Rout Question

[Phil_Draper]

But it doesn’t have to resort to LC, it could rout to the woods.

This is my take on the situation. Thank you for writing it carefully. The ‘or resorting to Low Crawl’ phrase is to avoid the said interdiction in the previous phrase.

PS when I read your kind thoughts on me and Scott my brain released a small amount of dopamine giving me the warm fuzzies.

mmm dopamine

 

[Robin Reeve]

But at this stage we are not addressing any question of interdiction. We are simply trying to decide if the units can legally select H8 or H9 as legal rout targets and if so legally Low Crawl to I8 or I9 on their way to those targets.

If you don't know if G9 and G10 are real units, H8 and H9 are legal rout targets.
If they are unconcealed, when it comes to define if the brokie will surrender, even though one can designate H8 or H9 as a first rout destination, you know that the brokie will either fail to rout further or be interdited in H7.
So it will surrender to K9.
That is where player omniscience - rather than only what the borkie knows - kicks in.

 

[Phil_Draper]

If they are concealed (and remain so), the broken squad can legally end its rout in H8 or H9, so it most definitely has a legal rout path that doesn't involve Interdiction or Low Crawl. Whether that's different from the case where they are not concealed remains to be clarified - or at least, it seems to be the crux of the matter.

I agree. I raised the situation of the concealed units specifically to try and identify a functional difference between the two situations. In both cases the units are not KEU. Therefore H8 and H9 are legal rout targets and from the rules on rout and surrender in this situation I see little defined difference between the two.

 

[Phil_Draper]

If you don't know if G9 and G10 are real units, H8 and H9 are legal rout targets.
If they are unconcealed, when it comes to define if the brokie will surrender, even though one can designate H8 or H9 as a first rout destination, you know that the brokie will either fail to rout further or be interdited in H7.
So it will surrender to K9.
That is where player omniscience - rather than only what the borkie knows - kicks in.

Player omniscience, which you have referenced several times is, respectfully, irrelevant. It is what is allowed under the written rules that is under debate. No where does it state in the rout rules that a unit cannot rout towards a non KEU (unless it has been one previously in the phase). It may be the intent of the rules that they be assessed as you describe. However it is certainly not clear that this is the case. Which is why a number of experienced players have stated that they believe low crawl is legal in this case and others have stated that it is not. As I said a Q&A and subsequent clarification will help resolve this and I believe one is being worked on.

 

[Philippe D.]

I really believe the routing rules would benefit a lot from a complete rewriting. I mean come on, this is a rules point that comes into play in litterally every game (OK not every; there are some armor-only scenarios and most likely some have "no CS or abandonment" SSRs), and it's still hard for even the most seasoned players to play correctly without referring to the RB.

A good sign that the rule is poorly written: long paragraphs that describe several things, seemingly with redundancy.

 

[Wayne]

I really believe the routing rules would benefit a lot from a complete rewriting.

Or maybe just an amendment or coda to the Comprehensive Rout Example.

[Kudos and respect to Tom Repetti et. al. for that fantabulous contribution to the ASLRB]

 

[Faded 8-1]

Hmm. The rule has endured over 30 years and hasn't been THAT much of a problem has it? Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of games have been played without ever having any routing disputes.

I submit it's not THAT poorly written.

I've bought wargames in the past year that I couldn't decipher the rules for a single play-through, that contradict themselves and are woefully incomplete and full of errata. 'Poorly Written' is a relative term. I'm not sure that the fact that a handful of rules junkies can find some corner cases not adequately covered in a rule that has seen good service for decades is too much of an indictement.

 

[Wayne]

Hmm. The rule has endured over 30 years and hasn't been THAT much of a problem has it? Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of games have been played without ever having any routing disputes.

Fair point.

W/out substantially changing the rule, the 2eASLRB re-write of A20.21 1st sentence did kinda muddy things up a bit. The unintended obfuscation was ameliorated by most veteran players already knowing/playing their 1eASLRB understanding of that rule, I expect.

I'd say "... over 30 years ... [many] games have been misplayed without ever having any routing disputes ..." because neither player saw their errant routs as misplays.

And that speaks well for ASL: players can get pages of stuff a bit wrong, but the game still works very well.

Meanwhile, we "handful of rules junkies" have plenty to talk about here.

 

[Eagle4ty]

Fair point.

W/out substantially changing the rule, the 2eASLRB re-write of A20.21 1st sentence did kinda muddy things up a bit. The unintended obfuscation was ameliorated by most veteran players already knowing/playing their 1eASLRB understanding of that rule, I expect.

I'd say "... over 30 years ... [many] games have been misplayed without ever having any routing disputes ..." because neither player saw their errant routs as misplays.

And that speaks well for ASL: players can get pages of stuff a bit wrong, but the game still works very well.

Meanwhile, we "handful of rules junkies" have plenty to talk about here.

Ahhh, but which way is wrong?

 

[Faded 8-1]

Fair point.

W/out substantially changing the rule, the 2eASLRB re-write of A20.21 1st sentence did kinda muddy things up a bit. The unintended obfuscation was ameliorated by most veteran players already knowing/playing their 1eASLRB understanding of that rule, I expect.

I'd say "... over 30 years ... [many] games have been misplayed without ever having any routing disputes ..." because neither player saw their errant routs as misplays.

Fair point as well, and I suspect I'm as guilty of that as anybody who digested the rule in 1st edition and never really had much reason to question it.

I remember I also had a Rout flowchart that came with... I want to say FFE newsletter... or maybe ASLUG... or maybe Rout Report...

It was handwritten and photocopied into the newletter, but we found it very accurate to the rules (at the time) and an invaluable resource. Truth be told, we wore out that thing over the course of 20 scenarios or so, and then had routing down cold (as we understood it). An updated version of that flowchart would be pretty useful I think, and could become a defacto authority. 98% of the work is already done (but the remaining 2% would be tricky, as this thread shows).

I dug it out. The note at the very bottom was written in by me. We needed that for clarity at some point, but I don't recall the details now.

 

[Faded 8-1]

Ahhh, but which way is wrong?

There's the rub.

 

[Phil_Draper]

Fair point as well, and I suspect I'm as guilty of that as anybody who digested the rule in 1st edition and never really had much reason to question it.

I remember I also had a Rout flowchart that came with... I want to say FFE newsletter... or maybe ASLUG... or maybe Rout Report...

It was handwritten and photocopied into the newletter, but we found it very accurate to the rules (at the time) and an invaluable resource. Truth be told, we wore out that thing over the course of 20 scenarios or so, and then had routing down cold (as we understood it). An updated version of that flowchart would be pretty useful I think, and could become a defacto authority. 98% of the work is already done (but the remaining 2% would be tricky, as this thread shows).

I dug it out. The note at the very bottom was written in by me. We needed that for clarity at some point, but I don't recall the details now.

View attachment 21376

Funny you should mention that. I had just downloaded a rout flow chart from Texas ASL. It looks nice, I was running through it to see if it supported either side of the current discussion here. Not definitive I know but an interesting exercise none the less.

 

[Faded 8-1]

It is a good chart, although we found it necessary to clarify the meaning of Legal Rout Path apparently, per the note at the bottom of my chart (written back then). Also, that was 1st edition rules, and before Tuomo's excellent example. Not sure how well the chart has held up. It shows what a rout flowchart could look like though, and the majority of it could be used as-is.

(Assuming the Texas ASL chart is the same one I posted).

 

[Phil_Draper]

It is a good chart, although we found it necessary to clarify the meaning of Legal Rout Path apparently, per the note at the bottom of my chart (written back then). Also, that was 1st edition rules, and before Tuomo's excellent example. Not sure how well the chart has held up. It shows what a rout flowchart could look like though, and the majority of it could be used as-is.

(Assuming the Texas ASL chart is the same one I posted).

The Texas ASL chart is credited to Bill Kohler 2016. It looks very comprehensive, different from the one you showed but may be functionally identical.

Texas ASL Downloads

www.texas-asl.com

 

[Faded 8-1]

Ok, thanks. Printing it now.

I actually have that site bookmarked but there is a helluva lot of stuff there - never noticed that before.

 

[Phil_Draper]

Ok, thanks. Printing it now.

I actually have that site bookmarked but there is a helluva lot of stuff there - never noticed that before.

Agree, it is a great resource and I visit it often but never noticed this chart before. It only came up as I did a specific google search.

 

[Faded 8-1]

Here is another playaid I found that I had made. I had forgotten about this one. Not sure if any of this is useful, but just uploading just in case it is.

 

[Tuomo]

Does that Texas flowchart have jurisdiction outside of Texas?

 

[Philippe D.]

Hmm. The rule has endured over 30 years and hasn't been THAT much of a problem has it? Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of games have been played without ever having any routing disputes.

I submit it's not THAT poorly written.

Not having routing disputes does not mean the rules are interpreted correctly.

In my experience, it is extremely easy to misread this rule. It is also extremely easy to read it twice, or three times, or more, and still not be sure one is interpreting it correctly.

The general intent is pretty clear: you're broken, you need to get away from the enemy; and there are some rules about not getting closer to them, or you're eliminated (possibly, have to surrender). Based on this general intent, it's pretty easy to look at most in-game routing situations and agree on a result: this unit can rout to this location, this one cannot rout at all and must surrender, this other one cannot rout at all but can stay put. But it's also easy to overlook a specific point and play it wrong, rules-wise.

This is why I'm arguing that the rule is poorly written. This is a rules mechanism that comes into play several times each game, not some obscure point. I am not trying to argue that well-written rules should look like an algorithm or a flowchart (though, in most cases, it wouldn't hurt), but they should make it reasonably easy for a careful reader to make, say, a correct flowchart, with possible footnotes about exceptions.

 

[bendizoid]

Though I like the simplicity of this interpretation, I disagree. The (narrow) context is re Interdiction specifically, IMO. Claiming (for unmentioned reasons) a required Surrender in the OP example is a stretch not supported by the rule as writ, IMO.

That said,

our difficulty is that this terse sentence above is kind of a linguistic mess. Some line breaks and {added text} help, I think, so I add both (though the {text adds} merely explain what I deem implicit and thus are not actually necessary nor rule-changing, IMO).

Assuming my read of the terse sentence is correct then, re the OP example, all of the three tests in red above are False, meaning there is no required Surrender.

Absent a requirement to Surrender, the OP example brokie may Rout normally.
Normal Rout includes the option to elect for Low Crawl -- doing so in this case is not resorting to Low Crawl to avoid Interdiction.

Upshot: w/out a rule update or suitable Q&A then, re the OP example, I see the Low Crawl to I8 or I9 as Allowed under the rules at this date: the brokie is not required to Surrender so may Rout and may choose Low Crawl as its Rout mechanic.

=-=-=

[Referring back to the ASLRBv1 A20.21 verbiage kinda supports my belief -- I'm not convinced that changes since then were intended to up the scope of the ASLRBv1 implicit narrow context of "resorting" referring only to use of Low Crawl to negate Interdiction (I could be wrong but that'd be a somewhat massive change of scope so I think not).]

I concur, this is exactly how I view the situation but didn’t have the temerity to write it all down, +1.
A similar situation arrives from the “1st level effect” whereas a unit will not surrender if a 1st level is available above to rout to (thereby canceling the surrender conditions) but they rout across the street anyway.

PS That was a well reasoned argument, are you a lawyer ? Maybe a lawyer for a engineering firm ?