This is one way of handling it:
Treat as one contest. Player heroes start with ranged weapons while enemies charge. If enemies can't answer in kind, give player heroes hefty bonuses/edges (big potential for damage to the enemy, but not vice versa). This should put enemies at an AP disadvantage when close combat begins (APs are retained).
Player heroes can lose AP during the charge, the interpretation of which depends on what abilities the enemies were using.
This means that AP are based on non-close-combat abilities, even if normal combat ensues after a while. I don't have problem with that, since the only function of AP is to measure relative advantage. It doesn't matter how good you are with your sword when you are far away and have to close.
How many rounds it takes for the enemy to close could depend on how well the player heroes spotted them (simple contest). Another way of determining how long it takes for the enemy to close is this:
Enemies has to successfully perform 'unrelated' movement actions in order to close (which means a success doesn't affect player heroes' AP). The player heroes can resist this with more missiles, and if the enemies fail they suffer penalties on the next attempt.
This is another way:
Treat as several discrete contests. Enemies want to killhurtmaim but has to close first. Hence the first contest is an attempt to close, which the player heroes can attempt to thwart by raining missiles upon them. The enemy can't close until they have defeated the player heroes. If the enemy was well spotted before they could charge, they could suffer handicaps or penalties.
It might be useful to treat the charging enemy as a collective entity for the purpose of closing, since individual enemies probably won't want to close unless they have the others with them. Either all or noone close.
-- - Mikael Raaterova [.sig omitted on legal advice]
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