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Post by Tony Aguilar on Aug 24, 2016 15:12:18 GMT
We had this situation happen last night. Hopefully we were correct. My Roman Blade (brown bases) got themselves into a bit of a pickle and a unit of Libyan Spear (green bases) moved to act as an overlap and in doing so denied the blade a recoil.  Since it seems like “Buttocks of Death” is nerfed in this situation (only the Blade would die if outscored, not both) The question would be is can the Spear even move into this position with their rear "touching" the rear of the Blade?  |
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Post by bob on Aug 24, 2016 15:36:48 GMT
Contacting elements rear to rear is not a legal contact. Why not hit one of those blades in the flank? Or overlap the lower blade with a millimeter space between the top blade. If it recoils then next bound if it doesn't move it's got rear to rear contact. You get the same effect if you flank that Lower blade.
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Post by Tony Aguilar on Aug 24, 2016 16:20:27 GMT
Contacting elements rear to rear is not a legal contact. Why not hit one of those blades in the flank? Or overlap the lower blade with a millimeter space between the top blade. If it recoils then next bound if it doesn't move it's got rear to rear contact. You get the same effect if you flank that Lower blade. Ok. We couldn't find (within the scope of a game) if this was allowed or not. Because it was providing an overlap, we thought it might. We are always looking for situations that maximize the killing power, especially in situations whereone player or the other needs to end the game THAT bound. There are other options available as you stated. |
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Post by timurilank on Aug 24, 2016 16:23:32 GMT
I would suggest looking ahead a bound and do the following:
Spear makes contact with blade 1 at centre of the photo sealing its fate if it recoils.
The single spear facing blade 2 in lower corner, odds are it will recoil as a combat result.
If so, blade 2 is now in side-edge contact with the spear facing the same direction.
Player spear on his bound turns to flank and seals the fate of blade 2.
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Post by Tony Aguilar on Aug 24, 2016 16:39:59 GMT
I would suggest looking ahead a bound and do the following:
Spear makes contact with blade 1 at centre of the photo sealing its fate if it recoils.
The single spear facing blade 2 in lower corner, odds are it will recoil as a combat result.
If so, blade 2 is now in side-edge contact with the spear facing the same direction.
Player spear on his bound turns to flank and seals the fate of blade 2.
The other player needed to seal the deal on this bound and wanted to get the -1 for flanking the one blade in support of the one spear and also give the other one a "no recoil situation." Now we know that cheek-to-cheek contact cannot be made, so it is not an option. |
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Post by sheffmark on Aug 25, 2016 13:42:23 GMT
Can I ask what options the top most Sp has?
Presumably it is in the TZ of the Bd so does anyone play that option b) of TZ moves allows it to move out to the side and then come forward to form an overlap by providing corner to corner contact with the Bd? (Option b says "to advance into or towards contact with such an enemy").
When I asked about this in a game I was told, that's not allowed as it's moving it out of the TZ.
If true it doesn't seem to work well in this situation as it would take two bounds to do that, one to move back out of the TZ and two to move back in, which looking at the situation seems a bit of a nonsense?
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Post by Tony Aguilar on Aug 25, 2016 14:42:03 GMT
Can I ask what options the top most Sp has? Presumably it is in the TZ of the Bd so does anyone play that option b) of TZ moves allows it to move out to the side and then come forward to form an overlap by providing corner to corner contact with the Bd? (Option b says "to advance into or towards contact with such an enemy"). When I asked about this in a game I was told, that's not allowed as it's moving it out of the TZ. If true it doesn't seem to work well in this situation as it would take two bounds to do that, one to move back out of the TZ and two to move back in, which looking at the situation seems a bit of a nonsense? I understand that it is as you were told (and yes, it does seem like a bit of nonsense.) That is just how the rules are written in this case.  At least in DBA 3.0 that Sp can fight someone to its front if they contact them as they are in that configuration. |
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Post by sheffmark on Aug 30, 2016 12:33:32 GMT
Can I ask what options the top most Sp has? Presumably it is in the TZ of the Bd so does anyone play that option b) of TZ moves allows it to move out to the side and then come forward to form an overlap by providing corner to corner contact with the Bd? (Option b says "to advance into or towards contact with such an enemy"). When I asked about this in a game I was told, that's not allowed as it's moving it out of the TZ. If true it doesn't seem to work well in this situation as it would take two bounds to do that, one to move back out of the TZ and two to move back in, which looking at the situation seems a bit of a nonsense? I understand that it is as you were told (and yes, it does seem like a bit of nonsense.) That is just how the rules are written in this case. At least in DBA 3.0 that Sp can fight someone to its front if they contact them as they are in that configuration. Surely they can only fight someone to their front if they are in that element's TZ? So if the flanking Sp was an enemy blade they couldn't contact it because that isn't one of the allowable options for an element in a threat zone? I never understood why this rule was changed from 2.2 as I would have thought that an intervening friendly element took away any potential threat from an enemy? |
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Post by lkmjbc on Aug 30, 2016 17:01:28 GMT
Mark:
I'm lost somewhat with your remark/example... ZOCs became xray to prevent intervening elements from blocking threat zones... and some of the moves that allowed.
Elements in a threat zone are not allowed to move to one corner contact because it allows an element to "leave" a threat zone (and this is very easy to abuse).
It also helps align the game with DBMM... though that was a minor consideration.
Joe Collins
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Post by txwargamer on Sept 1, 2016 0:37:37 GMT
I love these questions and analysis that is put forth. Just like evaluating chess positions.
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Post by sheffmark on Sept 1, 2016 14:57:01 GMT
Mark: I'm lost somewhat with your remark/example... ZOCs became xray to prevent intervening elements from blocking threat zones... and some of the moves that allowed. Elements in a threat zone are not allowed to move to one corner contact because it allows an element to "leave" a threat zone (and this is very easy to abuse). It also helps align the game with DBMM... though that was a minor consideration. Joe Collins Hi Joe Not sure what some of the moves were that this rule change wanted to stop? However I'll, take your word for it that people were abusing it. Come to think about it, I vaguely remember someone once nudging a corner in front of an enemy element and claiming that broke the TZ, was that the sort of thing? It just seems weird looking at it on the table top, don't you think? I agree that in the middle of a battle line you probably have back ranks holding firm/shoving to provide support to the troops in front. But with an open flank surely the temptation would be to flow around, (provided you'd got troops that were occupying the enemy in front) and attack that unprotected flank? I doubt they'd back off first. One of the other effects of this rule is that if you have two elements behind each other and they are attacked by two elements in line, the second element in the column can't come out and stop the enemy hard flanking them, again which seems a bit strange given the often dire consequences of being hard flanked! However I really like DBA as it got me back into Ancient wargaming when I just couldn't get on with 6th Edition and I must admit I've benefitted from this rule, as well as being caught by it on occasions. Cheers |
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Post by medievalthomas on Sept 1, 2016 15:49:47 GMT
Rule was changed to prevent the dread MM cancel of TZ. (In other words players would put one mm of a base in a TZ which because of the "rolling carpet" interp negated the entire TZ. Made no sense at scale of DBA and lead to lots of cheese. Getting rid of this was important but method was imperfect. Flashlight was one method (uncovered TZ still counts) but you also want to prevent back ranks that are giving CF support from leaving the fight to move off on some other project.
So you get X-Ray. Draw back is where element is not giving support and TZ fully blocked it seems logical that they could still move. But overall better than what we had.
Its really odd that an element can't at least move into an overlap position (corner contact) with a TZing element. Bizzarally if there is another enemy element exerting a TZ than you can move into corner contact to confront that element (so while your element is too terrified by a TZ to move into corner contact it will do so if it gets to directly confront an enemy elemnent. Makes no sense and is one of the few total 3.0 screwups). Its an interp that got pushed on us to make it play the same as DBMM - I would rather have fixed the problem in both systems rather than extend it into DBA3.0. Fortunetly it doesn't come up much (and we ignore the interp at home but you have to use it in tournaments).
Even with that said I have no desire to ever go back to the mm cheese of "rolling carpet". So glad to see that rule in my rear view mirror.
TomT
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Post by lkmjbc on Sept 1, 2016 16:47:51 GMT
What Tom said... except the moving to a corner I see as fraught with abuse. Though one could help prevent that misuse with extra wording and rules.
The end result was that flashlight was probably better, but X-Ray was simpler and was what DBMM used. Phil picked X-Ray.
Both work better than the 2.2 usage.
Joe Collins
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Post by sheffmark on Sept 13, 2016 12:52:53 GMT
Thanks guys, really interesting and honest feedback.
I was thinking along the lines of maybe any uncovered TZ still exerted influence, but it appears this is your 'Flashlight' version which was already considered.
Cheers
Mark
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