Global 2nd edition Q+A ( AAG40.2)

@Gamerman01:

@Boldfresh:

what i’m getting at is since a FBPN is different than the friendly neutral because air can land in it prior to activating the standing army, i could see possibility that a tank could move THROUGH the territory in noncombat and activate the standing army.

What?� Move through WHICH territory?� The FBPN with the standing army, or a different one?� You are not being very clear with your questions!

ok here is the scenario.  i have a US tank in norway.  germany just attacked sweden but didn’t clear the standing army.  on the US turn, can i move then tank THROUGH sweden in either combat or noncombat move, thereby activating the standing army, and then enter finland?  so the question is, for a FBPN country, does activating the standing army require the tank to stop?  and we know a friendly neutral can only be activated in noncombat, but just wanted to confirm the same was true of the FBPN.

@Gamerman01:

@Gamerman01:

In other words, A GROUND UNIT CAN NEVER MOVE ANOTHER SPACE AFTER ACTIVATING A FRIENDLY NEUTRAL

OR FBPN

Is that what you needed?  :roll:

ah yes, that’s it!  :-)

@Gamerman01:

His question was whether you can blitz and then claim a friendly neutral all in one move and the answer is yes

The answer is still no.  Claiming neutrals is always a non-combat move, blitzing is combat.  You cannot combine them.  The only exception is for airplanes.

@Boldfresh:

ok here is the scenario.  i have a US tank in norway.  germany just attacked sweden but didn’t clear the standing army.  on the US turn, can i move then tank THROUGH sweden in either combat or noncombat move, thereby activating the standing army, and then enter finland?  so the question is, for a FBPN country, does activating the standing army require the tank to stop?  and we know a friendly neutral can only be activated in noncombat, but just wanted to confirm the same was true of the FBPN.

Claiming a country is always non-combat move.  If it was attacked and joined to your side, it is still unclaimed until occupied by non-combat movement.  You cannot move into it and claim it in either the first or second move of a blitz.

Again, quoting the rules, Europe '40 2e page 11,
If the attack upon the formerly neutral territory is unsuccessful (the territory is not captured), any remaining defending units stay in the territory but can't move.  The territory remains uncontrolled… ...but units from the side it's now allied with can move into it and take control of it and its remaining units **_in the same way as if it were a friendly neutral.

Since friendly neutrals can only be claimed in non-combat movement, attacked-but-not-captured neutrals can also only be claimed in non-combat movement.  The rules seem pretty clear to me, if somebody wants to keep insisting I am wrong, please back up the claim with the relevant rule from the manual._**

@Boldfresh:

ok here is the scenario.  i have a US tank in norway.  germany just attacked sweden but didn’t clear the standing army.  on the US turn, can i move then tank THROUGH sweden in either combat or noncombat move, thereby activating the standing army, and then enter finland?

If you are talking 100% non-combat movement, the answer is once again no.  Europe `40 manual 2e, page 10:

Friendly neutrals may not be attacked, and air units may not fly over them.  They can be moved into **_(but not through) as a noncombat move by land units of a power that is at war.

Therefore your tank must stop in Sweden, otherwise it would be moving through Sweden and not into it.  Since the rule I quoted earlier says that attacked-but-not-conquered neutrals follow the same rules as friendly neutrals, this covers your example.  It is impossible no matter how you try to arrange it to have claiming a neutral as part of a 2-space move._**

@Eggman:

…It is impossible no matter how you try to arrange it to have claiming a neutral as part of a 2-space move.

Aside from the one case of moving the first space through an already friendly territory into the neutral.

@Eggman:

@Boldfresh:

ok here is the scenario.  i have a US tank in norway.  germany just attacked sweden but didn’t clear the standing army.  on the US turn, can i move then tank THROUGH sweden in either combat or noncombat move, thereby activating the standing army, and then enter finland?

If you are talking 100% non-combat movement, the answer is once again no.  Europe `40 manual 2e, page 10:

Friendly neutrals may not be attacked, and air units may not fly over them.  They can be moved into **_(but not through) as a noncombat move by land units of a power that is at war.

Therefore your tank must stop in Sweden, otherwise it would be moving through Sweden and not into it.  Since the rule I quoted earlier says that attacked-but-not-conquered neutrals follow the same rules as friendly neutrals, this covers your example.  It is impossible no matter how you try to arrange it to have claiming a neutral as part of a 2-space move.
You’re wrong, Eggman.

Read page 29, under tanks.  The second territory can be FRIENDLY OR HOSTILE.  The entire move takes place during the combat movement phase.  It’s no different than a “blitz and back” move.  When you move back from the blitzed territory to the original territory the tank came from, that second territory is a friendly territory.

You can blitz a hostile territory and in the second move claim a friendly neutral.

The part you are right about is that you can’t blitz a friendly neutral and then continue on to a second territory.  But that doesn’t make you right in saying that tanks can’t make a second move to a friendly territory in the combat movement phase, because they most certainly can._**

@Gamerman01:

The part you are right about is that you can’t blitz a friendly neutral and then continue on to a second territory.  But that doesn’t make you right in saying that tanks can’t make a second move to a friendly territory in the combat movement phase, because they most certainly can.

You are still wrong.  Again, please pull out the manual before trying to say I’m in error.  Quoting the Europe `40 2e rules, page 8:

All territories exist in one of three conditions: Friendly: Controlled by you **_or a friendly power

Neutrals are not friendly powers.  Therefore you cannot blitz into or through them during combat movement.  You can read the definition of neutrals on page 10 of the book to convince yourself that neutrals are not powers._**

@Eggman:

Again, please pull out the manual before trying to say I’m in error.

I did.

I’m checking through past FAQ’s to get Krieghund’s answer on this.  Maybe I was remembering his answer incorrectly - we’ll see.

Did find this so far - Krieghund said you can blitz true neutrals and neutrals not pro-you if there are no units in them to activate.  You canNOT blitz neutrals that are pro-you (Russia can’t blitz NW Persia), because you can only activate friendly neutrals during the non-combat phase.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=23974.0
That was question #3 in this thread, and Krieg said “yes”
(right before 450th MSAF charged in and over-rode Krieghund  :lol:)

OK, that seems to answer the disagreement.  You can only activate friendly neutrals in the noncombat phase, and the entire blitzing action of a tank, even when the 2nd territory is friendly, takes place during the combat movement phase.  Therefore you can never blitz a hostile territory in the first move, and then move into and activate a friendly neutral.

I stand corrected, Eggman.  You want my badge?

@Gamerman01:

@Eggman:

Again, please pull out the manual before trying to say I’m in error.

I did.

Fair enough.  Sometimes it doesn’t suffice to read a rule, if it contains game terminology in it you also have to go back and read the exact definitions of those terms.

Regarding Krieghund’s answer, what version of the rules was in place when he gave that reply?  There is nothing in the 2e books that supports the claim that you could move through NW Persia into Persia as part of one move or two moves (for example, a unit moves into NW Persia, then a 2-movement unit moves into Persia).  If he is saying authoritatively that is indeed allowed, then the manuals are incorrect and need revision.

@Gamerman01:

Did find this so far - Krieghund said you can blitz true neutrals and neutrals not pro-you if there are no units in them to activate.

I stand corrected, Eggman.  You want my badge?

This would be true under the assumption that you are attacking those countries, not activating them.

Keep the badge.  If you make some horrible mistake in our current game, I’ll be happy enough!

@Eggman:

@Gamerman01:

@Eggman:

Again, please pull out the manual before trying to say I’m in error.�

I did.

Fair enough.� Sometimes it doesn’t suffice to read a rule, if it contains game terminology in it you also have to go back and read the exact definitions of those terms.

Regarding Krieghund’s answer, what version of the rules was in place when he gave that reply?� There is nothing in the 2e books that supports the claim that you could move through NW Persia into Persia as part of one move or two moves (for example, a unit moves into NW Persia, then a 2-movement unit moves into Persia).� If he is saying authoritatively that is indeed allowed, then the manuals are incorrect and need revision.

No, I was incorrect and I edited the post about NW Persia.  It’s non-friendly neutrals that you can blitz during the combat move.

It doesn’t matter which version of G40 it is, because this rule has remained completely unchanged since the original OOB in the fall of 2010.

For the record, it’s STUPID that you can’t blitz into a friendly neutral on the 2nd move of a blitz.  It’s a technicality that exists due to adding neutrals to the A&A mechanics of separating combat and non-combat moves.  Since tanks can blitz an enemy territory and then move into a friendly all in the combat movement phase, it creates a bit of a paradox.  As you astutely pointed out, a friendly neutral is not “friendly” in the tank blitzing rules.  That was my bad, but you can understand the misinterpretation, I’m sure.  “Friendly” would seem at first to include “friendly neutral”

@Eggman:

This would be true under the assumption that you are attacking those countries, not activating them.

Right - that’s why I said true neutrals or non-friendly neutrals.  You would always be attacking them and not activating them.

@Eggman:

If he is saying authoritatively that is indeed allowed, then the manuals are incorrect and need revision.

Look at how many pages of FAQ there are, in two different threads.  A lot of questions are due to people not even having or not reading their rulebooks, but a slug of them are because a lot of things are pretty unclear, or at least not at all obvious.

What I’m saying is, just because you can prove something using the rulebook doesn’t always make it the actual rule, and yes there are things that should be edited/amended.

However, in this case you were right that “friendly” in the tank rules did not include “friendly neutrals” because “friendly” is elsewhere defined as “controlled by you or a friendly power”.  But beware that sometimes you can make a similar case by mixing and matching rules throughout the rulebook and be pretty darn sure, and Krieghund comes along and says that’s not the way it is…  In other words, Krieghund trumps rulebook

@Gamerman01:

…in other words, Krieghund trumps rulebook

That’s pretty much what I said.  If a developer comes out and says the rule is wrong, then the manual needs another revision.  In the meantime the manual is all we have.

There may be some things in the rulebook that are a bit unclear, but as far as I know there’s nothing in there that’s actually wrong that isn’t already corrected in the FAQ.

This seems stupid to me. In my game I have an axis tank in Trans Jordan. I can’t take an empty french Syria and activate Iraq in one move?

Why would this make logical sense? I could blitz two enemy territories but can’t travel through one empty enemy territory and a friendly neutral.

Could I activate Iraq with a different TJ unit in non-com and then move the tank during non-combat into the now axis Iraq with the leftover movement point after blitzing Syria one movement point in combat move?

@Jeff28:

This seems stupid to me. In my game I have an axis tank in Trans Jordan. I can’t take an empty french Syria and activate Iraq in one move?

Why would this make logical sense? I could blitz two enemy territories but can’t travel through one empty enemy territory and a friendly neutral.

I know, right? @Gamerman01:

For the record, it’s STUPID that you can’t blitz into a friendly neutral on the 2nd move of a blitz.  It’s a technicality that exists due to adding neutrals to the A&A mechanics of separating combat and non-combat moves.  Since tanks can blitz an enemy territory and then move into a friendly all in the combat movement phase, it creates a bit of a paradox.

:-)
@Jeff28:

Could I activate Iraq with a different TJ unit in non-com and then move the tank during non-combat into the now axis Iraq with the leftover movement point after blitzing Syria one movement point in combat move?

NO, NO, NO, you can’t.   :-)
Because the entire tank’s blitzing move must always be COMPLETED during the combat movement phase.  As Eggman astutely pointed out, ONLY PLANES move in the combat movement phase and then also in the non-combat movement phase.

@Gamerman01:

For the record, it’s STUPID that you can’t blitz into a friendly neutral on the 2nd move of a blitz.  It’s a technicality that exists due to adding neutrals to the A&A mechanics of separating combat and non-combat moves.  Since tanks can blitz an enemy territory and then move into a friendly all in the combat movement phase, it creates a bit of a paradox.

It has nothing to do with the separation of combat and noncombat movement.  The blitzing rule could easily have allowed tanks to end a movement in a friendly neutral and activate it if we had wanted it to.

Moving land units into a friendly neutral to activate it represents the time and diplomatic effort necessary to convince that territory to enter the war.  As such, any unit doing so must spend its entire effort on that turn activating the territory, and it may not do anything else.  That’s why a tank can’t blitz and activate a friendly neutral on the same turn.