A Tale of Two Questions

[Teflon2017]

A friend and I were enjoying BOTB for the first time and ended up with two questions we couldn’t find answers to anywhere else:

1. Are units that are forced to retreat during Phase 2 Gnd Combat allowed to pay a token and conduct movement in Phase 3 or because they already moved (due to the retreat), is that the end of their ability to move for the rest of any given turn?

2. For the supply battle strip, if 1die hits the right count for supplies, then one supply token is destroyed. But, what is it if there are 3 Supply tokens in the hex, and there are 3 hits from the dice but there’s only one Supply token symbol on the battle strip. How does that work? Is it three Supply tokens destroyed or only one?

Thanks,
Col Tef

[Teflon2017]

@Teflon2017 oh, I should add that I meant 3 consecutive dice hits…

[Krieghund]

1. They are allowed to move. There is nothing in the rules to indicate they are not.
2. From page 16 of the Rulebook:

For each hit in the Supply box, one Supply token in the defending hex is destroyed.

[Teflon2017]

Okay, thank you Krieghund for the Speedy reply. Because you care (which is greatly appreciated), I would like to go a little bit deeper into the some of the thoughts that I have about the rulebook.

with respect to question one, is there a consistent application of this characteristic of the units that were in battle with respect to the attacking units? I read elsewhere in this BotB topic section that attacking units have to pay a token both in Phase 2 and phase 3 to conduct the battle and then to be able to move into the defeated hex. Of course, at the start of the rules for movement sect on pg 18, it would have been very helpful to mention that units that attacked in phase 2 must pay an “additional” token to move into the empty hex. It is not inherently obvious to the reader as one’s mind tends to shift gears when you start talking about a new phase. Since 90% of the rules are almost 180 degrees from standard axis and allies combat, the differences should have addressed much as possible as that is your most likely target audience. for example, should we assume there is a requirement for each of the units that participated in a Ph 2 combat to be required to move into the defeated hex, or can they pretty much activate for movement wherever they want to go even though they just won a battle?..which is always considered a significant happening in any of the games. Is there even a requirement for at least one unit to move into the defeated territory? none of this is clearly laid out in the rulebooklet.

Regarding question 2, I appreciate the frank direction to point to the page in the rulebook. unfortunately, the wording there is just as incomplete as in so many other places. Since the supply token battle strip only has 1 image, it immediately creates confusion in the mind of the player who is looking at the other battle strips which make designating multiple qtys of unit types possible depending on how many are in battle. if only having one image on the supply strip is because it is only intended for it to be hit once on each pass of the count…then say so! The examples provided on pg 15 for hit counts leave out the most important example which is how to address multiple hits on hexes with multiple Supply tokens. Example shows only one Supply token in the targeted hex. This is why the gentleman in the topic about hit counts on page 4 of this section had to provide several examples for you to adjudicate (found the article after I made this first post). Many Thanks…

[frimmel]

@Teflon2017 said in A Tale of Two Questions:

Okay, thank you Krieghund for the Speedy reply. Because you care (which is greatly appreciated), I would like to go a little bit deeper into the some of the thoughts that I have about the rulebook.

with respect to question one, is there a consistent application of this characteristic of the units that were in battle with respect to the attacking units? I read elsewhere in this BotB topic section that attacking units have to pay a token both in Phase 2 and phase 3 to conduct the battle and then to be able to move into the defeated hex. Of course, at the start of the rules for movement sect on pg 18, it would have been very helpful to mention that units that attacked in phase 2 must pay an “additional” token to move into the empty hex. It is not inherently obvious to the reader as one’s mind tends to shift gears when you start talking about a new phase. Since 90% of the rules are almost 180 degrees from standard axis and allies combat, the differences should have addressed much as possible as that is your most likely target audience. for example, should we assume there is a requirement for each of the units that participated in a Ph 2 combat to be required to move into the defeated hex, or can they pretty much activate for movement wherever they want to go even though they just won a battle?..which is always considered a significant happening in any of the games. Is there even a requirement for at least one unit to move into the defeated territory? none of this is clearly laid out in the rulebooklet.

Regarding question 2, I appreciate the frank direction to point to the page in the rulebook. unfortunately, the wording there is just as incomplete as in so many other places. Since the supply token battle strip only has 1 image, it immediately creates confusion in the mind of the player who is looking at the other battle strips which make designating multiple qtys of unit types possible depending on how many are in battle. if only having one image on the supply strip is because it is only intended for it to be hit once on each pass of the count…then say so! The examples provided on pg 15 for hit counts leave out the most important example which is how to address multiple hits on hexes with multiple Supply tokens. Example shows only one Supply token in the targeted hex. This is why the gentleman in the topic about hit counts on page 4 of this section had to provide several examples for you to adjudicate (found the article after I made this first post). Many Thanks…

I mentioned this in the other question. You have read things into the rules that are not in the rules. You have applied rules from other Axis and Allies games to this game and gotten confused when the game state did not make sense for resolving the rules that followed. No where does it say to move units into the hex you are attacking. You decided to do that and then became confused with the rules that were based on not doing that.

In D-Day, Guadalcanal, and Battle of the Bulge DO NOT bring rules from other Axis and Allies games in and DO NOT fall back on the way those games resolve things for things you have difficulty with in the rules. You will be wrong.

[Krieghund]

Regarding question 1, as Frimmel said, it’s important to not bring any baggage from other A&A games into the “battle” games, as their mechanics are very different. It would be inadvisable to point out those differences in the Rulebook, though, as that would simply confuse readers who have never played a strategic-level A&A game. It’s best for experienced A&A players to simply look at these games with a fresh eye, and it probably would have been good for the Rulebook’s author to note this in the introduction.

Regarding question 2, the reason why there is only one box on the Supplies combat strip is that, unlike with the combat units, there is no fixed stacking limit for Supplies. The combat units’ combat strips can have a fixed number of boxes due to their stacking limits, but the number of Supply tokens that can be in a hex is theoretically unlimited. Perhaps having an image of multiple tokens on the strip would reinforce the idea that multiple tokens may be hit, but the rules do clearly state so.