The point is that I can place a single weak unit on the far side of terrain that blocks your countercharge and LoS eg buildings and vehicles. This creates the exact scenario that I thought we were trying to avoid; the defenders cannot countercharge into LoS of the attackers, the nearby supports get to fight unopposed leaving the defenders on a hiding to nothing - seems rather beardy to me

LoS has always been required to be directly involved for me.

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I'm not sure you're getting me Ginger. If you can't see me after charges, the assault doesn't happen - that's fine. And only units that are directly involved can be fired upon by support. To reiterate, our point of divergence is, I don't see why the defender would get to stop the assault happening by their own countercharge. The rules say this check for 'does the assault happen' is after charge move, and not after countercharge.

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So, what you're getting at is:

An attacker, making a legitimate assault and having LoS on the defender at the conclusion of his assault move, incorrectly having his assault 'aborted' by the countercharge which, through movement, removes LoS or range conditions because the check for valid assault or not takes place before the counter charge.

Also, as a result of the timing of the check, the attacker not getting in to range or LoS as a result of his own assault move doesn't get to even trigger counter charges as the check is made at the end of the attackers move and there no assault is made, so nothing to be responded to.

Close?

section from the rule book

Hi Kyrt, we do seem to be at cross-purposes
Your concern seems to be the question why the assault should stop because the Defender has moved (countercharged) away from the original attackers. It is the defender's choice after all, so he can choose to stay put. Right? If he chooses to move away, the units end up with no-one directly engaged (attackers inside 15cm from defenders) hence there is no support fire.
At that point RAW, the assault goes straight to the resolution and is effectively a dice-off based on pre-combat factors.

My point is that the attacker can engineer a situation where there is effectively no combat between the original attackers and defenders, and worse, one that can still leave the defenders inside 15cm of the attackers, allowing the attackers to draw on support fire and putting the defenders at an even greater disadvantage. IMHO both situations are rather 'gamey' because the defender gets no chance to fight and that is not reasonable or fair. As such this situation needs to be corrected.

Requiring the chargers to end up in LoS after their charge is the start (removing one gamey situation) but can still end up with the defenders countercharging away from the attackers towards a closer enemy, and potentially out of LoS of the attackers.
Requiring the units to be in LoS after countercharges to be 'directly engaged' seems reasonable and consistent, but does not necessarily fix my other issue. However, it gives the defenders the choice of fighting the attackers or moving towards nearer enemy and potentially outside 'directly engaged' from the attackers. If this occurs they go straight to the resolution. IMO this is fairer because the attacker has set up the situation and this gives the defenders the option to fight or accept the pre-combat odds - which may not be much, but is better than nothing

Does that answer your thoughts Kyrt?

Pretty much, if I am following. I shall amend my earlier summary to be clear about support, to simplify what I think you are saying would be the most ideal situation:

1. Attacker moves. If no units within range and LoS then assault does not take place.
2. Defender counter charges. If no units within range and LoS then go to roll off.
3. Fight assault. If all directly engaged attacking units are killed defender wins. If all directly engaged defending units are killed then go to roll off.
4. Fight support. If all directly engaged attacking units are killed defender wins. Otherwise go to roll off.
5. If roll off is a tie, both sides counter charge. If no units directly engaged, go to roll off.
6. Fight assault again, repeat etc.

This is how I see it. As far as I am concerned the only part that requires a contentious interpretation of the RAW is the LoS bit, which could well be an omission. I've always played it so that LoS is required, it not being enough to be within 15 either for the assault to occur or to get support.

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Great, thanks for sorting out our misunderstandings.
I agree with your summary in general - one minor point, the attackers only win automatically if they kill all the defenders, not just those 'directly engaged'.

Thought I must have copy pasted but now I can't see anything I wrote about attacker automatically winning. Which bit? Killing all defending directly engaged units would be roll off as I've written, though there is still support from defender first so should probably edit.

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Sorry, it was late. I would prefer that your Point 3 reflected the rules; Defenders win if all directly engaged attackers killed, Attackers win if all defenders killed, Otherwise . . .
And I have a feeling that the same three options should be present in Point 4., no?

OK, I went through this thread again along with 1.12 and Neal's FAQ threads, I also e-mailed Neal, and PMed dptdexys and Onyx. Here's what I collated and where I think we're at for FAQ additions. I think I covered everything but I'd like some more eyes on the language and some discussion before it's worked into the TP.



Neal was the only dissenting voice for this one, to summarize his thoughts: RAW is the only fair choice, literal wording is the only definite common ground.



In his PM to me Onyx said that it should go to resolution at this point. What are your thoughts here Onyx? If we're adding the LoS requirement to 1.12.3 I think it also gets added to 1.12.4 via the "all the normal charge move rules apply" bit. I think Ginger's post explains some potential for gaminess if LoS is not required after counter-charges too.

Also, dptdexys thought an argument could be made for the assault stalling in a subsequent round after a defender counter-charged out of LoS. Can you expand on that more dptdexys?

Finally, because counter-charges can happen in subsequent rounds I felt the "yes/no" answer here was required. Separating it into two Q&As could lead to one getting missed or arguments.



The first one already exists, I just think it's in the wrong section. I'm going to move it to 1.12.4.

The second one I'm on the fence for adding. It's a pretty quick find, but it's one of those referral rules of EA that I've grown to hate.

The third one didn't get must discussion here. I'm posting it here to get that going now. RAW don't require LoS here, which means the defender has to kill stuff that it can't see/affect in order to stall the assault. These seems like the same sort of situation for the Q&A we're adding to 1.12.3.

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Personally I think once an engagement has started it should carry on until conclussion, even if it is just going straight to combat resolution.
I could see some players arguing for RAW following 2nd round (or later) counter charges 1.12.4 "all the normal charge move rules apply" wanting an engagement to stop ,especially if it was to their advantage.

Do you think the language in that Q&A covers this, or is more needed (another Q&A, more explanation, something else)?

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It covers it for me but some are better at reading between the lines.