Bang! The Ch's have hit my Ax. I've held back one of the Ax to prevent his Ps from coming into the flank of my line. Which, of course, means both Ax are now overlapped by Mark's troops. (They have enemy elements to their front on one side...I'll have to look up the rules to explain it properly! And I quote "...overlapped...both right or left front corners [of opposing elements] or any side edges contact." Suffice to say...well, have a look at the picture and you should be able to see what I mean!).
This overlapping stuff is quite important. Essentially, when one element is facing two enemy elements who are in edge contact with each other (litterally standing side by side), it can only conduct combat with one of the enemy elements - the one most directly to it's front. Combat can only occur when two opposing elements are in frontal edge and corner to corner contact. It is therefore "overlapped" by the one it's not in combat with. When an element is overlapped, it get's one combat factor subtracted from it's total combat score. In this instance, the Ax are down from factor 2 against his mounted to factor 1 due to the overlap. It get's worse. The outer most Ax is facing Mark's general who gets an extra combat factor for being the general. Factor 1 to factor 4. Not good odds. At the other end of the field, Mark has sent one of his LH into my Cv, while holding back the other one - to whom I have sent my own LH to deal with it. Actually, these two were destined to be locked in combat with each other (with nothing but "stand" combat results) for the rest of the game. I have also brought forward the end Ps in front of the Bd (Ps can move through any foot) so that Mark's Wb can't go into the flank of my General. It's a Zone of Control (ZOC) thing - no element is allowed to move across the face of an enemy element that is closer than one element's depth away. So my Ps effectivley committed his Wb to attacking forward, instead of going into the side of my Cv. One of the (very useful) uses of Ps, as Ps cannot be destroyed by enemy foot troops (unless they also have enemy contacting their flank). If doubled they just run away! Continued in Chapter Four - The Main Act 
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