Quote Originally Posted by The Celtic Viking View Post
GG2, it's not about withdrawing from a unit but withdrawing through it that's the problem. Me and Kival spoke to Vartan about this a couple of nights ago and he said that the change that brought on this thread was an unintended cause of rephrasing the rule, and he was thinking of a way to rephrase it again so that this change is removed. In other words you still cannot run through close formation infantry unless surrounded, so if your cavalry is engaged you have to leave it in melee or withdraw into open space. You can't just run through the engaging unit. If no opening exist, then and only then may you run through enemy infantry. You can only run through your own if they are in loose formation.

So forget all about that "only spears" thing and just don't run cavalry through close order units unless your cav is surrounded, which is as it's always been.
Thanks TCV. Sorry everyone for responding more than a couple of days late. I normally like to respond sooner. I've been preoccupied lately. Some time in the past week I talked to TCV and Kival about this and they helped clarify for me what the issue is. There was never intended to be a drastic change in the first rule, regarding cavalry withdrawals. The core of the rule was always the same, just as TCV describes it. I came to the conclusion that I need to rewrite it to make it more faithful to the original idea behind the rule. I'll be doing that hopefully later today when I can sit down and put my thinking cap on.

For those thinking what's with all the talk about minimizing the number of rules or the size of the rules page and so on and so forth, that's a long story. I subscribe to a philosophy of minimalism both in academia and in life (as humanly possible; I'm not an ascetic). gamegeek2 also had his fair share of ideas in discussing rules with me. Combined with talks with the community, our post-3.0 ruleset has become reflective of this minimalism, and I'm fairly delighted with it so far.