HOTT in Savannah

Wifey and I just played our first game ever of HoTT. We had a good time but with any new system we had lots of slow-downs and questions. I'm going to bug the Yahoo group with the questions. Any other regular readers who can help with the questions, please comment. Thanks!

On with the game...
I used my Narnians which are
2 Spears (Fauns)
2 Blades (Fauns)
3 Beasts (Hounds)
3 Great Eagles (Fliers)
1 King Peter (Hero)

and Wifey used her brand-new, just finished Halloweenies which are
2 Covens (Magicians)
2 Shooters (Skeletons)
2 Sneakers (Ghosts)
3 Scarecrows and Nightmares (Knights)

I was the defender and deployed my stuff as you see above. The funnel worked against me...

And my bride set her stuff like so. The sneakers were to make and end-around run for the stronghold. We forgot about the extra PIP cost to move more than 12" away from your side's general. She's wearing her witch hat.

I sent the eagles after the ghosts . I ran one off but the other wasn't bothered and slipped right past the birds.

And the good guys moved out to meet the nasties.

Rather anti-climatically, the first thing killed was her general by mine. Now, if I read the rules correctly, if she has lost more AP worth of stuff (TRUE at this point - dead Magician) and her general is dead (TRUE) she loses and game over. We swapped witch models and kept going anyway because that was just too quick.

My wolfhounds mix it up with her scarecrows. It was a bloody affair since in bad going, her guys would die in a combat loss and my beats also die to riders on a combat loss.

We horsed around for a few more bounds and eventually her rotten ghosts made it to my keep and managed to defeat it! Bah.

It was fun and I think we'll play again, often. Junior is itching to bring his Soviets onto the battlefield. They are playable so maybe they'll see some table time this evening.

On with the questioning:

Assume open, good going. Beasts vs Knights

Just for the sake of argument, 2 ties and a recoiling knight during a combat result in the following: 

The Beasts have pursued the opponents who recoiled. 

One the next round, 2 Beasts and a Knight die. 

On their next bound, can the Knights engage the Beasts at all in Close Combat? Is there a tactical move they can make to engage or are all opposing elements free to move as they please? Not sure what happens here.

Question 2. When a group has "middle" elements either die or recoil and the front edge of the group is disrupted, is the group pretty well shot at that point? Can it regain its group status later if the elements re-align?

Thank you in advance!

Please respond in the comments or to my email - doubleones at gmail.com