Routing towards the enemy

rewa

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But isn't that kind of what "failure to rout" represents? Desperate men making bad choices or freezing and leaving the field of battle? Not all of our cardboard soldiers that are removed from the board represent casualties.
I can agree with that, but there's no failure to rout here. I was asking why do the rules force a unit to rout to a building or woods, perhaps far away, that it can't even see? Wouldn't it make more sense if A10.51 said "a routing unit must move to the nearest ... building or woods hex in its LOS"?
 

jrv

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I can agree with that, but there's no failure to rout here. I was asking why do the rules force a unit to rout to a building or woods, perhaps far away, that it can't even see? Wouldn't it make more sense if A10.51 said "a routing unit must move to the nearest ... building or woods hex in its LOS"?
You are assuming that a unit has no knowledge of the terrain unless it is in LOS. Never mind that the unit may have been stationed in the area for months. They enter a gully, and suddenly they forget everything they had seen on the way there. That's silly. But it would be difficult to track everything that a unit has seen, even if this was their first time on the battlefield. That would be unplayable.

The rules are intended to give a player a sense of how units in battle slip in and out of control. If the player had complete control of broken units as well as good order ones, guess where they would rout. To leaders. Like homing pigeons. Ok, that's no good. On the other hand routing to a random place seems a little absurd too. You would prefer that they don't rout toward the enemy, at least the enemy they know about anyway. As a matter of historical fact units did set up rally points, places to gather when things went pear-shaped. And it's pretty obvious that broken units prefer cover to open ground when offered the choice. So what would be a playable compromise, one that would not give the player complete control while at the same time giving some predictability about where broken units might end up so the player could set a leader in position? What we have might be seen as a playable compromise, providing some predictability while removing some control.

You could suggest another scheme as long as it achieved the goal. The "if I can't see it right now then it doesn't exist" rout target determination seems to exclude a lot of options that a soldier on the field would probably be aware of. Perhaps as units move the woods and buildings that they have LOS to should be recorded, then they would rout to the nearest woods/building that they currently have LOS to or have had LOS to some time in the past. And by SSR units that had been an area for a while would be given pre-registered lists of hexes they had been aware of. That seems to be a more realistic way to determine which hexes are eligible rout targets.

JR
 

MajorDomo

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I think a normal rout into Y6 is ok - the "no time may it increase the hex range..." part only applies to Low Crawl I think.

I don't see this part in the current rules dealing with a non-LC rout: "at no time may it increase the hex range between itself and that woods/building"

I think it was that Q&A that is the source of the addition (in red) to A10.52 in the second edtion:
"All other Rout provisions apply unchanged to Low Crawl, e.g., rout must still be towards the nearest woods/building Location within 6 MF."
I understand your point, sure hope you are not correct about increasing the range only applying to low crawl.

That would open up a bunch of routing sleazes where you start in a direction knowing it will cause you to eventually ignore the initial target and rout to a more desirable place, even though initially the original target was a legitimate rout target.

Rich
 

klasmalmstrom

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I understand your point, sure hope you are not correct about increasing the range only applying to low crawl.
Sort of odd that it is not spelled out in the rules.....and in certain situations one has to increase the range (in hexes) in order to reach the closest woods/building hex within 6 MF.
 

turlusiflu

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Thanks for digging out this Q&A, JR. I agree that the restriction should apply to both regular routing and Low Crawl. If so, however, there is clearly a problem with the RB.

In the RB, Routers (under the routing rules) are not absolutely denied the ability to move further from their destination. The Low Crawl Rules merely say that regular rout rules apply:

A10.52 ...All other Rout provisions apply unchanged to Low Crawl, e.g., rout must still be towards the nearest woods/building Location within 6 MF.​
While it might intend to limit Low Crawlers from moving further from their destination, it reads literally as saying that they must still select the nearest woods/building target location in an attempt to reach it using the standard rout rules.

The Q&A seems to imply the opposite:

Q. (A10.51) If a DM broken unit that must rout is within six MF of the nearest woods/building, must it attempt to reach the woods/building in a single RtPh?​
A. Yes, unless it uses Low Crawl, but it need not take the shortest route (in hexes/MF) to do so. Even if it uses Low Crawl, however, it must still do so toward that woods/building (i.e., at no time may it increase the hex range between itself and that woods/building, and must end that RtPh closer to it than it was at the start of the phase). [An92; An95w; An96; Mw]​

If that last portion of A10.52 ("e.g. rout must still be towards...") was a second edition addition, then it was placed under the wrong section. It should have been one of the restrictions listed under A10.51. If the intention is that only Low Crawlers are so restricted, then it needs to be stated in the heart of paragraph A10.52, and not as an example of "other Rout provisions..."
In the rules it is not stated (I haven't found it) that at no time may it increase the hex range between itself and that woods/building. If you can reach the destination, you should be able to take a longest and safer route.
 

jrv

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In the rules it is not stated (I haven't found it) that at no time may it increase the hex range between itself and that woods/building. If you can reach the destination, you should be able to take a longest and safer route.
The q&a indicates that you may not increase the hex range. It is an "officially published" q&a, not a casual, one-off which was overheard at another game at Winter Offensive. Now perhaps it is wrong, and certainly you may ignore any q&a you don't like. But at this point to me it looks as official as you are going to get.

JR
 

turlusiflu

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The q&a indicates that you may not increase the hex range. It is an "officially published" q&a, not a casual, one-off which was overheard at another game at Winter Offensive. Now perhaps it is wrong, and certainly you may ignore any q&a you don't like. But at this point to me it looks as official as you are going to get.

JR
So in this case I have to take it as an addendum to the rules. Where are the official Q&A published?
 

jrv

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So in this case I have to take it as an addendum to the rules. Where are the official Q&A published?
I guess. One could re-submit it, as it seems to be an erratum rather than just a clarification, and it does not seem to be in the v2 rulebook.

The publications were: An92; An95w; An96; Mw. That would be the '92 Annual, '95w Annual, '96 Annual and "Mw", which I don't what that is.

JR
 

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Well, one may not have LOS to a single story building a hex away from a wall, but I've have a hard time believing a squad couldn't "see" the building.

But for the most part, I find the routing rules are modeling units fleeing from enemies. Many times they are moving towards a known "safe place" but sometimes there are just running off and stumbling across a safe place. The fact that the Player has an algorithm to arbitrate this movement is just an artifact of a physical game. But YMMV.
From Q&A: A10.51 A10.51 states, “…a routing unit must move to the nearest (in MF calculated at the start of the RtPh) building or woods hex…” Is “nearest” from the omniscient, ASL player’s or the unit’s perspective? A. Closest, regardless of LOS from routing unit.
 

klasmalmstrom

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The publications were: An92; An95w; An96; Mw. That would be the '92 Annual, '95w Annual, '96 Annual and "Mw", which I don't what that is.
I believe "Mv" refers to the old MMP website. waybackmachine can probably dig that up.
 

jrv

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I found it. It's at the end of the Romanowski compilation, page 243 on the v25 "total" Klas summary.


Multi-Man Publishing
Official Q&A compilation on their web site, www.advancedsquadleader.com. (Mw) as of .

In the past the q&a was really, really official. It may have fallen on hard times since.

JR
 

zgrose

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From Q&A: A10.51 A10.51 states, “…a routing unit must move to the nearest (in MF calculated at the start of the RtPh) building or woods hex…” Is “nearest” from the omniscient, ASL player’s or the unit’s perspective? A. Closest, regardless of LOS from routing unit.
Yes. I was explaining to the other person why out of LOS hexes are perfectly reasonable rout targets even in a reality argument context.
 
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