Crowd Surfing?

[Marlow]

Salutations Readers,

Just got back into playing after a few years break and we had a question about crowd surfing in my first game last night.

Orc (O) wants to block Wight (W) who is standing on the edge of the pitch to his NE. With a prone player (X) next to him.
Push Back Squares are N, NE - Both off Pitch; E - Into Prone Player.
---
BWX
O..

My Opponent said I had to chain push X into an empty square and put the Wight there. I thought I could crowd-surf him. Who was correct?

[hissa-lives]

Salutations Readers,

Just got back into playing after a few years break and we had a question about crowd surfing in my first game last night.

Orc (O) wants to block Wight (W) who is standing on the edge of the pitch to his NE. With a prone player (X) next to him.
Push Back Squares are N, NE - Both off Pitch; E - Into Prone Player.
---
BWX
O..

My Opponent said I had to chain push X into an empty square and put the Wight there. I thought I could crowd-surf him. Who was correct?

from that image and blocking in a NE direction, like you say it's a surf. We had this in a league game last season and returning player thoght he could move like side step. Nope it's one of those 3 squares so surfed. In this case it was a skeleton on undead team and it died. Player rage quit and left the league even after it being pointed out in the rulebook

[GalakStarscraper]

Prone players occupy squares ... so no push back ... the Wight is surfed.

[Loki]

Yep, it's a surf. It's not just you 'can' surf in that example, if you are doing any sort of push then the defender 'must' go off the pitch.

[Regash]

The player must be pushed back into an empty square if possible. A square containing only the ball is considered empty and a player pushed to it will cause the ball to bounce (see page 13). If all such squares are occupied by other players, then the player is pushed into an occupied square, and the player that originally occupied the square is pushed back in turn. This secondary push back is treated exactly like a normal push back as if the second player had been blocked by the first (prone and stunned players may be pushed this way as well.). The coach of the moving team decides all push back directions for secondary push backs unless the pushed player has a skill that overrides this. Players must be pushed off the pitch if there are no eligible empty squares on the pitch.

I think this part of the rules clears it up.
A square with a prone player in it is not empty, otherwise you could use it for movement. But you can't.
So, with the only square to push into not being empty, you push into the crowd.
End of story.

[Marlow]

Thanks folks; I thought I was correct.