Hello,

I just had a thought on tallying army strenghts, as explained on page 21 of the Runewars rulebook.

Article 6. on page 21 states that

>> The player with the highest total strength wins the battle [...] The losing player must immediately retreat all of
his participating units from the area and rout them (see “Retreats” on page 22). << .

Let us just assume the following:
Player A (Daqan Lords) attacked player B in an area containing neither strongholds nor developments.

After battle, 3 units of player B remain, and none of player A. However, player A has triggered the siege towers' special ability "Lay Siege" twice

during that combat. Thus player B has a strenght of 3, player A has a strenght of 4 (0 units + 2* (+2 due to "Lay Siege")

Would in this case player A win the battle without any of his units actually surviving the battle, and player B be forced to retreat ?


I hope this topic has not yet been covered by any other posts. I couldn't find such in my research on the forums.

I'm quite interested in your thoughts on this.

EDIT, January 21: Player A wins. For reasons, refer to my post on page 2.

While my knee-jerk reaction is to say "Player A lost! He has no units, the battle doesn't even need to go to the resolution stage." I can see why this issue is cloudy. While I'd rule that A loses I'm willing to admit that I could be mistaken and I hope we get an official ruling on this soon so that I have something to cite should it ever happen in a game I'm playing.

I would argue that it is not the player who gains the strength from the Siege Tower's special ability, but the Siege Tower itself. Thus, if you kill the Siege Tower, you no longer receive the bonus to army strength, and you will still end up with 0 strength if you have no units remaining. That is to say, the special ability makes it so that the Siege Tower is counted as a 3 instead of a 1 when determining army strength at the end of the battle, rather than counting all units and adding 2 per time the Siege Tower special ability triggered.

I could realistically see it either way. I do not have the game yet, so I would want to see how exactly the ability is worded. It does apprear that one can have a battle involving a stronghold where the defender has no "units" but does end up winning from the strength calculation.

For example, one elf runs into my territory containing an undefended stronghold. Come combat resolution, the elf has a strength of 1, I have a strength of 5. The elf is forced to retreat, however since the elf was standing at the end of the resolution step, I have to damage the stronghold. Boy, am I a moron for leaving the stronghold vulnerable to one freaking cupcake!

I could see it as broken said, making the seige tower basically count as 3 for resolution. I could also see it like a catapult laying waste to the battlefield. It does not matter if the catapult is alive or not, the damage has been done regardless.

Now, I just need my pre-order to arrive!

Going by the rules as written, the Daqan Lords player wins the battle. I'm not sure if that was the intended design or not, however.

As written, special abilities are resolved whether the unit is destroyed, routed, damaged or not (as long as the unit in question was able to act on its initiative count i.e. it couldn't have been routed/destroyed at the beginning of the initiative count). Thus, the special ability of the siege tower which reads, "gain two strength when determining the winner of this battle" would take effect. The 4 strength granted by the siege towers would be enough to defeat the 3 standing enemy units and force them to retreat (and be routed, of course).

This is the text of the Siege Tower's special ability:

"Lay Siege: Gain +2 strength when determining the winner of this battle."

taleswapper said:

I won't argue that the special ability doesn't still resolve, but if the special ability itself is actually referring to giving a Siege Tower +2 strength rather than the player's army in general then it doesn't make a difference. However, I will also admit that mine is a creative interpretation which I am using to make the rules say what I think they intend, and it is not how the ability would normally seem to read.

Then I would have to say that the player with the seiges wins combat from the +4. I would fluff-explain it as the seige engines hurling bloders or flaming tar pits all over the battlefield, causing massive chaos and forcing the the enemy to retreat (flee for their lives), even though the siege engines were later destroyed (or routed).

It is perfectly possible that this will be eratta'ed in the future, but until then I will play it "letter of the law", especially since I do not see overwhelming evidence that the "spirit of the law" lies in another direction.

Good question!

Chancellor of Sol said:

I'd say yes and call it a pyrrhic victory.

fyi, a Pyrrhic victory is a victory with devastating cost to the victor.

the action in this game is simultaneous and there's chaos in war, catapults are throwing while being destroyed, the commander thinks his army is not strong enough and forces to retreat, while the catapults are burning

I'm in the camp that the +2 applies even if you have no units left. It's somewhat congruous with the fact that a strong hold has strength 5 even if you've got no physical units defending. We can invent whatever rationalization we like , but I think the intent is that some powers/features in the game allow you to win the battle even if your individual units died.

The difference is that you can't attack with a fortress, and also that a fortress is something, not nothing.

broken said:

I think that's bringing some nitpicking to a game mechanic. Following that logic, a fortress without defenders is essentially nothing. Nothing to stop the enemy from barging right in. I suppose one could argue a fortress has "built in defenders" then it's just as easy to argue other intangible factors, like morale, local population support, etc, are built into straight unit to unit combat.

I'm certainly playing it as written, +2 with no qualifications about survival, unless Cory comes out with a clarification otherwise.

I don't think it's nitpicking... a fortress is actually something in the space that provides army strength value. A destroyed Siege Tower isn't actually something in the space that provides army strength value. Also, for what reason would the defender retreat if there were no attackers remaining? It makes sense for a fortress, because if you can't get into the fortress, you can't win that battle, and they could just whittle away at you indefinitely until you died or ran away. It doesn't make sense for a destroyed Siege Tower, because it can't hurt you after it's dead. It's not an issue with simultaneous attack, the "chaos of battle" or something else. The simple fact of the matter is that the special ability of the Siege Tower is ambiguous, and no one (not even me, obviously) has come up with a good enough argument to tilt it in favor of one intent or the other.

Though, actually, I don't see in the rules (maybe I am missing it this time around) anywhere where it says Strongholds can defend against enemy units when there are no friendly units present to start a battle.

I agree with you in a way, but I think it depends a bit on the point of the battle. I'm seeing as winning a contested region. If my battle result is a "strength" win then, in my mind, I can argue that the region sees itself as under my rule. Enemy troops can't forage, guerrilla fighters harass them, etc. My individual army is gone, but my strength projected throughout the region gains me the hex.

That feels more in line to me with the rest of the battle rules. If at the end of a battle, say the enemy had 4 units to my 1 unit, but due to bonuses I win the combat (various tactics cards can make a big difference near as I can tell) then does it really make sense, from a pure army point of view, that 1 remaining army "wins" the combat versus 4 remaining enemies? Not really. Or, more to the point, if we can invent justifications for that it seems just as likely we can invent reasons for 0 army wins to be just as valid.

Which brings me back to the "as written" point. I don't see anything that states an army without standing automatically loses.

broken said:

Again, you're trying to put rules in. Strongholds own the hex, that's in the rules. Moving into an owned hex starts a battle, that's in the rules. There's nothing in the rules that says 0 figures lose automatically. If you play by what is written in the rules, then you have to battle a stronghold even if it has 0 figures defending it.

I would think, clear as the rules generally are, that they'd spell out that 0 figures is an automatic loss if that were the case.

Hmm, though it occurs to me all home territory hexes are controlled by the player by default. So, even if a stronghold wasn't present, by my logic the enemy would have to conquer it via battle, which makes no sense.

You keep referring to things stated in the manual which are ambiguous as if they are not:

When a player moves units into an enemy area, he must start a
battle.

but...

The term battle refers to any time units are fighting each
other. Each battle involves two groups of units attacking each
other in an attempt to gain control of an area.

And even though it makes no sense, I'm not arguing that 0 units automatically loses. I'm arguing that the text of the Siege Tower's special ability is ambiguous as to whether it affects a certain number of specific Siege Towers or if it applies in general. It doesn't specifically say it does either, so the issue is not cut-and-dry with a rules as written answer.

So it sounds like this breaks out into 2 separate questions:

1) Can an army win if it has 0 standing figures at the end of the battle? This one I still contend is yes: at battle's end all that matters is the strength score.

2) Do strongholds require a unit to force a battle or are they essentially a "free" capture if undefended by a unit? This one I have no idea. The rules state a stronghold clearly controls a region, but the rules also state that a battle is between units.

No, it has nothing to do with 0 units remaining. It has to do with how the Siege Tower's special ability actually works. Having 0 units remaining after a battle isn't even going to matter unless there is a specific effect in mind, and unless you have knowledge of the tactics cards, the Siege Tower special ability is the only such ability to question.

broken said:

broken said:

I don't get how it's ambiguous. It says add +2 when determining strength. Period. It doesn't qualify when alive nor does it qualify if it depends on the phase of the moon. In "reality" a siege tower is a construct, not a living item, so one could wonder if it should be qualified by having a another standing unit to make use of it. The rules don't qualify it that way though, so it seems unlikely.

The rules are ambiguous. It could implicitly mean that that Siege Tower gains +2 strength when determining the winner of the battle. That would be a much more elegant solution that just adding +2 per orb drawn for Siege Towers, even if you have no units left.

broken said:

I guess. Every other power specifically calls out if it affects routed units, standing units, damaged units, etc. It seems really unlikely they remembered to add explicit qualifiers to every other unit power, but forgot with Siege Towers.