Art De La Guerre

[lionelrus]

[SteveR]

Hi Lionel,

Are you sure?

It seems a bit fiddly to mark the position of multiple units at the beginning of the game in order to make sure that the Commander was in command distance when he (or she) is placed.

And what happens when the place the player plans to place the commander becomes unavailable due to subsequent enemy movement? After all one cannot impose a retroactive CP penalty turns later.

There are simpler solutions but of course my objection sounds like when King Alfonso X of Castile had Ptolomy's astronomical theory explained to him. At that time each planet needed between 40 and 60 epicycles superimposed on each other in order to explain the motion of the planets in the sky to the limits of observational accuracy. Supposedly he said that if had been present at creation he might have offered the creator some excellent advice on simplification. You may very well be right.

[lionelrus]

Don't forget, Steve, questions are generaly about cases which never occurs....
_________________
"Quand on a pas de technique, faut y aller à la zob"
Perceval à Yvain et Gauvain.

[SteveR]

Hi Lionel,

Yes, hypothetical edge cases often don't matter.

However your answer indicates that ANY time a commander is placed in ambush that the beginning position of other units in his command not part of the ambush should be marked to ensure compliance.

And that is not all that rare - my opponent had a commander in ambush when I played in Lisbon and we did not mark anything.

I see an issue with marking and find it fiddly. It still might be the rule despite my discomfort however.

[lionelrus]

[Za Otlichiye]

Arguably, it is impossible to deploy in command range when the commander is not placed, because command range is measured from base to base and commander's base isn't on table. As there are rules for out of command units, you could interpret the "unless in ambush" to apply to either the unit or the commander. Assuming no one comes up with an effective strategy to put the commander in ambush and deploy the corps around the extremes of the deployment box, that is.

[Dickstick]

[Hazelbark]

[SteveR]

We had a French Graduate Student at the University of Michigan play with our local group some years ago. I gave him a ride to the games and always stopped at Taco Bell. After the first visit he took along his own food. Some people just can't appreciate delicious local ethnic meals.

I don't see marking deployments on paper as fixing the problem. Precise deployment is not required by page 78 - only the relative position of each command's deployment zone. Maps would not be accurate enough to show exact locations anyway sufficient to ensure compliance.

To my mind the fix is to either allow for symmetry - the ambush need not be withing command distance of the commander, and if the commander is in ambush other troops are not restricted to this distance either. But then pay the out of command CP cost to move.

Or require deployment within command distance of the ambush marker.

Leaving markers on the table to show where troops started seems kind of fussy to me but if that is the intent so be it.

[Mike Bennett]

[lionelrus]