Kevin's Rule Requst - Off-Map Final Rushes

[rog5]

When stating two center points, this could mean a front center point and a flank center point is enough (as opposed to center points opposite to each other - front and rear, left flank and right flank) to get terrain benefits, right? 

I assume that any part of a card in terrain still results in movement penalties, right?

[Kevin]

When stating two center points, this could mean a front center point and a flank center point is enough (as opposed to center points opposite to each other - front and rear, left flank and right flank) to get terrain benefits, right? 

Correct.  (It would be really weird to have opposite points in a terrain piece without having at least one other.)

I assume that any part of a card in terrain still results in movement penalties, right?

Yeah, that's what I assume too.  A convoy moving as fast as its slowest ship and all that.  Rumor has it that there are different interpretations to the new rule, but hopefully those have been retracted.

[rog5]

Just wanted to make sure because a unit with a front and flank center point barely within the terrain may have around 15% of the card in terrain and get the bonus while a unit that is just shy of the front and rear center points within terrain may physically have 49% in terrain but not get the bonus.

Obviously, the counter to the second situation is a player paying attention to what is going on and maneuvering effectively.

Thanks for the response.

[gull2112]

See, now we play it differently. If you have two centerpoints in, then you are in the terrain and you pay the move penalties and get the combat bonuses for being in the terrain, otherwise you do not.

Our rationale being that the unit doesn't take up the full space of the card and it can squeeze around terrain just like it has a clear path if it can fit half its width through the space available.

This prevents someone from not paying for the hill and moving full speed and then claiming a height advantage during combat.

I prefer this because it doesn't have you ruling one way for one situation and another for a different situation, which inevitably leads to time wasted looking up the rule AND confusion in getting the conditions misremembered and screwing up which would not happen if you were really there and knew what your guys could do.

[Kevin]

I really don't know where this no-move-penalty-for-a-bit-of-the-card on terrain thing came about.  This discussion was about having 2 center points replace the 50% rule for benefits--mainly because it's a bitch to tell if 49.2% or 51.75% of a card is on a curvy piece of terrain.

But the rule of any bit of a card on slower terrain should slow you down has worked well, is logical, and should remain as is.

Saying units are really squeezing opens up a huge can of worms which is best avoided.  If you can "squeeze" to avoid a terrain, then why couldn't you "squeeze" to avoid an enemy unit?  And if you do allow units to "squeeze" to avoid enemy units, then you're rewriting half the final rush rules, and are forcing people to scrap a very simple measurement (will the cards overlap?) in favor of a very nasty, tricky measurement (will an acceptable amount of cards overlap?)

Allowing cards to overlap terrain at all without movement penalties is a huge mistake which I really hope will not end up in the next edition of the rules.

[gull2112]

I don't know Kevin, we play it that way and it is never a problem. You can't squeeze to avoid a Final Rush. There, problem solved.

But its not that big a deal. I played that way all through TotalCon and it never raised an eyebrow. If it needs to be formalized one way or the other I'm fine with that.

[Hannibal]

I really don't know where this no-move-penalty-for-a-bit-of-the-card on terrain thing came about.  This discussion was about having 2 center points replace the 50% rule for benefits--mainly because it's a bitch to tell if 49.2% or 51.75% of a card is on a curvy piece of terrain.

But the rule of any bit of a card on slower terrain should slow you down has worked well, is logical, and should remain as is.

Saying units are really squeezing opens up a huge can of worms which is best avoided.  If you can "squeeze" to avoid a terrain, then why couldn't you "squeeze" to avoid an enemy unit?  And if you do allow units to "squeeze" to avoid enemy units, then you're rewriting half the final rush rules, and are forcing people to scrap a very simple measurement (will the cards overlap?) in favor of a very nasty, tricky measurement (will an acceptable amount of cards overlap?)

Allowing cards to overlap terrain at all without movement penalties is a huge mistake which I really hope will not end up in the next edition of the rules.

Except its not at all consistent.  If a unit can compress down to final rush, there's no reason to think they can't compress to get around, say, a bend in the river.  Its the sort of thing that happened all the time among drilled units.

The whole "if it clips the whole unit is slowed" only seems logical because its the way every historical wargame out there has done it.  Because to do it any other way would be to create what amounts to center-points.  Which this game has already done.

Oh and the subject came up with the problem of units in terrain floundering towards javelin/pila units.  It was suggested there that one easy fix is to consistently apply the terrain rules, in this case 2 center-points in/on to be affected.

[Kevin]

Oh and the subject came up with the problem of units in terrain floundering towards javelin/pila units.  It was suggested there that one easy fix is to consistently apply the terrain rules, in this case 2 center-points in/on to be affected.

...and then we went with a different, viable fix which everyone suppports, and we lived happily ever after.


I will repeat the question:  by what logic can you "squeeze around" terrain but not "squeeze around" an enemy unit?


Oh, and please stop citing final rushes as a precedent for this crap.  I will now waste several minutes transcribing the beginning of the Final Rush section of the rulebook:

In the final seconds before engaging the enemy, when the command "CHARGE!" echoes through the air, troops forget about careful lockstep maneuvers and make a final rush toward the enemy.  The final rush rule represents this by allowing units to move more flexibly if they are within range to come to grips with an enemy.

The text makes it perfectly clear that final rushes are fundamentally different from all other movement.


Seriously Corey, I have the email you wrote 2 days ago saying you don't care one way or the other about this rule.  If you just enjoy getting me riled up, please find a way to do so that doesn't threaten to break the game (or, at minimum, add a big, hairy, oozing, red zit of logical inconsistency to its otherwise attractive face). 

May I suggest insulting my cat Zephyr?

[Niko White]

I'm not wedded to one or the other, particularly.  There are, in my mind, two reasons to prefer the "two center point" thing:

-Only one test to remember, rather than two
-It feels cheap to suffer the penalty for terrain but not get a benefit like cover

These are both relevant, but not so super relevant that I feel like going the other way is a deal-breaker.  In all cases, though, we're trying to get the abstraction that will be most pleasing most of the time.

[Hannibal]

I will repeat the question:  by what logic can you "squeeze around" terrain but not "squeeze around" an enemy unit?

Because when you break formation to step around a tree, it won't reach out and brain you.   

Oh, and please stop citing final rushes as a precedent for this crap.  I will now waste several minutes transcribing the beginning of the Final Rush section of the rulebook:

Then please don't throw a temper tantrum every time someone dares disagree with The Almighty Kevin, Mmmkay? 

The text makes it perfectly clear that final rushes are fundamentally different from all other movement.

The text is a piece of fluff.  Its use in justifying or negating precedent has about the same purpose as my son's baby wipes.

Seriously Corey, I have the email you wrote 2 days ago saying you don't care one way or the other about this rule.  If you just enjoy getting me riled up, please find a way to do so that doesn't threaten to break the game (or, at minimum, add a big, hairy, oozing, red zit of logical inconsistency to its otherwise attractive face). 

Well, I'm not trying to rile you up.  But I know that with the ranged fire tweaks, it'll take all of about 67.39 minutes after you play a game where a crucial unit gets shot up for an extra turn because its corner clips some forest before you post up some histrionic screed about how the ranged fire tweaks are "a a bad idea and need to be forgotten."   

(Now I'm trying to rile you up.)   

I'll be honest I'm not that fired up about this.  It's in the same category as the "Endgame CA surplus."  It's something that should be tweaked but not a huge deal.  I suggested it during the pila debate as a general commentary on terrain and ranged fire.  I also think its worth testing out.

We can have a discussion about the need for it and the effectiveness for it, but your argument that because a unit can break formation in a charge but not on the march to step around the same terrain is just laughable.  Given that most units are relatively loosely organized (probably closer to the "heroic" style of 3-5 feet between each man instead of the "Hellenic" 12-18 inches), it's perfectly consistent that they could advance around relatively small pieces of terrain without the entire unit loosing cohesion.  In fact, maintaining cohesion on a charge was traditionally harder than stepping around smallish obstacles.

So yes, there is a parallel between being able to final rush around something and being able to march around it.

[elgin_j]

See, now we play it differently. If you have two centerpoints in, then you are in the terrain and you pay the move penalties and get the combat bonuses for being in the terrain, otherwise you do not.

I've been playing incorrectly for a long time (no idea why) - the unit had to be 50% in the terrain feature to get any bonus/penalty inclusive.  I shall play correctly forthwith.

I will voice some dissent about the bonuses as a result of two centre points, though.  You could have less than 1/8 of a card in terrain but have that include 2 centre points, more for colossal which could have a fraction of a single card in terrain to count.  It should be 50% (or the best part thereof) of the unit to apply bonuses which is easy to judge by applying it to 3 centre points for single card units and 5 for colossal.

[BubblePig]

Looks like I need to start a separate thread for the terrain rules. I checked this thread thinking the large number of recent posts had at least a passing relevance to final rushes. 

By the way, the two center points on terrain to suffer bad effects is a bad idea IMO. Furthermore, I think that even if it is not a bad idea, it is a bad time to test it out. I was planning on field testing a select few of the NEEDED rule changes, but you need several games with just one change (possibly 2 if you think you can parse them) for the data to be meaningful at all. Currently, we have half-a-dozen or so and this one is solidly the last on my list unless all the others get scrapped.

[Hannibal]

Agreed.  Put it last on the list until the others have been tested out.