Challenges

A challenge is issued at the start of a round of close combat, before any blows are struck but after Impact Hits -- only one per combat, with the side whose turn it is getting first refusal to issue one before the other side may. The issuing player nominates one of their own characters in the fight; if they have no character present, or the enemy has none to answer it, no challenge can be issued at all. Once a challenge has been made, no further challenges can be issued in that combat.

A challenge can be accepted by any of the defending player's characters whose own unit is in base contact with the challenger's unit -- neither character actually needs to be in base contact with an enemy themself, just part of a unit that is. The two then fight as described under Fighting a Challenge.

If no enemy character steps up, one must retire in disgrace instead, nominated by the challenger (from among those who could have accepted). The refusing character is moved out of base contact with the enemy, can't attack that round, and their Leadership can't be used for any Leadership test that turn -- another model steps into their place just as if they'd been slain. Once refused, the original challenger fights normally that round.

A character can't refuse a challenge if there's genuinely no way to move them out of base contact with the enemy -- most often because they're a lone character, their unit is small and surrounded, or they're fighting from a Shrine that must stay in the unit's front rank. They simply have to fight.

An accepted challenge moves both characters into base contact with each other if at all possible -- if that's genuinely not possible, treat them as being in base contact anyway. For that round, the two direct all their attacks at each other (aside from Breath Weapons, Impact Hits, and Stomps, which still hit the unit as normal), and can't be attacked by anyone else -- though other special rules affecting models in base contact still apply normally.

If one character kills the other, any wounds inflicted beyond what was needed to finish them off count toward their side's own combat result, up to a maximum of +3 -- an exception to the usual rule that a model can't suffer more wounds than it has, so add up every wound actually inflicted, including from multi-wound weapons or repeated Killing Blows (each one scoring wounds equal to the victim's own Wounds characteristic).

If both characters survive and the combat continues, they keep fighting each other in the next round too -- no new challenge can be issued in that combat until the existing one is resolved.