Trenches and snow

[Pyth]

Movement between connecting trenches, does/does not pay Deep Snow +1 per hexside? (I think by rule it does pay.)

 

[Larry]

3.64 MOVEMENT: In Mud, all ground units must expend an extra ½ MF (or one full MP) per Open Ground (see 3.65) hexside [EXC: if entering non-Open Ground terrain in that hex], as per 3.9. Double Time and Leader MF bonus are still applicable.

3.65 OPEN GROUND: For purposes of Mud and Deep Snow (3.62, 3.64, 3.6731) only, Open Ground includes all unpaved (during mud) or unplowed (during Deep Snow) roads, gullies [EXC: gullies containing woods/brush during Mud, or containing woods during Deep Snow; B12.6], dry streams, plowed fields (not grain), and otherwise Open Ground hexes including shellholes and trenches regardless of LOS Hindrances, hexside TEM, entrenchments, or height.

Yes.

 

[Pyth]

Arrrgh. But but.... you sure that... "otherwise Open Ground hexes including shellholes and trenches regardless of LOS Hindrances, hexside TEM, entrenchments, or height..." refers to IN the trench and not only the open ground portion of a hex that contains a trench? (See E3.64...[EXC: if entering non-Open Ground terrain in that hex]

 

[Eagle4ty]

Arrrgh. But but.... you sure that... "otherwise Open Ground hexes including shellholes and trenches regardless of LOS Hindrances, hexside TEM, entrenchments, or height..." refers to IN the trench and not only the open ground portion of a hex that contains a trench? (See E3.64...[EXC: if entering non-Open Ground terrain in that hex]

Good question and worthy of a Q to Perry. I really can't remember how I've played it in the past but would tend to feel that we did NOT attribute the MF penalty to those units using the trenches.

 

[Binchois]

So the rule for Trench movement sounds pretty definitive, but it refers to movement per each Trench hex:

B27.54 The cost to enter a connecting trench hex is always one MF (unless doubled for a move to higher elevation) regardless of the other terrain in the hex [EXC: SMOKE].​

​

And the phrase "regardless of the other terrain in the hex" (note that even the excepted SMOKE is considered artificial terrain: see Index and B.9) tells us that the 1 MF "limit" is, in fact, a COT in avoidance of other COTs. It is not in avoidance of the added effects of weather.

Deep Snow, like Mud, increases the cost of movement by .5 MFs (or 1 MP) per hexside. So already, I think this clarifies that the half-MF would be in addition to the 1MF for trench to trench movement (which is accounted for per hex). But because snow is a weather effect - not a COT - I don't think the trench matters, which is what I think is being said by E3.65:

E3.65 OPEN GROUND: For purposes of Mud and Deep Snow (3.62, 3.64, 3.731) only, Open Ground includes all unpaved (during mud) or unplowed (during Deep Snow) roads, gullies [EXC: gullies containing woods/brush during Mud, or containing woods during Deep Snow; B12.6], dry streams, plowed fields (not grain), and otherwise Open Ground hexes including shellholes and trenches regardless of LOS Hindrances, hexside TEM, entrenchments, or height.​

​

Remember, Entrenchments are explicitly NOT a terrain (B.9). So they do not change an Open Ground hex into a non-OG hex.

And while it might be imagined that the troops shovel out the trenches in order to avoid the deep-snow movement penalty, the mud rules incur almost exactly the same penalty using the same language. Presumably the two conditions must be treated the same (in this respect at least). But surely mud would not be so easily avoided in a trench. I would imagine that the effects of snow and ice can't be avoided either.