SFR, Inc.

[RadRyan]

Situation:

I just tried teaching my brother to play and after I captured an 8th face at the frontier he attacked me with missiles from his home terrain. I allowed it…

(it didn’t create a ridiculous action within a hypothetical FANTASY-BATTLE scenario, unless we begin to presume that each terrain is too far from the others to shoot arrows between them, and it did not seem, at the time, to give one player an overall unfair advantage.)

...and after a few turns he’s killed off all my units at the 8 and I lost a few turns later. Maybe this is an important discrepancy in the rules, or maybe the rules allow for a missile strategy to negate the advantage the 8th face gives a player. I have suggestions for how to resolve the discrepancy, if there is one, and if it hasn’t been resolved already:

Rules

The rules on the 8th face state: “3.) The army can use melee, missile, or magic as it sees fit, but enemy armies at the terrain are restricted to only melee attacks.”
And
The rules for missile actions state that: “Missile actions can target enemy armies at the same terrain (i.e. opposing armies), or can reach an enemy army up to one terrain away…”

Analysis:

Under these rules my brother could avoid my double saves 8th face advantage and an imminent counter-attack in a melee attack attempt and deplete me from the safety of a nearby terrain with missiles. This is a very good strategy, (It negates the added risk of melee attacking someone with double saves) but I wonder that since the opposing army at my eighth face is prevented from using missiles, and therefor prevented from avoiding a counter attack, armies at other terrains should be prevented from avoiding a counter attack.

Would that make the eighth face advantage to strong? If not then I suggest giving the eighth face holding army an immediate counter attack with missiles.

One (if not the main) theory of rule construction that I’ve gleaned from the forums is that since the dice, the icons, and the rules are abstractions from a generalized FANTASY-BATTLE scenario (armies engaged in realistic battle situations with fantasy elements like magic) the effects of the rolls, the icons, and rules should make sense within a FANTASY-BATTLE scenario.
The clearest example I can think of is that since the numbers on the terrain die (inversely) represent distance (how far the armies are from one another) the action-icons on the terrain die make sense because armies wouldn’t be throwing swords at each other when arrows make more sense, and a counter-attack makes sense during a melee action since, when in a battle, units can swing swords at each other simultaneously.

Thus, rules that create absurd or ridiculous actions in a hypothetical FANTASY-BATTLE scenario are bad rules. A rule interpretation that has units using swords at a great distance (throwing them?) does not make sense (unless magic) is a bad interpretation.

Interpreting the rules to allow my brother’s missile attack against my army at my eighth face does not create an absurd or ridiculous action as abstracted from a hypothetical FANTASY-BATTLE scenario. That is, it would not be ridiculous or absurd if shooting arrows from one terrain to another is not already ridiculous or absurd. (An argument could be made that shooting arrows from one terrain to another is ridiculous since terrains are presumed far from one another.)

The other way to interpret rules is that if they create such an unfair advantage for one player that the game breaks. Here, rules that make the game uninteresting or not fun are not good rules or interpretations of rules, and the rules should explicitly prevent these interpretations. The rule, suggested elsewhere, of the staggered start, where the player taking the first turn only gets one march prevents the big advantage that player has over all the others, and is therefore a good rule since it makes the game more playable and fun. (Maybe rules creating ridiculous actions in a FANTASY-BATTLE scenario, such as shooting arrows from one terrain to another, are still good rules because they improve gameplay.)

I haven’t played enough to see how strong the eighth face advantage really is and if my brother’s missile-from-a-neighbor-terrain strategy is necessary to keep the game interesting. If his strategy is too strong for overall gameplay then maybe giving the eighth face a simultaneous missile counter attack against other terrains is a good rule, or it is not a good rule because it makes the eighth face advantage too strong and would make the game unbalanced or it creates a ridiculous scenario where missile actions between terrains becomes the dominant strategy.

I think his strategy was a good one, but is there a rule that negates it?
I like talking rules, and theorizing so I’m interested in helping with a new clearly written rule book that addresses as many questions as possible so you don’t spend too long on the forum or play to long using bad rules.
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[chuckpint]

So it sounds like from what was said, it was played corrected. However, it's possible from what you didn't say, it was played incorrectly. So let's go through it.

It does not matter if you have the eighth face or not, if you are at the frontier, all armies can shoot missiles at you (that includes Amazons in reserves). Now what you didn't say, is how many units you had at the frontier, and what kind of units they were. Any time an army holding an eighth face rolls for saves (or maneuvers) they get to double their results. So unless he was getting great missile rolls, or you were getting next to no saves, you should have been able to save against that missile damage. Also, what did you try and do about it? Since you can cast magic, you could have put up all kind of defenses. Wall of Fog and Dancing lights halve missile. Open Grave, Watery Doubles, Stone Skin and the like give you saves.

Many people here on the forums would say that the eighth face advantage is already too much.

BTW, the "distance" between armies at terrains varies as the terrains go up and down. By definition, the distance between terrains, is just within missile range. Never melee range. So it turns out that the distance between armies at a terrain at missile is the same as the distance between two "adjacent" terrains. As you said, it's an abstract construct, there is no actual distance spelled out.

So in short, while I could see this happening it a poorly defended eighth face or a very strong missile army, this is not the norm.
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Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[RadRyan]

That's how it went down: I had 5-health at the eight and he had 8-10 health of missile loaded units and he had some good rolls to my bad rolls.

If it doesn't come out that way much then the rules as are seem fair. Missile attacking an eight is a great strategy, it's much better than attacking an 8 head on.

And on another note, I think that "staggered start" is a good rule too.
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[Dolus]

I also wonder based on one of the things you said, when he shot at you with missiles at your 8th face terrain at the frontier, did you still double your saves? It doesn't matter where the attack came from, your army at the 8th face always doubles its saves.

[RadRyan]

I did. I couldn't double zero. Fun game, I just lost all my troops to those arrows of his.
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