Perry Lee
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Subject: Foraging, Unused Movement Points (7.4.1.2.2) & Defending Corps Withdrawing Into Cities, creating siege situations:
Scenario:
British corps currently besieging city of Le Havre with 1 French garrison factor. French corp on Paris intends to move into the Le Havre space, forage, and attack the British corps. There is a chance that the single French factor will be lost during the besieged foraging losses step which would allow the British corps to retire into the city before combat. This British corps would then be under siege. There is a question on whether the French corps is allowed to use unused movement points to modify the die roll, due to the wording of the exception in 7.1.4.2.2 which gives two separate conditions "...if the corps is besieging or plans to beseige enemy forces in the area".
Interpretation #1: The French corp may not use unused movement points as a foraging modifier if there is a real chance that the defending British corps will be put under siege later in the turn.
Interpretation #2: The French player may choose to use unused movement points as a foraging modifier or not, but if the British corps is subsequently placed into a siege status and the French player chose to spend unused movement points, the French player is restricted from making a siege assault this month, since he did not pay the penalty during the foraging step.
Interpretation #3: 7.1.4.2.2 is a poorly worded rule and it is irrelevant what the French player plans or does not plan to do later in the turn. It is only relevant what conditions actually exist at the exact moment that the French corps is given a choice to forage or pay for supply after movement.
Cited sections of the rules that are relevant to the question:
1.3 THE RULES: The rules are written in sequence of play order.
7.4.1.1 FORAGING PROCEDURE: A die is rolled for each foraging corps as it completes movement (but after resolving any 7.3.8 procedures that may be caused by its movement). [7.3.8 deals with declarations of combined movement and is not relevant to the question, but is quoted in the sentence for the sake of completeness rather than using an ellipsis and people wondering what was omitted.]
7.4.1.2.2 UNUSED MOVEMENT POINTS: For each movement point the corps did not use, one is subtracted from the die. EXCEPTION: The die is not modified due to unused movement points if the corps is besieging or plans to besiege enemy forces in the area.
7.4.5 BESIEGED SUPPLY: Unless eligible for sea or invasion supply, besieged garrisons and corps must check for supply by the foraging method, using the city supply value (which equals the number of spires in the city picture) rather than the forage value of the area containing the city.
7.4.5.2 BESIEGED FORAGING LOSSES: For each point of the die roll over the city supply value, one army factor of the besieged garrison and/or corps is lost. If all the besieged army factors are lost, any besieged leaders become the prisoners of the besiegers and besieging forces may immediately detach factors to control the city.
7.5.1.1 DEFENDER RETIREMENT INTO CITY: Any forces or portion of forces upon whom an attack is declare may immediately retire into any friendly controlled or vacant, and unbesieged city in that area but not so as to exceed that city's garrison capacity.
Clarification in plain English: The matter is clear with regards to garrisons, but it doesn’t seem so clear with regards to corps defending in the area. If I move my corps in to attack another corps and he withdraws into the city, that creates a siege situation, does it not? Could I have spent unused movement points to forage? Would we retroactively make adjustments? Am I restricted from a siege assault during my combat phase if I used unspent movement points?
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Ken
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
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Caveat - EiA's rule book is the subject of some pretty fierce debates, particularly when sequencing is concerned. So the stuff below is my opinions based on my reading of the rules and a bunch of games with slightly different interpretations. YMMV and your group may hate the way that I'm reading these.
Gatecrasher wrote: Subject: Foraging, Unused Movement Points (7.4.1.2.2) & Defending Corps Withdrawing Into Cities, creating siege situations:
Scenario:
British corps currently besieging city of Le Havre with 1 French garrison factor. French corp on Paris intends to move into the Le Havre space, forage, and attack the British corps. There is a chance that the single French factor will be lost during the besieged foraging losses step which would allow the British corps to retire into the city before combat.
I'd say "Nope - the Brits can't retire into the city." 7.3.7.1 says that when a corps enters an area with a second corps it must stop movement and declare an attack. 7.5.1.1 says that when an attack is declared, the non-phasing player must "immediately" retire into a friendly controlled or vacant city if it's going to do so. I read "immediately" to mean "When 7.3.7.1 kicks in, which means during the phasing player's movement phase." Since the phasing player chooses when to conduct foraging rolls, they do so for their garrison after they've initiated the attack, and the city will not be vacant. British corps is stuck right where it is and the French can forage, use unspent movement points, and you're fine.
If you don't play it that way and delay the British decision until after all movement and foraging rolls are complete, then the French player would have to pass on unused movement points to modify the forage roll if they want the option to siege. They can either use depot supply or just forage without the modifier. But if they do use the unused MP and the Brits do get into the city, then there would be no siege permitted.
But using MP or not is a choice that the player makes and the way you play the rules should influence whether or not the French player accepts the modifier.
I would say that you need to decide what "immediately" means in your group. Some groups rule that since 7.5.1.1 is after all of the land movement step, it means "immediately after all movement is done." I don't - I think it sets the condition quite clearly as being during the actual execution of land movement. If you adopt the former interpretation, the game is far more static (a single strength corps can block the whole Grand Armee and then go hide rather than having to decide to hid when the first corps moves into the area - subsequent corps "join the attack" per the rule, which we read to not trigger 7.5.1.1 again). Since the sequence of play is not fixed when the rules themselves say "you can do this out of sequence," the position of 7.5.1.1 is irrelevant if that's what "immediately" means.
But you never retroactively make adjustments. If the French use any unspent MP to modify a forage roll with even a single corps in a stack, no siege is possible (all forces in the area must be a part of the siege so even one corps that can't prevents the siege).
But I think that the French player can force the land battle by picking to roll forage for the garrison after the corps has moved and declared the attack.
Hope this helps.
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Warren Bruhn
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Ken, I think Perry has the sequence right. Rule 7.3, step 4.A on the sequence chart, is land movement. Rule 7.4, step 4.C. on the sequence chart, is supply. Rule 7.5, step 4.D. on the sequence chart, is land combat. The decision of the defender to retire into a friendly or vacant city occurs under 7.5.1.1, under 7.5 THE LAND COMBAT STEP. Supply, and foraging, clearly occur before this in 7.4 THE SUPPLY STEP.
The rules do introduce a little bit of confusion about whether the phasing player declares attacks in step 7.3 THE LAND MOVEMENT STEP, or in step 7.5 THE LAND COMBAT STEP because this is described under both 7.3.7.1 and 7.5.1. Since this part of the rules is clearly intended to be written in sequence of play order (I don't think that the position of the rule is irrelevant: "Rule 1.3 THE RULES: The rules are written in sequence of play order..."), it seems to me that the defender retirement into the city is clearly under step 4.D (sequence)/7.5 (rule), the land combat step. For the sake of consistency, I'd say 7.5.1 indicates when the phasing player's actual declaration of attack occurs, under step 4.D/7.5, the land combat step, and that 7.3.7.1 refers to something that is about to happen under 7.5.1.
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Ken
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
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Well, we're going to end up disagreeing. "Immediately" has a pretty specific meaning and even AH wasn't sloppy enough to use it without taking it to mean that specific thing. The word appears 57 times in the rules according to my search of them in Word, and it always means "at the precise moment these conditions are satisfied," and states the condition.
Further, it's pretty shaky to my to argue this way given that the sequence of play clearly states that the supply step follows movement, but then those rules specifically state that foraging occurs as each individual corps moves during movement.
However, I've stated my case and noted that this is a matter that different groups decide quite differently. I don't believe that the sequence of play trumps everything, because AH writes exceptions to the sequence of play into the rules (declaring war when access is forced, combat between garrison factors when previously neutral nations go to war, fleets sailing because their port becomes occupied, DoWs during the naval sequence, etc.). So each group will have to determine how they're going to interpret things. Where I see clarity, others don't, and that's fine - we're permitted different opinions.
Decide what "immediately" in 7.5.1.1 means. Then you know how to proceed. If you use the interpretation I've proposed, then the French are free to apply unused movement to forage without problems. If not, then the French need to decide whether they're worried about an assault roll prior to moving in to the area. Were I to play with a group that used the latter and I were the French in this scenario, I'd roll the garrison's forage roll before I moved the corps so that I had better knowledge as to whether or not a siege was even in question.
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Ken
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
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By the way - in re-reading, it's important to clarify something implied by the interpretations in the OP. One can initiate a siege without attempting an assault roll. So the question is not whether there's a roll, it's whether there is a siege at all. If the French corps uses it's unspent movement points, then there is no siege, period. That means that the British corps doesn't roll for forage a la a siege in the next turn, and may freely move from the city to initiate a field combat and not a "garrison assault" or a limited field combat.
That can actually be important in the following turns. So no siege isn't just "no die roll," it's "no siege at all." That applies regardless of how you handle the defender retiring into the city rule.
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Posted Sat Dec 31, 2011 12:57 am
