage, in each case only for a turn or so of pretty direct straight-line movement. The rules don't therefore need to go into enormous detail for something which simply isn't important

The table size/troop density/movement allowances/expansion mechanism equation is very different in ADLG to DBM/MM, all of which means as soon as you start playing actual games you'll very soon find that trying to be a smart-ass clever-clogs with columns is an utterly fruitless exercise.
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www.madaxeman.com

[KevinD]

[Za Otlichiye]

Thanks MadAxe, great to have an experienced perspective. I guess there is no need to play it any way other than it's written. Last element displaces ~3 UD and counts as moving ~1 UD.