Evading when you can't go anywhere

[philqw78]

During yesterdays game I trapped some LF like this


__


____

My LF facing down
His LF facing up
My legions facing up, just over 1 MU away

Legion charge, LF evade, but go nowhere as they can't move. Legions roll 1 .
So this is what happens


__

___

My LF
His LF
MY legion

Obviously its how the rules are written, so I don't completely blame the cheesy b*^£"rd I was playing, but it is arse and something I hope could have been written out in V2. But I know it won't have been.

[grahambriggs]

I'm a little surprised that you didn't claim that the LF weren't evading so you didn't need a VMD.

In the Evade Moves section it says:

"Some troops are able to harass the enemy then retreat rapidly out of the way if charged. We call this evading."

and then in the obstructions bit

"must instead halt 1 MU away from any enemy battle group in its path, with no shifting or contraction being allowed at all, and if it starts closer to them than 1 MU, does not move at all."

So you might have used the logic:

- the LF don't move at all
- so that is not an "Evade Move"
- so I don't need a VMD as they aren't "evaders"

I give you a 10% chance of successfuully arguing that with a decent umpire. Perhaps 20% if you're playing Ruddock.

[philqw78]

I did say they hadn't moved so can't have evaded. But they didn't pass a test to stand so must evade.

It was Ruddock.

[dave_r]

Ive been waiting for this thread to appear

[dave_r]

In v2 i believe it is compulsory to evade with skirmishers.

[AlanCutner]

I had this situation at Britcon a couple of years ago. It was ruled the LF count as evading even though they don't move. And like Phil, my chargers failed to make contact. Stupid.

[bbotus]

And like Phil, my chargers failed to make contact. Stupid.

Why is it 'stupid'? The variables (dice) are there to insure you don't have complete control over your troops. For whatever reason you want to think up (and I can think of several), your troops didn't act fast enough to take advantage of the situation. Chess is the game to play if you want everything to go as planned.

[zoltan]

Clearly it is an evade move, but of zero MU. While perhaps frustrating surely it has simply prolonged the agony of the evaders for one or two moves?

[AlanCutner]

Stupid because the LF aren't really evading. They're trapped. Its a hole in the rules. Not a clever game mechanism.

[philqw78]

Clearly it is an evade move, but of zero MU. While perhaps frustrating surely it has simply prolonged the agony of the evaders for one or two moves?

Whilst the rest of the world stands still

[bbotus]

Whilst the rest of the world stands still

Of course, they stand still while you move and you stand still while they move. This is not a big deal. It is a game mechanism to give variability. Why do I sense you guys seem to have problems when the LF manage to get away. Personally, I don't begrudge them what little they can do.

NOTE: What is this? I type a word and it gets highlighted and underlined and an ad comes up (the word is "probl_ms"). I'm not doing it. I think the woman looks 53 but is 27.

[petedalby]

Why didn't you charge with the LF? Or both?

[kevinj]

I suspect that charging with both would have allowed the enemy LF to turn 90 degrees and squirt out sideways. But in practice this is one of those odd situations that happens very rarely and I can live with it. In my interpretation of the situation, the legionaries have cherged unenthusiastically as they know the cowardly LF will run away and the LF have bunched up in front of the other enemy.

[dave_r]

Why didn't you charge with the LF? Or both?

The three bg's of troops behind phils LF that were within intercept range

These forced Phils lf to then run away, meaning my lf got away scot free. It wasnt the best time to throw a one...

[shadowdragon]

I suspect that charging with both would have allowed the enemy LF to turn 90 degrees and squirt out sideways. But in practice this is one of those odd situations that happens very rarely and I can live with it. In my interpretation of the situation, the legionaries have cherged unenthusiastically as they know the cowardly LF will run away and the LF have bunched up in front of the other enemy.

There is no definition of "trapped" in the rules and hence we can't invoke a special rule that applies when "trapped". There are other circumstances that would be very similar but have the same "pathetic dice rolling" result.

In this case the LF are in contact with the legionaries LF and "don't move" but are "evading" so the legionaries must roll a variable "pursuit" move, which in this case is a "1" (interpretation - "What? You want us to charge those bunch of lower class bumpkins? Let our lower class bumpkins take care them.")

Another couple of cases:

1) The LF are not in contact with the legionaries LF but within 1 MU. The LF roll but don't move since the evaders "must instead halt 1 MU away from any enemy battle group in its path, with no shifting or contraction allowed at all, and if it starts closer to them then 1 MU, does not move at all". Notice this case is specifically mentioned under "evade moves" and therefore the LF, who do not move, are still considered "evaders".

2) The LF have a gap, but the contraction and move still leaves rear rank bases at 1 MU plus a bit from the legionaries. The legionaries still roll a "1" and don't catch the LF even though the LF have moved. Can't imagine anyone would suggest that the LF aren't "evaders" in this case or that the legionaries shouldn't roll for a variable pursuit distance. Yet, one could say the LF are "trapped" in this case too.

Can't have special rules to protect us from bad dice rolling.

[AlanCutner]

Can't have special rules to protect us from bad dice rolling.

There could be a rule that troops who cannot make an evade movement do not count as evaders.

The justification that rolling a 1 simply represents unenthusiastic troops does not hold water. If that were the case why don't we have a VMD for all chargers, even where they aren't charging evaders?

[shadowdragon]

Can't have special rules to protect us from bad dice rolling.

There could be a rule that troops who cannot make an evade movement do not count as evaders.

The justification that rolling a 1 simply represents unenthusiastic troops does not hold water. If that were the case why don't we have a VMD for all chargers, even where they aren't charging evaders?

A justification is only a justification in that it answers the question of whether or not the results of a rules mechanism are plausible. It isn't to suggest that one should start from the justifications to build rules mechanisms.

Of course we could have a VMD for all chargers, but that's a choice of the rules designers have to make - a variable or deterministic mechanism to determine outcomes. Deterministic avoids "unsavory" outcomes but variable adds more "spice" to the game. In this case they chose VMD only for evade-pursuit situations and not for all charge situations. The only value of a "justification" is whether or not the extreme result in this case is plausible or not. If it's implausible then we might consider changing the rule, otherwise we should just "live with it".

[philqw78]

Isn't there something in the rules about troops who are unable to complete an evade move being destroyed? This could have applied. If I could have remembered it.

[kevinj]

Isn't there something in the rules about troops who are unable to complete an evade move being destroyed? This could have applied. If I could have remembered it.

No, you're confusing that with routers. P67 covers a number of situations where evaders cannot complete their moves and is clear that they move as far as they can and "are likely to be caught". In this example they would be caught 5 times out of 6...

[shadowdragon]

Isn't there something in the rules about troops who are unable to complete an evade move being destroyed? This could have applied. If I could have remembered it.

I have the v1 rules in front of me and they read, "BG that cannot complete an evade move by any of the above means move as far as they can, and are likely to be caught." V2 reads exactly the same. I understand how irritating this might be - especially when playing against Dave R , but I'd rather keep the uncertainty. Otherwise we'll get into situations where people park their LF 1 MU plus 1 mm from enemy so that they can move that "1 mm" and claim to be "evading". I like a game where as much as possible the importance of micro-measurement is minimized since to me micro-measurement isn't very realistic.