Commit dice to resuts, can attacker ignore retreats if he wants to ?

By sangeet, in BattleLore

Hi,

sorry, probably this is obvious, can i ignore the flag results if i have thrown dice, i.e. choose that the attacked unit has to retreat or to stay where it is? Or how many retreats it shoud do, when i rolled multiple ones? So, has the dice throw to be fully interpreted or not?

I asked this one early on somewhere (probably BGG) and the response I got was that the retreats and hits are not optional. If you rolled a retreat, the unit most retreat one space. If you rolled two retreats, the unit must retreat two spaces. It makes it harder to pin down your enemy in some cases, but it also adds to the strategy of surrounding a tough enemy before attacking it.

The only way you could choose to "ignore" a retreat is if a figure had an ability that triggered on the flag results that did something else instead, and then you could commit the flag to do that other ability.

All "commit" abilities are optional, but damage and retreats are not (although they can be committed for some other effect instead in some cases).