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I feel like this has probably been answered elsewhere, but I cannot locate it.

Are heroes allowed to engage with a different enemy after each round of combat? Or must they stay with the enemy they've engaged until either is defeated or withdraws?

Example: Hero A is engaged with a troll. Hero B is engaged with an orc. Hero A takes a pounding, so Hero B wants to step in to give his buddy some breathing room. When the next combat round starts, they're allowed to switch after choosing stances, yes? It's this sidebar on 96 that confuses me: "Engaged combatants remain as such until all opposition is defeated, or until they leave combat."

Thanks for any clarity!

No.

In the sidebar "Unengaged Heroes", it states that players heroes may find themselves unengaged - at which point, then they may find a new target. Despite the specific situation you've asked about not being addressed by the CRB (that I can remember), the intention is implicit. Flavour-wise, it also makes sense; you can't normally just disengage without special actions because you have to be wary of that enemy is doing - if you just walk away, they'll just stab you. That's not going to change just because another enemy is close enough for you to hit.

You'd have to disengage normally (assuming you don't want to kill the enemy or wait for them to disengage first), and then engage the enemy again the next round. The rules for this are found in the "Fly, You Fools!" sidebar on p104.

This touches something we also were not quite clear about: Is the adventurer required to engage an enemy? Or is it possible to stand aside (i.e. being neither in melee nor backward stance) to perform one of the alternative actions (intimidate foe, rally comrades, protect companion)?
From the rules it seems that these actions still require the adventurer to be in one of the melee stances, thus implicitly being required to choose an enemy to engage.

So, it depends on the scenario.

If enemies outnumber Player-Heroes, then no, it doesn't work that way. Enemies pick unengaged Player-Heroes in close combat stances until there are none left unengaged. Therefore, you cannot be in, say, Forward Stance and not be engaged.

If Player-Heroes outnumber the enemies, then yes, I suppose you could hold back, enter a close combat stance and not be engaged at that point. For example, 3 orcs attack the Fellowship. Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli enter into Forward stances to attack. Legolas enters Rearward stance to shoot his bow. Merry enters a Defensive stance but remains unengaged.

This is taken from p96-97. That you're not forced to engage is implied by the phrase "free to" in the sidebar "Unengaged Heroes", p97.

Personally, I'd argue that the Defensive stance action, Protect Companion, isn't valid. To protect them, you'd need to be pretty close, in engagement range, so you'd have to be engaged to actually protect them with your shield or whatever. The other two do not rely on being close to anyone in any sense (beyond being in the same general battle space) to be effective, so they're fine. I'll highlight that this isn't RAW and just a personal ruling.

That sounds eminently reasonable. Thank you!

QUOTE: If Player-Heroes outnumber the enemies, then yes, I suppose you could hold back, enter a close combat stance and not be engaged at that point. For example, 3 orcs attack the Fellowship. Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli enter into Forward stances to attack. Legolas enters Rearward stance to shoot his bow. Merry enters a Defensive stance but remains unengaged END QUOTE

I don't think that Merry can do this. Even in this scenario. If you choose Forward Open or Defensive, you ARE in Close Combat and MUST engage an adversary. (Page 97 More Player-Heroes than enemies or equally matched. Its the first case, Merry would have to engage a foe already taken by Aragorn Boromir or Gimli.)

The "free to" in the Break-Out box on Page 97 occurs if your foe is dispatched between your last combat attack in the previous Round and the time when it is your PCs time to attack on the following Combat round.

e.g. Boromir Aragorn Merry Gimli & Legolas are attacked by four foes. Only Legolas can stay back in Rearward. The LM puts three foes forward as "eligible targets" two orcs and an Uruk, while the 4th foe (another Orc) stands back. Boromir and Gimli get one orc each, while the Uruk is taken on by both Aragorn AND Merry .
Round 1 Merry in Forward and Aragorn in Open are both attacking an Uruk. Merry hits but does not kill. Aragorn - fighting AFTER Merry in Round 1 - hits and almost kills the Uruk. [All other combat in Round 1 does not kill any Player-Hero or Adversary.]
In Round 2 Both Aragorn and Merry are still Engaged and both need to choose a Stance for this Round. Aragorn chooses Forward while Merry goes Defensive. Now Aragorn gets a blow in first and finishes the Uruk. [I think this is exactly the sort of case intended in the Break out box of Page 97.] Merry has seen Aragorn finish the Uruk: and he has the opportunity to now attack either (say) the goblin that Gimli is trying to kill (another ENGAGED FOE) , OR he can charge in against an Orc Archer hovering behind the now dead Uruk (this Archer would be an UNENGAGED foe at the start of Round 2)

Well, that's how I read it. Player-heroes in close combat stances MUST take part in close combat until every foe is dead. (with the overall cop-out that the LM may always allow narrative to take priority and PERMIT an alternative situation for a unique combat situation).

(Oh. I agree with the first part of the answer,

QUOTE If enemies outnumber Player-Heroes, then no, it doesn't work that way. Enemies pick unengaged Player-Heroes in close combat stances until there are none left unengaged. Therefore, you cannot be in, say, Forward Stance and not be engaged. END QUOTE)

Rereading it, and I actually do agree that's RAW.

However, I do feel that my original interpretation is better. If Merry is injured, he won't want to engage, I don't think it's unreasonable to let him go into Defensive stance so that, if Aragorn gets knocked aside by a Great Orc Bodyguard on the first hit and the orc comes looking for Merry for his second strike, he can have the defensive bonus.

@ Linklite about Merry being injured.

I agree with you: the LM can overrule RAW as and when they feel the compelling need to. Its the players and their game that is the priority.

I agree about the pg 97 sidebar, but being unable to change opponents reduces the strategic options and lessens the cinematic feel of the game imo.

The classic example is all over the LoTR movies. Legolas in rearward stance sees one of his comrades in trouble and rushes in (changes stances) to engage an enemy about to deliver a killing blow and give his ally some breathing room. They essentially swap places and their opponent is still engaged, just with a different hero. I certainly can see restricting this if the heroes are spread out, but I imagine a battlefield is dynamic and fluid. Good fighters can reposition themselves to engage specific opponents.

The call out text on pg 96 is also confusing: "Engaged combatants remain as such until all opposition is defeated, or until they leave combat." ALL opposition? So once you're engaged in close combat, you can't disengage and go rearward? Even if you outnumber the enemy? It says ALL opposition. If it said "Engaged combatants remain as such until their opponent is defeated." wouldn't that be more accurate?

Sorry to pick nits on this, everyone. It's just muddy enough to be confusing for me. I wish there was a combat example endorsed by FL somewhere.

Just a couple of things:

If a Troll is fighting Frodo and Legolas comes in to relieve Frodo, the troll engages both. It might focus on the mighty Elven warrior, but it still has the option of attack Frodo...even if it does focus on Legolas for obvious reasons. Frodo can then disengage...personally, in this situation, I'd grant an advantage to Frodo's disengage roll since Legolas is distracting the Troll. Whether that's 1d or 2d I haven't made up my mind. I don't think it's automatic because the Troll could just ignore Legolas or still have an eye on Frodo while trying to ward off the Elf.

I'm also wondering about your quote, in my PDF it states:

Engaged combatants remain as such until their opposition is defeated, or until they leave combat.

That's quite an important difference to "all opposition", and may help your understanding of what's going on. Once engaged, a Player-Hero remains engaged until the opponent dies, the PH dies or someone succeeds at disengaging. As for whether you can change to being Rearward... it's not clear. I'd rule not, unless you have disengaged and moved out of immediate combat range. Rearward isn't so much a place of feet, but a physical location where you can be reasonably assured that no one is about to klonk you on the head.