Displacing Opportunity Marked troops

When a unit is marked on opportunity but is displaced by a friendly unit does it lose its opportunity status? We had an S unit marked on opportunity and the S unit was displaced by a friendly CL. The S unit moved behind the CL. Does the S stay on opportunity? This was a hard call for us because displacement is technically not considered movement as per the rules. Still the S did move to a new location on the table top.

What a good question ! How come this has never come up before ? ....amazing. My guess is they would lose their opportunity status but interested to hear what others think.

I think it's an abstraction caused by base sizes. I would leave the unit on opportunity unless the interpenetration caused disorder of course. That's the dividing point and is mostly voluntary as against involuntary

Definitely lose the Opportunity. 

It is an action, that's it.

Being interpenetrated isn't an action. The displacement is an artefact of some other unit's activation.

We took away the opportunity status but upon further reflection I am leaning towards Zippee's point of view. But I can see it both ways.

Zippee wrote:Being interpenetrated isn't an action.

Tell that to the unit being interpenetrated. 
Files open and close, ranks reform. It's an action,

starkadder wrote: Tell that to the unit being interpenetrated. 
Files open and close, ranks reform. It's an action,

According to the rules displacement isn't movement. There is the rub. But I do get your point.

It's a tricky one ....just how disruptive would this sort of action be ? I certain amount of 'reordering' would have to take place but is it enough to take their opportunity status off them?
Troop type might be different also S's and CL's might not be effected so much but what about T's or FL's ?

GC said it was displaced, not interpenetrated, so it clearly HAS moved, so no opportunity

No the displacement is an artefact of figures on bases. The unit shouldn't really move but we can't put bases on top of each other.

You are saying if a unit moves entirely through its fine but if it can't clear it's not. Wether the interpenetrated unit loses opportunity can't depend on base size. That's plain silly.

If being interpenetrated was an action then the unit wouldn't get an activation afterwards would it. But it does so it can't be an action. Therefore it doesn't lose opportunity because it hasn't conducted an action.

Now we could change the rules to say that being interpenetrated by non S counts as being activated but it would be a big change. You'd see a lot less interpenetration close to the enemy, that's for sure!

I'm with Zippee on this one. The interpenetrated unit hasn't been activated, so shouldn't lose its opportunity status.

I suppose the unit on opportunity has been told to 'watch out over there for enemy action'. Some friendly unit comes by and is allowed to pass through. However, as soon as that has happened, the unit on opportunity resumes its watch. Even if it has moved back a bit it'll still be watching, since it hasn't been told (activated) to do anything else.

RogerC

RogerC wrote:I'm with Zippee on this one. The interpenetrated unit hasn't been activated, so shouldn't lose its opportunity status.

I suppose the unit on opportunity has been told to 'watch out over there for enemy action'. Some friendly unit comes by and is allowed to pass through. However, as soon as that has happened, the unit on opportunity resumes its watch. Even if it has moved back a bit it'll still be watching, since it hasn't been told (activated) to do anything else.

RogerC

Not sure that follows - loss of opportunity is not just dependant on action but also circumstance - if a unit is disordered by enemy action it loses opportunity. It follows (surely) that if displaced it also loses opportunity? What if the unit causing the displacement were something more substantial than a LH like a panicked EL?

I think you've nailed 'the elephant in the room' here Cyrus I'm leaning towards loss of opportunity myself.

The rules states that disorder cancels opportunity (or probably more accurately a disordered unit cannot be on opportunity.)

In the case of Panicked Elephants (6.2.2) it states that units met by the retreating elephant take a VBU loss and suffer disorder (which automatically cancels the opportunity.) So it isn't the displacement of the unit that causes the opportunity loss but the disorder.

As I said above, I am inclined to Zippee's take on this subject but can see both sides.

Nothing says that units on opportunity just stand rooted to the ground. They can be performing all kind of micro manoeuvres within the unit footprint and allowing other troops to move through their position in an orderly manner is well within that.

A unit loses opportunity, if it takes an opportunity action, is disordered or is activated to do something else. Those are the only factors that suspend the opportunity status. The rules are very clear on this.

Being interpenetrated does not disrupt the unit (except where noted) if it doesn't disorder it can't knock units off opportunity.

Displacement us not movement or an action it's an abstraction made necessary by bases.

You need to make the case for ALL interpenetration to cancel opportunity (and if it's enough to do that it should cause disorder). You cannot just pick on displacement due to base size.

Very good question and very strange that it was never raised before.
I must confess that I see both points of view make sense. Both have pros and cons.

I think anyway that is better to stay strict to the text that says that opportunity is lost only if you act or you are disordered.

Ok that's pretty straight forward then

Hmmm ... interesting.

One must remember that base depth is completely out scale when compared to frontage and up to a point the TT displacement is a factor of this necessary oddity. Of course if we were to play with 2mm figures our frontage to depth would be more in line with reality.

Could we, for instance, say that if the displacement is more than half of the displacing units (CL) depth then the displaced unit has been forced to move with the accompanying penalty? A simple house rule.

Empire in the sun wrote:
Could we, for instance, say that if the displacement is more than half of the displacing units (CL) depth then the displaced unit has been forced to move with the accompanying penalty? A simple house rule.

I'm afraid that just moves the goal post - either interpenetration is a cause to cease opportunity or not. Displacement due to Base Depth (even if halved, quartered, octoned, whatever) is irrelevant.

I would prefer to go as written in the rules and be done with it, the above was just a thought.
Are we looking at interpenetration or displacement as I'm only considering pushed back as being a result of the scale issue regarding the depth of a base, which the rules, as written, seem to suggest.