Ready, Aim, Fire - can it "delegalise" the charge?

[TheoPL]

The question is:

At the moment of declaration of a legal charge the NW crossbow unit is positioned that there is enough space to fit the attacker at 50-50 to the leftas the only option. NW player then uses his order to shift and land a shot, but the shift puts him into position, where mentioned 50-50 is legal, since over 50% of the NW tray is obscured (another unit, palisade ect)

What happens next?

1. is attacker forced to pivot, roll and fail a charge (even thou he can still reach the unit, just cannot fit in?)
2. the charge proceeeds as normal, the moment of declaration was fine and the attacker just need to reach the defender and the defender is forced to align in such scenario? How this interact with "engage multiple enemies" if it is triggered?
3. the charge is no longer viable, but the declaration was made - so the unit simply stays in place and is marked activated?
4. other - please explain

 

[CMON Michael Shinall]

Once a charge has been declared legal it cannot be made "illegal" (Un-Legal? No.).

If the charge is legal (ergo, it can be done at all) all proceeding steps of the Action must be performed.

If an event would create a scenario where the target cannot be reached, proper contact cannot be made, etc then the result would be a Failed Charge.

In the event the Defender was moved out of range, then the Attacker would come up short in their movement distance.

In the event that the Attacker is moved and can still make contact then these parts of resolution become relevant:
". If, at anypoint during this move, it contacts the targeted enemy’s tray,then it was a Successful Charge"

Align with Enemy: On a Successful Charge, the attacker’s trayis then aligned to the targeted enemy’s tray. Place the attackerso that it is aligned to either 50% or 100% (center-to-center) tothe defender’s tray. If the attacker cannot be aligned directlyat 50% or 100% their tray must be aligned as close to one ofthese two as possible (remembering that for a Charge to be valid theattacker must have been able to align to at least 50%).

In this case the attacker would align as close as it can to 50% (as this situation would not come up if it could go further) and steps would continue to resolve.

 

[Dean Rothwell]

So if the Night's Watch unit shifts in such a way that only say 20% of their tray is now visible (i.e. moving behind a palisade) then the attacker would align to that 20%?

 

[CMON Michael Shinall]

So if the Night's Watch unit shifts in such a way that only say 20% of their tray is now visible (i.e. moving behind a palisade) then the attacker would align to that 20%?

As stated, once a charge has been declared legal, it cannot be made illegal, and if the Attacker contacts the enemy, the charge is Successful and all preceeding steps in resolution are taken.

 

[Winter is coming]

Firstly. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It's appreciated.

Please could I ask a follow up question on this. What would happen if the shift would take you from 100% possible alignment to 0% possible alignment, such as shifting towards a palisade. The charging unit would still be able to make contact with the defender but would not be able to align at all because the palisade would prevent it from fully contacting the unit. Another defender could also be on the side to prevent alignment from the other direction. Pictures attached to hopefully demonstrate what I mean!

Before shift:


After shift:

 

[CMON Michael Shinall]

I am actually not clear what is happening between your two pictures, as it appears the defender has teleported behind the Palisade (much more than 2" in a cardinal direction) (and possibly appears to have been engaged beforehand?)

 

[Yelraek]

I believe the poster meant for the red tray to be the charging unit.

In the first picture he shows the red unit has already charged and successfully aligned (presumably came in from the right side while still somehow being in the front arc.

In the second picture, it shows the charging unit in possibly the pre-charge position. But the target blue unit had shifted forward to a point that it is impossible to be engaged in the front at all.

 

[Winter is coming]

Yes basically this.

 

[Fabio C]

Just for further clarification, can you send a picture of where the red tray was when it declared the charge (before and after the shift)?

 

[Winter is coming]

Sure. Before shift:


After shift:

 

[Fabio C]

The "After Shift" in this picture does not match the "After Shift" from the previous image in this thread.

 

[Winter is coming]

Well I had to recreate it as it wasn't saved on my computer so may be slightly different. The point is that after the shift there is no way for the tray to align to the defender without it coming into contact with the palisade so it can't complete the charge. The issue is that it's a valid charge as it meets all of the requirements when declaring the charge but there is no way to align after the shift so what happens?

 

[WeaselKingdom]

so to add to the discussion with an example that doesn't involved a palisade here another image involving units.

View attachment 83001

in this instance the crossbow unit is the bottom green tray. in the example their center is 5 inches away from the nearest tray, making the original charge declaration legal as the charging blue tray would have room to fit at a 50% alignment on the right side of the tray. However after the ready aim fire order is used and the shift that goes with it the crossbow unit would only have about 3 inches of space between itself and the and engaged units. that means the charging unit would still be in the front arc of the crossbows and but with less than the space needed for any placement in the front of the unit due to the overlap rules.

So the question is, is this just a failed charge?

I feel this situation is slightly more relevant as it is a fairly common scrum in the middle of the board in game modes with central objectives as well as game modes that has objectives that move like dance with dragons and feast for crows.

 

[CMON Michael Shinall]

so to add to the discussion with an example that doesn't involved a palisade here another image involving units.

View attachment 83001

in this instance the crossbow unit is the bottom green tray. in the example their center is 5 inches away from the nearest tray, making the original charge declaration legal as the charging blue tray would have room to fit at a 50% alignment on the right side of the tray. However after the ready aim fire order is used and the shift that goes with it the crossbow unit would only have about 3 inches of space between itself and the and engaged units. that means the charging unit would still be in the front arc of the crossbows and but with less than the space needed for any placement in the front of the unit due to the overlap rules.

So the question is, is this just a failed charge?

I feel this situation is slightly more relevant as it is a fairly common scrum in the middle of the board in game modes with central objectives as well as game modes that has objectives that move like dance with dragons and feast for crows.

Ah, just more visually clear example. Thank you (nothing against you Winter is Coming).

This isn't specific to Ready, Aim, Release, as numerous effects can move a unit in reaction to a Charge, but in these situations it would resolve as follows:

-Charge declared
-"movement" effect activated (eg, Ready, Aim, Release, whatever it might be)
(Charge was legally declared)
----At this point, if the unit is now in a position where the Charge has become "impossible" to complete (whether by the defending unit being out of charge distance, or the defending unit is otherwise unreachable) it was still declared and must still be attempted.
---If the unit is simply now "out of range" then all standard steps are still taken. Attacker pivots (remaining in arc at end), rolls charge distance (that they cannot complete) and moves (and will come up short per example).
---If the unit is unreachable by some other means (eg, the attacker wouldnt have any place to actually "end up" in the arc they charged) then the same steps would be taken, but, since the result cant be completed, it would end in a Failed Charge.

This is a good posting for the General FAQ, as its a "corner case" (due to only occurring with very specific effects/Abilities) but is a more common corner case in that regard, so worth further explaining.

 

[Codfather]

Ah, just more visually clear example. Thank you (nothing against you Winter is Coming).

This isn't specific to Ready, Aim, Release, as numerous effects can move a unit in reaction to a Charge, but in these situations it would resolve as follows:

-Charge declared
-"movement" effect activated (eg, Ready, Aim, Release, whatever it might be)
(Charge was legally declared)
----At this point, if the unit is now in a position where the Charge has become "impossible" to complete (whether by the defending unit being out of charge distance, or the defending unit is otherwise unreachable) it was still declared and must still be attempted.
---If the unit is simply now "out of range" then all standard steps are still taken. Attacker pivots (remaining in arc at end), rolls charge distance (that they cannot complete) and moves (and will come up short per example).
---If the unit is unreachable by some other means (eg, the attacker wouldnt have any place to actually "end up" in the arc they charged) then the same steps would be taken, but, since the result cant be completed, it would end in a Failed Charge.

This is a good posting for the General FAQ, as its a "corner case" (due to only occurring with very specific effects/Abilities) but is a more common corner case in that regard, so worth further explaining.

Since the charge now cannot be successful in this example, what are the stipulations for the pivot, particularly if the target is now out of range? Under the pivot attacker part, you have to pivot so that you will potentially contact the enemy during the move. However, if you are out of max charge, no matter what you roll, you're never going to contact the enemy.

I figure this is resolved in one of two ways since you said the attacker will still move and come up short.

1. That the "potentially contact" portion of pivot attacker is not dependant on a possible charge due to move stat and distance. ie. a units max charge is 11" but the closest line to the charge target is 12" you would still have to pivot so that you would contact the target if you had say infinite move

2. Because you CANNOT "potentially contact" the charge target, that portion is ignored, and the charging unit may pivot however it likes (as long as the target is still in LOS and then do its charge move in that chosen direct (possibly on a line that would never contact its charge target if distance wasn't an issue).


FOLLOW UP: If the answer is a version of #1 (basically the "potentially contact" doesnt care about possible distance at that step), does that mean that, assuming a charge target is valid (in LOS, possible to legally align with and possible to contact within max charge distance after a pivot), a unit may pivot so that even if they roll a 6 they still wont contact the enemy?

For example, lets say in dance with dragons there is a full blackguard unit with an objective a couple inches in front of it. My unit is not facing the right way so that I cant march onto that objective, however those blackguard are just barely in max charge range. I don't want to charge them since even tho I'd pick up the token, I might just lose it right away from horrific visage. But if I pivot so that my line would contact the enemy if say I was able to roll a 7, but would not if I rolled a 6, can I do that in an attempt to roll high enough to take the end on the objective? Sure it will need a panic check with the failed charge, but thats much more likely to pass than a -3 horrific visage test.

 

[JahSper]

I don't think you can pivot in order to carry out a charge that you fail on purpose.

However, I still haven't understood what happens if after declaring a legal charge (where the charging unit's tray would align 50% with the defender's) the defender's unit moves into a position that wouldn't allow the charging unit's to align at least 50% (this could be due to "Ready, Aim, Fire" or any other effect).
Would this delegalised the charge, making it a failed charge? Or the action would simply be null? Or should the defender's tray move after contact to a 50% alignment? All these options seem possible...

PS: I have no idea what the picture of WeaselKingdom shows, since I can't see it.

 

[TheRedGod]

The charge would still take place, and you would align to as close to 50% as possible.