Here's a question for you all.
A few days ago I played in our local club tourney, I had my Arch Lector on War Altar.
During a game with a Brettonian player, the following issue popped up: I had slaughtered one unit of his knights (can't remember the name, they weren't grail knights though) with a few turns of Hellblaster fire (don't ask how I got a few turns with it
), only his lord survived. Next round, he charges my Arch Lector with his 2nd large unit of knights, and this lord.
I ask for a challenge, having Van Horstmans Speculum with my AL. What happens next?
I argued he couldn't refuse my challenge, since his Lord was in combat on his own, and could not be sent somewhere out of combat. He pointed out he had a unit champion in his unit of knights, and that if he refused a challenge, in which case I normally can choose which character/champion is sent away from combat, I was unable to choose the Lord since he couldn't go away from combat, so had to choose the champion.
We read the rulebook, but couldn't find a definitive answer. Since it was really like my 7th battle and I didn't know much besides the basic rules, and he wasn't too sure about it either we asked some of the other guys, and ultimately after lots of back-and-forth debating between 6 people, it was judged in my favour.
This meant I could easily take his Lord with the AL using his own stats, and his unit of knights waisted a charge. Next round, I charged his knights in the flank with a unit of 22 greatswords, killed his lord, and his one remaining pegasus knight (he had charged this pegasus knight in the rear of my Arch Lector as well) with a charge from my own knights. His knights fled and hilariously enough my Greatswords caught them.
If it had been ruled in his favour, he could've put his unit champion in the back, slaughtered my Arch Lector with his Lord and charging knights, overrun his lord into my unit of 5 knights, flee with his unit from my greatswords,...
TL;DR?
Recap: what if a lone character is in a multiple combat, with a unit champion on his side, and the opponent asks for a challenge. Can the lone character refuse because of the unit champion, or not?