Vehicle with MP remaining

[Paul S NJ]

Phillipe,
Hi, I agree it's rare that this matters but it did come up in a tournament final with Michael Hastrup-Leth a couple years ago. It was a close game and due to the VC every AFV killed could have decided the outcome.

He moved a JgPz V into a hex, stopped with one MP left, and tried to use his sN and failed. He didn't want to go into motion, nor try for ESB for an extra point to start/stop as the VC required him to be mobile (IIRC), nor change his CA which would give my 14TK Churchill a side shot. It was a difficult situation. In the end (I think) he did turn and I missed the shot. I believe he used an advance fire shot to re-adjust his CA.

I didn't know the 'declare movement into a prohibited hex' trick that Klaus points out above. It is gamey and rare, but good to know.

 

[klasmalmstrom]

I didn't know the 'declare movement into a prohibited hex' trick that Klaus points out above. It is gamey and rare, but good to know.

The most common application might be when one only has 1/2 MP left and ends in Motion. The is sort of comes into play automatically.

 

[jrv]

I didn't know the 'declare movement into a prohibited hex' trick that Klaus points out above.

Strictly speaking it's not a prohibited hex. It's a hex that the unit does not have sufficient MP to enter. In many cases a tracked vehicle could (if it wanted to) use ESB to enter the hex. Next turn the vehicle might actually enter that hex.

It's fairly hard to find a situation where it can be used to advantage. It falls more into the category of trivia than sleaze.

The alternate rule, that a vehicle can freely announce that it is ending its MPh without spending all its MPs even though it can't claim that it can't enter a next hex, has the effect of not forcing units in VBM to stop or move on. Many times an opponent of mine has moved into VBM sleaze-freeze but with extra MPs, or has begun the MPh in bypass in Motion. In those cases currently the vehicle has to stop and delay or move on. I would prefer not to lose that.

JR

 

[Mister T]

As pointed out by Honobinsda the rules are not great on this and would certainly deserve a rewrite when preparing the third edition (also with a view to speeding up play).

 

[Paul M. Weir]

While some might regard the whole question as a rules gaming thing, I look at from a realism perspective.

Tank charges forward to a location, something happens or a crew spots something so decides to slow down and continues to crawl just a little more forward, but without stopping. Even a tank doing 30 mph could stop well within 20 m (a half hex).

So while it may be gamey, it's not unrealistic, unlike announcing to your opponent how many MP you are going to spend in the next hex "Hey Fritz, I will only do 5 MPH over the next 40 m of road!"

So whether it's strictly by the rules or not it's not something I would get upset about.

 

[Tuomo]

Another thought - Motion attempts depend on the number of MPs spent in LOS. If I can declare that my last few MPs just aren't spent, I'd think that changes the Vehicular Dance o' Death pretty strongly. In my experience, it's very common to base Motion attempts on the last few MPs an enemy vehicle has spent in your LOS.

Perhaps that's been the way people have been playing it forever and it just hasn't filtered down to my gaming clique, but I doubt it.

I'm not whining about gameyness (it's a game) or lack of realism (there's lots of unrealistic things in the game). But if the concept of "we count First Fire/Motion/Vehicular Smoke opportunities by the number of MFs/MPs spent" is so important to the game that I'd argue it's a basic meta rule, then the idea that an attacker can arbitrarily NOT spend MPs is just... alien. So much so that it's either not used or not understood or not seen as a friendly-gaming thing when it IS used. I can understand the concept of moving slowly through a hex by spending more MP than is technically required. But I can't get my head around spending 1MP in Open Ground and then declaring my remaining 14 MP simply don't exist because, oh hey! I don't have the MP to move uphill and enter that building there.

I'd like to hear another rationale for its use than Klas's example of having a spare 1/2 MP left over. For one, 1/2 MP isn't enough to trigger First Fire or Motion/Smoke attempts.

Aha! Just in time! JR said:

The alternate rule, that a vehicle can freely announce that it is ending its MPh without spending all its MPs even though it can't claim that it can't enter a next hex, has the effect of not forcing units in VBM to stop or move on. Many times an opponent of mine has moved into VBM sleaze-freeze but with extra MPs, or has begun the MPh in bypass in Motion. In those cases currently the vehicle has to stop and delay or move on. I would prefer not to lose that.

I remember that discussion when it came up in the Forums a while ago. The gist of that discussion seems similar to this one. The upshot of THAT discussion was that it's a nicety that I just haven't seen much of, but the rules are clear on. So my raising a fuss about it is kinda stoopid, I admit. Feels like there's parallels to this discussion, so I'll read the tea leaves and pipe down. Sorry to waste everyone's time.

 

[Honosbinda]

You didn't waste our time. But why would it be alien not to spend MPs? Do you drive your car around full bore at full speed all the time because you have to go your max MP every two minutes on your commute to work?

There are the usual suspects who diss all over realism arguments, but there is no reason in the world a vehicle would have to spend all it's movement points and can do so arbitrarily because it makes the decision not to do so as needs arise, just as we do in our vehicles.

The whole abstraction of MPs, +2 TH for Motion, and so forth is a compromise for playability. Surely faster vehicles should be harder to hit when moving, but everyone gets this +2, whether it is a Renault or a T34. Basically the whole motion rules set needs to be reworked but who wants to do that?

No, all I'm really saying is that D2.4 is nonsense and needs to be fixed to indicate what the hell the author of it meant: 'A vehicle may end its MPh in Motion without expending all of its MP only if it has insufficient MP remaining to enter the next hex it wishes to enter.'

First of all, it's never the vehicle that wishes anything, it's the player! Whose gonna argue what the player wishes to do and how much MP he wants to spend to enter it? D2.18 allows that. In fact, the only case D2.18 does not allow that, is in bypass, per a Perry Sez. Why does he say that? I have no idea. Perhaps it has something to do with having to stop and delay in bypass. As JRV says, it's probably a good idea to keep that, since VBM sleaze is bad enough on the defender.

Anyway, rule D2.4 is arbitrary, if we want to talk about arbitrary. Let's get it fixed and move on, or we'll just play it that a vehicle-- like in real life, does not have to spend all it's movement points every turn, but must stop and delay if it is sneaking around in bypass cheers

 

[jrv]

Another thought - Motion attempts depend on the number of MPs spent in LOS. If I can declare that my last few MPs just aren't spent, I'd think that changes the Vehicular Dance o' Death pretty strongly. In my experience, it's very common to base Motion attempts on the last few MPs an enemy vehicle has spent in your LOS.

If a vehicle wants to drive into LOS but remain in Motion, by all means. Unless it has a gyrostabilizer, it's not a threat [EXC: the one time my evil opponent rolled a three on his Motion TH DFF attempt. Grrr, but I'm not bitter.]. And again in most cases if you carefully think out the move you can accomplish the same thing by burning the MP in all the known ways--changing CA, spending more MP than necessary or whatever--before making that last move into LOS. It's really hard to find a case where it will make a difference. I don't doubt there are some, but it's not VBM freeze. It's not the sleaze that's going to take you to the ASLOK championship.

JR

 

[Tater]

Anyway, rule D2.4 is arbitrary, if we want to talk about arbitrary. Let's get it fixed and move on, or we'll just play it that a vehicle-- like in real life, does not have to spend all it's movement points every turn, but must stop and delay if it is sneaking around in bypass cheers

I agree...there are so many tricksee ways to burn MP that D2.4 is practically pointless.

 

[CTKnudsen]

Okay, let's be clear: these are hypothetical exploits designed to demonstrate how poorly written the rule is. Sorry if that's not obvious. To be super clear, we are poking FUN at the rule. Sure it's just a game, but we expect this game to have an internally consistent rules set. If that doesn't matter to you...well, you probably know what I'm going to suggest, don't you

No of course, I'm not insinuating that anybody here would try that for real; I thought up all the same things you did, you guys just got them out a bit quicker! My apologies if I came across as accusatory, not my intent at all.

I too have a fondness for an internally consistent rules set. Unfortunately, like in the bible, there are certain consistencies in the rules that inherently conflict. In this case, the desire to not codify allowing do-overs conflicts a bit with the principle that all MP shall be expended no matter what.