Random Direction Movement - ENEMY wandering aimlessly?

[Subfeeder]

Hello all. I have just acquired SASL 2nd Ed. by fantastic deal and am enjoying getting back into it (I bought the 1st Ed. when it was first released in the 90s). I played the first mission - Cautious Advance, where the ENEMY is in hold attitude. The random direction hex rosette in hold attitude allows movement in any direction as per 9.2. I had an instance of an ENEMY unit getting a move Action, throwing a DR of 5 on {A4a}. The only relevant order in the hierarchy was "random direction" and making the random direction dr resulted in that unit moving towards the edge of the board and out of any relevance to the action. Am I getting these rules correct or missing something? How much should I "interpret" the results to make them more relevant, or should I re-roll in such instances? Thanks

 

[TopT]

The random direction would still be an Assault move type move. You are in hold attitude, so that would preclude you from getting up and moving a good amount away from your 1st location. JMO.

 

[Eagle4ty]

Hello all. I have just acquired SASL 2nd Ed. by fantastic deal and am enjoying getting back into it (I bought the 1st Ed. when it was first released in the 90s). I played the first mission - Cautious Advance, where the ENEMY is in hold attitude. The random direction hex rosette in hold attitude allows movement in any direction as per 9.2. I had an instance of an ENEMY unit getting a move Action, throwing a DR of 5 on {A4a}. The only relevant order in the hierarchy was "random direction" and making the random direction dr resulted in that unit moving towards the edge of the board and out of any relevance to the action. Am I getting these rules correct or missing something? How much should I "interpret" the results to make them more relevant, or should I re-roll in such instances? Thanks

Skulking? Albeit, fairly permanently. Regardless of that fact, because the "S?" ENEMY side can generate so many MMC and such, having one activated unit run away is well within the parameters of what may occur during a scenario (and be potentially helpful at that).

 

[Subfeeder]

The random direction would still be an Assault move type move. You are in hold attitude, so that would preclude you from getting up and moving a good amount away from your 1st location. JMO.

Ah yes - I see now. I missed the application of Assault Movement to all the parts of the hierarchy in DR5 on A3a. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Subfeeder]

Skulking? Albeit, fairly permanently. Regardless of that fact, because the "S?" ENEMY side can generate so many MMC and such, having one activated unit run away is well within the parameters of what may occur during a scenario (and be potentially helpful at that).

Yes, that is a reasonable way to justify this. I suppose I should expect some randomness from an AI enemy - the sort of actions you see in computer games and accept as a byproduct of machine AI.

 

[rwpikul]

One thing to remember is that you are allowed to override an Enemy movement result if it is plainly stupid. Either by replacing it with a similar, less stupid, move¹ or by rerolling.

1: e.g. By having the unit move into the hex with cover rather than stepping out into the open ala Montcalm.