weird situation after flank charge

[Accersitus]

I had a friendly game with a friend, and we encountered a weird situation where I charged one of my units into the flank of his unit, but I only had enough move to get 2 of my models in base contact with the flank of his rare rank. I killed 1 of the 5 models in his rare rank, leaving him 4 models in the rare rank, and one model in base contact diagonally.
I won the combat, and since he was playing VC, he lost another 3 models to
combat resolution leaving him with 1 model in the rare rank.
Because my unit was already 5 models wide, I couldn't move models from the back to the front to get more models in combat.
On his turn, he moved a character from his front rank, to the spot in the 2nd last rank to fight. He had a great weapon, so I was first on initiative, and killed 2 models, while his character rolled 2,1,2 and missed. This is where it got really complicated since he lost 4 wounds to combat resolution, and if he removed rank and file models, his character would be standing in an illegal spot since the rank in front was incomplete, but if he removed the character, the units would no longer be connected in any way.

Do you have any advice as to how this situation could be resolved?
first post btw, so please be kind

In the illustration, the red unit is mine, and the black unit is his. the arrows show the direction the units are facing, and the c shows his character.
The left part is the start of the charge, and the right is after the combat in his round with all the wounds taken from rank and file models, the character is at one wound. (my unit didn't have as many ranks as indicated in the illustration, it's just an example)

[Dalamar]

Ok, first of all, 5 wide is not maximum, if you won the first round of combat you could expand your frontage *by* 5 models, not *up to* 5 models.

Also, going strictly by RAW, if at the end of combat, two units are no longer in base to base contact, the combat ends. Remember that you remove models from back rank, and those not in contact with the enemy first, so you did it the right way.

As soon as his unit wasn't deep enough for the character to reach your unit, his character would go to the back rank, and the combat would end, as neither unit can attack anymore.

But it could all be prevented by expanding frontage after you won the first round (you didn't have to do it though)

[Calisson]

First FAQ
Warhammer FAQ 2008-02 Edition.pdf
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/conte ... 06&start=2
read p.7, the appendice about clipping.
When your charge has put 2 models in contact, you could have translated either unit (yours sideways or his backwards) for free, in order to maximize the models in contact. After that, there would have been no more problem.

Otherwise, when you can hit only a character is in contact, there is no way for you to kill any R&F (except crumbling to lost combat resolution).

And finally...

Welcome accersitus in Druchii.net!
Your well written and illustrated post is greatly apreciated.
Wish more will come.

[Crawd]

As Calisson said, use the optional sliding rules to prevent these kind of situation, it's just plain awful. By maximizing the models you prevent to see things like:

R&F#12: "Hey look, we're in combat with a unit of goblins but only R&F#1 is able to fight with their Black Ork Hero..."

R&G#13: "Yeah, and we're watching the land while he's killing like 4-5 of us.. but aren't we supposed to be in battle?"

R&F#12: "Yup we're in combat in fact we charged last turnARGGggg..."

R&F#13: "Hey.. don't die on me while we're taking a picnic in the middle of the battle because we're not in contact..."

So yeah, the optional sliding may be annoying but way less annoying than the damn situation where only 2 models may fight while there's 40+ other models around...

[Bies]

yea we play by sliding at my LGS and it fixes many situations like this (creates some other brain busters but far less complicated issues).

[Accersitus]

Thank you for all the replies, both me and my friend are playing some friendly
games to get used to the rules again (we have had our models on the shelf
for a while now). We did see the optional rule about clipping, but we are
getting our armies ready for a local tournament, and we don't know how/if
optional rules like that will be used, so we tried sticking to RAW.
We misread the part about expanding the frontage of the unit, but tbh
ending the combat after his turn (because no models were in contact) would
have given me a nice rear charge with my full front rank fighting in the next
turn

[Dyvim tvar]

Unless I am totally mistaken, casualties are removed by taking models not in combat -- not necessarily the back rank. So in this case, the enemy unit taking casualties would effectively move backwards as models die in order to maitain BTB contact.

[Darkangel16]

Thats always how i've always done it dyvim, and maximizing helps solve situations like these.