Slitherine

Hi,

We'd appreciate some help with a scenario that arose in a game last night :

Key: each base represented by two letters.

____K1
____K2
____K3
____K4


LFLFLFLFLFLF


LHLHLHLH
LHLHLHLH


Situation:

1. A single-ranked BG of LF are evading from the charges of two LH BGs. A BG of 4 friendly Kn in column are behind the LF.
2. After VMDs, the LF's evade is enough to take them as far as K2 - this is with a plus of 1 MU for the VMD. This is far enough to outdistance the LH if the Kn weren't there. If for some reason the LF can't get through or around the Kn then they will be caught.

The short question is how should this be played out?

What we thought/did:

From the rules:
- evaders interpenetrate friends if allowed, p. 32
- LF can go through Kn but don't have move to clear fully. But LF can pass through if room beyond (tick) and they do not exceed normal move distance by more than 2 MUs (fail this condition because their VMD plus extra move to clear the Kn is greater than 2 MU). p. 22.
- so, next bullet point as re-written for post v6: In all other cases... bases that reach the Kn are placed on the other side!!! really? Does this mean that the whole BG moves to the other side of the Kn in a nice line or just the bases in the middle of the evading BG?

There is a caveat on pg 32 for the second bullet of evading that says that a BG cannot be split but this might be read as only pertaining to that bullet.

We weren't sure whether this was a case for the LF to burst through to the other side of the Kn or to stop at K4 as being a move as far as it can p. 33.

Help on working this one through would be much appreciated

Steve

PS - and if any one can help with our terrain question that would also be appreciated.

Hi Steve

We will need to add that to our list of clarries perhaps although I think with the diagramms it is a lot clearer.

The bases passing thorugh and stopping realates to the following position

LF
KN to KN
KN KN
KN KN
LF
LF
LF

So it it is for BGs in mujltiple ranks where a second rank wouldn't get into the inteperpenetrated BG leading to what we called a partial interpenetration.

In your case they do just pass through ifg the rank reaches and other bases need to stay in legel formation with those that pass through - so they go too. Yep it end sup nice and simple in this case.

Hope that helps

Si

Thanks for the response.

The solution is certainly simple and neat although I think all parties on the night would have been surprised.

It seems that the magic teleport move is back! We appreciate the need to make comprises to keep the game workable etc but nobody from either side of our doubles game that night thought that the whole line of evaders should jump to the end of the column of Knights and retain formation!

From a gameplay and umpiring perspective this is good in that it makes the interpenetration rules straightforward. However, it does seem to go against the tip in the rules about being careful with skirmishers in case they get caught - as long as all ranks of the evaders can reach the front rank of friends behind then all is well no matter how deep the friends.

Thanks again for clearing it up for us - we probably tried to make it more complicated than it needed to be because visually it seemed wrong.

Cheers,

Steve

stevoid wrote:It seems that the magic teleport move is back! We appreciate the need to make comprises to keep the game workable etc but nobody from either side of our doubles game that night thought that the whole line of evaders should jump to the end of the column of Knights and retain formation!

I should perhaps point out that this only happened because the LF were in a shallow formation. Only the ranks whose move reach the friendly BG pass through, the remaining ranks stay on the wrong side.

This applies if it is a permitted interpenetration - which it always will be for LF.

If it is a burst through, (e.g. by LH) evaders do teleport through if there is room beyond, but are destroyed if there isn't. (e.g. there is a second BG behind the one reached).

It seems that the magic teleport move is back! We appreciate the need to make comprises to keep the game workable etc but nobody from either side of our doubles game that night thought that the whole line of evaders should jump to the end of the column of Knights and retain formation!

One of the design philosophies is to think in phases of action rather than a strict timeframe. Taken this way the move is quite reasonable as having decided to bug out they do so. The fact that it would take 3 minutes not 2 in real time doesn't perhaps matter - more important to capture the psirit that they have evaded behind the protection of friends in this instance.

There are a number of areas where the rukles reflect phases of battle rather than time - e.g. an Impact phase is perhaps only 30 seconds of action at most where a melee phase might be 5 minutes. However the feel is right as 2 level pieces as the effect of either can be similar.

Si

All that makes sense. I guess the overriding thing is that they had the move to evade the chargers in our scenario. It looked strange because the mechanism lets them jump to the end of the column behind them but I guess this reflects the reality that they would have parted around the column and reformed once beyond.

The only inconsistency I can see is that where the interpenetrators are in multiple ranks and all don't reach as per Richard's post, the BG is then split and becomes disordered, but if all reach then they are allowed to move beyond the BG reached - instead of being placed in the middle - and suffer no disorder. The former case seems like an early snapshot of what happens in the second case but in one the interpenetrators are disordered and the other they aren't.

We can certainly live with it. The main thing is that it is clear what to do in a game situation, so thanks again for clarifying this all for us.

Cheers,

Steve

never a problem; always a pleasure

have fun

Si

Being one of the other players in the game I'm pretty comfortable with this as well. As Steve said we took a guess based partly on what we thought might happen (more from the worst result for the routers point of view). It seems pretty simple overall so that is a positive (& it was a slightly unusual situation).

Cheers,

Greg