Guides

[landmeister]

Dear all,

I've finally bought and used my first stratagem...Guides, and I have some questions. I purchased it for a craggy hill to be passed across by LH. The damned peasant got lost, so my LH column got stuck in the middle of impassable terrain  .

My opponent said that the hill had returned to its original impassable status and as LH can't be there, they were destroyed. I don't think this is the spirit of this rule, but I didn't found any reasoning in the rules to counterbalance his opinion. Finally he let me count my elements as spent  . Not so bad, after all.

Any help about this?

Thank you. 

[Platypus]

You are right. The rules are silent on this.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they were destroyed. Or even spent.

I would rule that they are stuck there for the rest of the game, unable to move.

I think the issue is that you cannot deploy in impassable terrain, or enter it. But being left in the middle of it is a possibility......

G^is,
JohnG

[landmeister]

Oh, How I hate this  :'(

Thank you after all.

[Tim Child]

You are right. The rules are silent on this.

I wouldn't go as far as to say they were destroyed. Or even spent.

I would rule that they are stuck there for the rest of the game, unable to move.

I think the issue is that you cannot deploy in impassable terrain, or enter it. But being left in the middle of it is a possibility......

G^is,
JohnG

Very sensible interp., and was my instant view of how I'd rule it in competition.  One for the Commentary, Toby?

Tim Child

[MikeCampbell]

My opponent said that the hill had returned to its original impassable status and as LH can't be there, they were destroyed.

I agree with the others.

And your opponent's reasoning is wrong too - the LH CAN be there - via a guides mechanism!

[landmeister]

Now a new question.

Let's suppose that the damned peasant didn't cheat me. It is supposed that my LH moves across the impassable hill at full speed because the guide counts as a road. But what would happen if an enemy would contact me before going out? The stratagem says that "...passage counts as if along a road."

If we then read how roads work we see that "Combat counts as in the going on its edges". Hos does combat count in impassable terrain? 

Thank you again.

[Tim Child]

CH are a species of difficult going (see p.19), so the LH will be at -2 for fighting in DGo.  They will also suffer a further -1 for "troops or terrain already in contact with its rear edge or rear corner would prevent any recoil". They will suffer combat outcomes as if in DGo too. 

Tim Child

[MikeCampbell]

Yeah - don't get caught!!

[landmeister]

CH are a species of difficult going (see p.19), so the LH will be at -2 for fighting in DGo.  They will also suffer a further -1 for "troops or terrain already in contact with its rear edge or rear corner would prevent any recoil". They will suffer combat outcomes as if in DGo too. 

Tim Child

A clear answer..finally!  . This is what I had thought, but I didn't remember the -1 for troops in preventing recoil terrain  . Excellent!

Thank you very much. 

[Platypus]

Yep, Guides is a clear case of caveat emptor!

Basically you do it at your own risk.......

I remember one of the first comps I ran in DBMM (SteelCon), when Tim Montromery threw a 1 half way across a largish steep hill with a column of knights.

How we laughed, and laughed....

JohnG

[Marcel Bos]

I would suggest that a path can't disappaer behind you.  Of course a path can halfway be unaccessible for further movement.
So I probably would allow my opponent to turn 180o, if those troops can of course, and follow the way back they came from.

[MikeCampbell]

I think paths actually can disappear behind you - and indeed be not visible to the front even tho you know you're on one.... paths do not always look the same from both directions - often they don't look like paths at all - they're "just" areas of less difficult going.

In addition the local may have been treacherous rather than merely incompetent- and led you deliberately to somewhere where the way out is hidden.