FL interpenetration

Hi all,
Even after reading the interpenetration rules many times I am still unsure about FL impetuous interpenetration.
Edited 5.7.1 Voluntary Interpenetration rule that only contains words relating to FL:
"2) Light Infantry that is not impetuous AND is not in a Large Unit  . .  . can be interpenetrated by any troop type and can interpenetrate any other foot that are not impetuous."
Emphasis added for AND, that is the non-impetuous AND Large Unit conditions both apply, not only one of them.
So in re-ordering that sentence and splitting into a) interpenetrated, and b) interpenetrating gives this:
a) Impetuous FL not in a Large Unit can be interpenetrated by any troop type
b) Impetuous FL not in a Large Unit can interpenetrate any other non-impetuous foot

Is this correct? i.e. can impetuous FL interpenetrate as above if they are not in a Large Unit? If it isn't correct why is it "and" instead of "or"

Hello MiniEel. I agree the interpenetration rules are somewhat hard to understand, but I think your conclusions about impetuous FL aren’t correct. I’ll try to explain how I see it.

I think you have to start with the general statement earlier in 5.7.1 that ‘The only interpenetrations allowed in Basic Impetus are as follows:’. So points 1 to 4 list the allowable interpenetrations, and any attempted interpenetration which doesn’t meet one of the conditions in 1 to 4 isn’t permitted. To put things another way, there is a general prohibition of interpenetration except when one of the specific conditions 1 to 4 apply.

Now consider impetuous FL. Is it ‘Light infantry that is not impetuous and not in a Large Unit’? Clearly not, so it can’t make use of that condition to escape the general prohibition of interpenetration. It can make use of 3 to interpenetrate Wagenburgs. Otherwise none of the other conditions in 1 to 4 apply, so 3 is the only permitted interpenetration for impetuous FL. In a similar way, none of the conditions 1 to 4 allow impetuous FL to be interpenetrated by anything other than S.

I hope that makes sense. I also hope you can see why it is ‘and’, as it is part of an exception to a general rule. If it had said ‘or’, that would have been a very different exception - compare ‘no interpenetration unless X and Y’ with ‘no interpenetration unless X or Y’.

RogerC

MiniEel and Roger,

Point (2) that is causing this confusion ought to be looked at with respect to Boolean logic.

Not A and Not B is the same as Not (A or B).

In this context, the statement can be rewritten as,
Light infantry that is neither Impetuous nor in a Large Unit can...