Art De La Guerre

[Andy Fyfe]

Hi Guys,

Two units are in combat but due to positions etc. during the charge they are in incomplete conformation.

During the other player's turn he wants to disengage his unit which is in incomplete conformation.

p53 Incomplete Conformation last bullet point:

This situation is temporary and as soon as possible, units must fully conform during their movement phase.

Does this mean that the unit cannot disengage as it must conform instead?

Andy

[Neep]

I don't see any prohibition on conforming and then disengaging(?) I suppose the new position might prevent a disengagement, though.

[madaxeman]

[Ramses II]

Agreed Tim. Incomplete conformation is a game mechanic like conformation. It is used to sort out the melee calculations.

At some point in the movement phase, the unit must move away from the melee, or complete the conformation, the timing is at the player’s discretion. 

[Andy Fyfe]

[madaxeman]

In a saner world than this one, any definition of what constitutes  “RAW” should perhaps be sufficiently expansive so as to allow the reader to themselves exclude any arcane readings of individual part-sentences which could/would then contradict multiple other adjacent and related parts of the rulebook, especially where other simpler and more consistent readings of the same text also clearly exist 

I’m also pretty sure that other types of conformations preclude further movement. 
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[Neep]

I'm not really understanding the concerns.
"As soon as possible" seems pretty clear. I suppose you might encounter a weird "shuffle puzzle" situation where a simpler and more complete outcome could be obtained by deferring some conformations, and that would certainly be in the spirit of the rule, which as noted, is a game mechanic to impose alignment.

If you conform into melee or melee support, the only move you could make next is a disengage. That there is no prohibition on doing just this, either in the disengage rules or the conformation rules seems to answer the question.
Simple support is a more complicated question. For starters, it looks like the rules neglect to say you can conform a unit in simple support on the flank of a friendly unit in incomplete conformation - which common sense says should be allowed. But in the broader picture, units in simple support have always been allowed to flounce off, so why should they be stopped from doing so simply because they resolved an incomplete conformation earlier?

Anyway, hope this is clear and helpful.

[Zoltan]

Resolving an incomplete conformation is a housekeeping device when a melee is continuing.

Disengage is a tactical decision to end the melee.

Don’t mix the two things.

A unit in melee (even if only partially conformed) can decide to disengage - just do it!