Can you blitz through an enemy territory, into a friendly territory?

[CaptainNapalm]

Maybe it’s wishful thinking. Maybe it’s carry over from decades of Axis & Allies. But it does seem logical to me, that you should be able to blitz through an enemy territory, into a friendly territory, as you can in A&A. The plain reading of Global War rules would seem to disagree, in my opinion.

Global War - Units that can participate in a Blitz can now continue and initiate an Attack in an adjacent land zone.

Axis & Allies - A tank can “blitz” by moving through an unoccupied hostile territory as the first part of a move that can end in a friendly or hostile territory.

[Trig]

@captainnapalm I believe that you are right according to the “tells you what you can do, not what you can’t” principle. I also see no option to blitz to a friendly territory. It is a great tactical option, but doesn’t make much sense from a historical perspective, you were never going to go size land and then turn around and leave it, only go forwards.

[insaneHoshi]

The rules seem clear enough to me, you cant attack a friendly territory and thus you cant blitz out and attack a friendly territory.

[CaptainNapalm]

@insanehoshi I agree the rules seem clear, if not for them being seemingly so different than what I’m used to. It also doesn’t make much sense to me:

1. Attack and conquer a territory
2. Let’s go attack another territory!
   Can’t we just go back to our own lines?
   No. We can only attack more, or sit here. We can’t consolidate into friendly territory.

[Noneshallpass]

This is a definite no if there was combat on the first impulse.

Blitz rules are in the Combat Phase / Land Combat section (9.5).

Moving units into friendly territory is part of Non-Combat Movement and can only be performed by units that did not move during Combat Movement (10.1).

Moving into friendly territory on the second blitz impulse, would violate rule 10.1 since it is considered non-combat and these units already combat-moved.

However, rule 8.2 lists as an example of Combat Movement “Blitzing through an unoccupied Enemy land zone into another zone”.

It does not say “another Enemy zone”. Does this mean that if the first Enemy territory is empty, then the second territory could be friendly? I still don’t think so since the meaning of “blitz/blitzing” is explained in rule 9.5 and requires an attack.

I think this example was given to show that moving into Enemy territory, even if it is empty, still counts as Combat Movement.

To avoid any confusion it could be better is rule 8.2 mentionned “Blitzing through an unoccupied Enemy land zone into another Enemy land zone”, as it would be more consistent with the concept of blitzing.

But in short, this ain’t Axis & Allies.

[insaneHoshi]

@captainnapalm Going on the offensive and successfully taking territory, then purposefully falling back to regroup kind of defeats the purpose of going on the offensive in the first place.

[CaptainNapalm]

@insanehoshi No, sorry. Taking out $20-$100+ worth of enemy units, and being able to recover your hard chargers back to a safe position, can be far more valuable than a $2 territory.

[insaneHoshi]

@captainnapalm If you able to take out $20-$100+ worth of enemy units for no risk of counterattack is bad game design.

[Noneshallpass]

There is no obligation to blitz whenever and wherever you can. It sometimes makes more sense not to blitz and keep your expensive units protected by infantry and AA Artillery.

[CaptainNapalm]

@noneshallpass I agree there is no obligation to blitz. What I am trying to understand is why a medium tank, let’s say, can attack an adjacent enemy territory, would have the fuel and speed to attack a second enemy territory(blitz), but be unable to to use that fuel and speed to move to a friendly territory, rather than enemy territory, after making its first attack.

[Trig]

@captainnapalm It was not historically accurate. When would someone attack a area and not hold it? That would be cowardice, and no military man is going to be a coward. Sure you could, but your generals wouldn’t do it.

[Noneshallpass]

I agree that there could be circumstances when it would be very useful to “blitz” into a friendly territory, for instance a surrounded army could want to break through the enemy lines and reach the safety of a friendly territory.

There is nothing that prevents you from having house rules to allow this, but it’s not under the official rules.