Routed Units

By croqoa, in Runewars

Posted at

Just wanted to clarify one rule quick:

When an army is forced to flee from a losing battle, all of its units are routed as well. If an opponent then moves a single unit into the area they retreated to, the routed units don't even join the battle, and thus they automatically lose the fight 1-0 and are all destroyed? I understand the logic behind it, but it makes it incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it, since your army can be attacked by a single archer and wiped out completely.

Posted at

croqoa said:

Just wanted to clarify one rule quick: When an army is forced to flee from a losing battle, all of its units are routed as well. If an opponent then moves a single unit into the area they retreated to, the routed units don't even join the battle, and thus they automatically lose the fight 1-0 and are all destroyed?

You're correct IMO that a single standing unit can destroy an entire routed army by moving into the routed army's area, forcing them to retreat and thus be destroyed.


croqoa said:

I understand the logic behind it, but it makes it incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it, since your army can be attacked by a single archer and wiped out completely.

Since you can activate a certain area only once a year, I think you will not be able to "attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it"

Sure you can attack it again, but that will be the "next year" and by then your army is "standing"again.

The only way to attack the same area twice IN THE SAME YEAR would be if there were a way to remove the activation token you put in that area ( like with the Warfare Strategy Card in TI3 )

... or you could of course ... attack in Winter and then attack the same area again in the spring of the following year ... that gives you two consecutive attacks.

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Or you could team up with another player, one of you attacking to weaken it and then the other taking it down.

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DarkElf said:

croqoa said:

Just wanted to clarify one rule quick: When an army is forced to flee from a losing battle, all of its units are routed as well. If an opponent then moves a single unit into the area they retreated to, the routed units don't even join the battle, and thus they automatically lose the fight 1-0 and are all destroyed?

You're correct IMO that a single standing unit can destroy an entire routed army by moving into the routed army's area, forcing them to retreat and thus be destroyed.


croqoa said:

I understand the logic behind it, but it makes it incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it, since your army can be attacked by a single archer and wiped out completely.

Since you can activate a certain area only once a year, I think you will not be able to "attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it"

Sure you can attack it again, but that will be the "next year" and by then your army is "standing"again.

The only way to attack the same area twice IN THE SAME YEAR would be if there were a way to remove the activation token you put in that area ( like with the Warfare Strategy Card in TI3 )

... or you could of course ... attack in Winter and then attack the same area again in the spring of the following year ... that gives you two consecutive attacks.

I was more meaning attacking it one year and then attacking again the next year, but the major risk in that is that you move your army in and most likely lose due to the 5 points of strength from the stronghold, so your army is routed standing one space away, but the person with the stronghold isn't prevented from just stepping an archer in and killing you since they didn't use an activation token which would prevent them from doing so.

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i would extremely dislike it when it works that way.... why can 10 routed units be destroyed (!) by 1 single standing unit ??? thats not right !! this makes battling so much riskier in 3-4 player games... i hope it isnt like that... enfadado.gif

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coobe said:

i would extremely dislike it when it works that way.... why can 10 routed units be destroyed (!) by 1 single standing unit ??? thats not right !! this makes battling so much riskier in 3-4 player games... i hope it isnt like that... enfadado.gif

Rulebook pg. 21:

Heroes and routed units are not placed to the right of a player’s
faction sheet and, instead, remain in the contested area. These
figures may not participate in battle, and these routed units are
destroyed if forced to retreat.

Though 10 routed units could not be destroyed at once, because the maximum number of units you can have in an area between battles is 8. The chance that you would have 8 routed units is, I think, very small. You are more likely to have 2-3 routed units. My reason being, you either brought more than 8 to a battle and won (and a few were forced to retreat, thus, routed) or you brought fewer than 8 to a battle and were forced to retreat (in which case you probably lost a few, only allowing for 2-3 to remain).

Posted at

It wouldn't hurt if a player anticipated a possible loss of battle and kept a few standing units in the area where his retreating units would/could retreat to ... that would solve your " 1 archer kills all " problem.

On the other hand, I am a little concerned as well about units automatically being routed when they have to retreat.

Gameplay will tell if this is too harsh of a penalty and whether maybe retreating units should not automatically be routed but still be standing ... after all, a retreat is not necessarily a rout, right ?

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If they weren't routed when forced to retreat you could move them again that year.

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Note that routed units don't participate, not that there's no battle. There could easily be cards that would either bump your final strength and/or decrease the opponents. I know in the various images I saw one card that lets you deal 4 damage to each side, which in the case of 1 archer versus nothing would result in the archer dying and thus a 0-0 tie and ties go to the defender.

So, while routed units are certainly vulnerable, I don't think it's a given their dead. It also perhaps gives you reason to have strongholds out on your perimeter so you have a strength 5 stronghold to route into and protect your units.

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croqoa said:

DarkElf said:

croqoa said:

Just wanted to clarify one rule quick: When an army is forced to flee from a losing battle, all of its units are routed as well. If an opponent then moves a single unit into the area they retreated to, the routed units don't even join the battle, and thus they automatically lose the fight 1-0 and are all destroyed?

You're correct IMO that a single standing unit can destroy an entire routed army by moving into the routed army's area, forcing them to retreat and thus be destroyed.


croqoa said:

I understand the logic behind it, but it makes it incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it, since your army can be attacked by a single archer and wiped out completely.

Since you can activate a certain area only once a year, I think you will not be able to "attack somebody's stronghold with the goal of weakening it for a second attack to take it"

Sure you can attack it again, but that will be the "next year" and by then your army is "standing"again.

The only way to attack the same area twice IN THE SAME YEAR would be if there were a way to remove the activation token you put in that area ( like with the Warfare Strategy Card in TI3 )

... or you could of course ... attack in Winter and then attack the same area again in the spring of the following year ... that gives you two consecutive attacks.

I was more meaning attacking it one year and then attacking again the next year, but the major risk in that is that you move your army in and most likely lose due to the 5 points of strength from the stronghold, so your army is routed standing one space away, but the person with the stronghold isn't prevented from just stepping an archer in and killing you since they didn't use an activation token which would prevent them from doing so.

hence it will be useful to leave troops in reserve in the tiles you are attacking from, to defend your retreating forces. You don't need to attack with everyone.