I'm confused about collision with allied units as the game text states "a unit can move through allied units as long as it would not overlap more than a single tray of each allied unit during this movement."

If the tray you are moving is 2 deep, any collision will cause more than 2 trays to overlap, so does that mean that a unit that has 2 rows cannot collide with allied units or am in interpreting the rule incorrectly? I would assume the way you measure is width only, not depth when figuring collision with allied units.

also, bonus question, if an allied unit and enemy unit are engaged, and a turn movement order (from another unit) would cause your active unit to hit the engaged allied unit and then the enemy, would you square up with the enemy or stop movement upon collision with the allied unit? This is also considering that squaring up correctly would NOT cause an overlap of the already engaged allied unit.

No, it does seems to be concerned with depth.

I think it basically means you can't move through units two or more trays deep. It's seems to make the assumption that one tray is "thin" enough on ranks that your unit could move through it, but two trays deep is to "thick" (too many ranks of people in the way) for your moving troops to pick their way through.

It seems only to be concerned with the unit you are moving through for tray calculation, not the unit doing the moving. That said, if your hypothetical two tray deep moving unit couldn't complete their move without ending movement overlapping an allied unit, they cannot complete that movement (i.e. move through the allied unit) and collide following the collision rules.

So far as I understand it.

Interestingly, it seems you could move through multiple single tray allies as long as your move takes you through all of them cleanly, otherwise you collide with whomever is at the end of the line.

It's unclear what happens if you overlap and enemy unit after moving through an allied unit.

With the language in the Learn to Play guide, if you would overlap any obstacle you aren't allowed to ignore a tray of an allied unit. The RRG doesn't use the same wording.

In either case I would think that you would need to collide with the enemy unit while being clear of the allied unit before being able to square up.

7 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

It's unclear what happens if you overlap and enemy unit after moving through an allied unit.

With the language in the Learn to Play guide, if you would overlap any obstacle you aren't allowed to ignore a tray of an allied unit. The RRG doesn't use the same wording.

In either case I would think that you would need to collide with the enemy unit while being clear of the allied unit before being able to square up.

Pretty sure that if you overlap an enemy unit at the end of your move after moving through a friendly unit, you stop and square up with that enemy unit as per normal enemy collision rules unless that would cause it to overlap another obstacle, in which case you follow the guidelines on P.18 of the RR regarding collisions/overlapping during squaring up.

1 hour ago, backupsidekick said:

also, bonus question, if an allied unit and enemy unit are engaged, and a turn movement order (from another unit) would cause your active unit to hit the engaged allied unit and then the enemy, would you square up with the enemy or stop movement upon collision with the allied unit? This is also considering that squaring up correctly would NOT cause an overlap of the already engaged allied unit.

This is a great topic for the rules forum!

Rules Reference 55.3 (Movement), second bullet, reads, " If the unit would overlap no more than a single tray of an allied unit during a move and does not overlap any part of that allied unit at the end of the move , that allied unit is not treated as an obstacle and does not cause a collision." (emphasis mine)

Rules Reference 77 (Squaring Up): " After a unit collides with an enemy unit, it attempts to square up with that enemy unit." (emphasis mine)

Rule Reference 83.8 (Timing): "An “after” event occurs immediately after the specified event and cannot occur again for that instance of the event."

In summary, squaring up does not happen until after movement, so movement must be completed before you can square up. If you ignored one allied tray while moving, but upon colliding with an enemy, find that your movement ends overlapping that ally you were ignoring, then you must move your unit backward until it is touching the allied unit.

3 hours ago, backupsidekick said:

I'm confused about collision with allied units as the game text states "a unit can move through allied units as long as it would not overlap more than a single tray of each allied unit during this movement."

If the tray you are moving is 2 deep, any collision will cause more than 2 trays to overlap, so does that mean that a unit that has 2 rows cannot collide with allied units or am in interpreting the rule incorrectly? I would assume the way you measure is width only, not depth when figuring collision with allied units.

The unit that is moving can overlap with all its trays, its only the unit being overlapped that is of concern.

For instance, a unit of any size can without any concerns move through an allied unit of only a single tray (like a hero) as long as it does not end its movement overlapping it. It doesn't matter of all the trays on the moving unit overlaps, as long as only the same tray is being overlapped by all of them.

We had a situation in our first night of gaming where 2 enemy units were so close together that squaring up with one unit cause a collision with the second unit (Kari). How would that work? For simplicity of just continuing with the game we just ruled that all units would end up being squared up and engaged with each other which cause Kari to get pushed back.

I have really appreciated all help here, although I'm hoping that Budgernaut isn't right as that makes sense to the rules, but makes no sense for a realtime war situation. "Sorry mates, can't move around you to attack the enemy, since there are 3 of you in our way, so we are just going to stand behind you until you die or move, even though there is a wide open field next to the enemy we could easily fit into." I would think the collision with the enemy causes you to square up immediately as the collision interrupts movement. I understand the after explaination, but after could simply just be an accurate word, since "before collision" wouldn't make sense... it may not be in regards to timing of the movement step and things happening in sequence of full resolution. For now, we will play according to this observation as it makes rules sense.

8 minutes ago, backupsidekick said:

We had a situation in our first night of gaming where 2 enemy units were so close together that squaring up with one unit cause a collision with the second unit (Kari). How would that work? For simplicity of just continuing with the game we just ruled that all units would end up being squared up and engaged with each other which cause Kari to get pushed back.

Rules Reference 77.5 (Squaring Up) details how to handle squaring up if there is an obstacle (like a unit, for example) that is in the way of where the colliding unit would square up. After explaining how to handle a couple situations, it says this: " Repeat these resolutions for any additional obstacles. Then, if it is still impossible for the moving unit to square up without colliding with an obstacle, the unit cannot square up and it is returned to the position it was in when it collided; the two units are still touching and are thus still engaged."

So the unit wouldn't square up, but if it charged, for example, it would still get to attack because it is still engaged with the unit it collided with.

Also, if one of the units that were in the way moves eventually, you may have the chance to square up. Rules Reference 77.5 goes on to say, "If, after revealing its command tool, an active unit is engaged with a single enemy unit but not aligned with that enemy, the active unit attempts to square up with that enemy unit." So you charged, couldn't square up, but still attacked. Later in the round, one of the units in the way moves. Next round you reveal your command tool to perform a melee attack. After revealing the command tool, before executing the action, you can attempt to square up again.

2 hours ago, backupsidekick said:

We had a situation in our first night of gaming where 2 enemy units were so close together that squaring up with one unit cause a collision with the second unit (Kari). How would that work? For simplicity of just continuing with the game we just ruled that all units would end up being squared up and engaged with each other which cause Kari to get pushed back.

I have really appreciated all help here, although I'm hoping that Budgernaut isn't right as that makes sense to the rules, but makes no sense for a realtime war situation. "Sorry mates, can't move around you to attack the enemy, since there are 3 of you in our way, so we are just going to stand behind you until you die or move, even though there is a wide open field next to the enemy we could easily fit into." I would think the collision with the enemy causes you to square up immediately as the collision interrupts movement. I understand the after explaination, but after could simply just be an accurate word, since "before collision" wouldn't make sense... it may not be in regards to timing of the movement step and things happening in sequence of full resolution. For now, we will play according to this observation as it makes rules sense.

The thing is, in that example you technically collide with the allied unit before you collide with the enemy. The charging unit never reached the enemy unit and thus did not collide with it and cannot square up. Rules can never make sense in every possible situations but we need them to make a game functional and manageable. In this case, I think it does make perfect sense to make sure a unit can complete its move before squaring up and works with the rules as written.

Squaring up is the result of troops tumbling about fighting each other, the back rows pushing forward, filling in the gaps of fallen and so on. Imagine squaring up as part of the actual combat, not part of the movement!