So, this came up on the RMG FB page, so I thought it'd be good to talk about.

The rule in question is RR-82.1, which reads (in part) " When performing a melee attack, a units threat is equal to the number of trays that comprise the contacted edge. If the contacted edge is shortened by a partial rank, calculate the number of trays as if the partial rank was not present."

So, let's consider the following example.



Red was charged by Blue the previous turn ,resulting in the loss of a tray from Red's rearmost rank as per damage allocation rules.

Red then wants to attack Blue without reforming, so.

Red initiates a melee attack action, rolls the appropriate dice. Then we are asked to determine threat.



The black line indicates the "contacted edge" of this engagement. We can see that the number of trays comprising the contacted edge of Red is one single tray.

The contacted edge is shortened from two to one by the partial rear rank as shown.

EDIT: For the sake of clarity, let's define "Rank" here. RR 66 "Ranks" reads "Each horizontal row of trays running the width of a unit is one rank of that unit", 66.2 continues "A full rank is any rank that contains as many trays as the front rank for the unit", and 66.3 adds "A rank is partial if it contains at least one tray, but fewer trays than the front rank of the unit"

Also importantly, 66.4 reads "A unit's front rank is not full or partial" Thus, the front rank can never be considered a partial rank.

So, using this definition it is easy to establish that the rearmost rank is partial, as it contains at least one tray, but does not contain as many trays as the front rank of the unit.

Under 82.1 we are instructed to ignore the partial rank that caused the edge to be shortened.



This partial rank is ignored, and the Red's threat is one, as there is only one tray on the contacted edge.

Thoughts? Comments? Counterpoints?

Diagram isn't quite right. The original poster on the Facebook thread had his blue formation one tray to the right so that it would close in where the right angle is, wasn't it?

3 minutes ago, blkdymnd said:

Diagram isn't quite right. The original poster on the Facebook thread had his blue formation one tray to the right so that it would close in where the right angle is, wasn't it?

The original example was asking what would happen if Blue used the close in shift to move forward, into the gap, rather than sideways, which was an interesting question, that seemed to yield a threat of 2, since the Red could choose to attack with the rear edge of the front rank. In that example, had the attacker chosen to close in to the side rather than forward, he would have been in the above configuration. Close in is a shift, and it doesn't need to be forward.

Regardless, the above example doesn't involve closing in, simply squaring up and eliminating a tray.

In other words, this is a completely separate example for purposes of threat calculation, not the same question posed on FB.

Gotcha, sorry, misunderstood. Thanks

Let's go ahead and address the original question, too, now that you mention it. It's a good example with an answer that isn't immediately obvious.

So, Blue charges Red, squares up as shown, and eliminates a tray.



Now, Blue can perform a Close In as per RR-17.1 "To close in, a unit performs a speed-1 shift action and must collide with the enemy unit it was recently engaged with - the enemy unit that had one or more of its trays removed. If there is a collision with that unit, the unit squares up as normal, but any other game effects that are triggered when units collide are ignored"

RR-18 states "After a unit is [sic] performs a march or shift action, if it is touching an obstacle that it was not touching before performing that action, it has collided with that obstacle"

This means that Blue can either shift forward or to the side to collide and thus re-engage Red.



Blue chooses to shift forward, into the gap left by the empty tray.



Now, when Red attacks Blue, Red is engaged along two contacted edges. As per RR 82.1 "If the attacker has multiple contacted edges with the defender, the attacker chooses which contacted edge to use"

In this case, both contacted edges have two trays, and so Red's threat would be two.

I think the lesson here is... don't do that. Shift to the side.

I dont think your last diagram is right... contacted edge has one tray. Your edge line seem to "cut" one tray out in each case.

I realise I'm asking a question that seems irrelevant here, but in the initial squaring up, doesn't the attacker have to square up so that the whole of his front edge is touching the whole of the enemies?

77.1 To square up his unit, the player pivots his unit around the point of contact with the enemy unit until the squaring-up unit’s front edge is parallel with the enemy unit’s contacted edge for that engagement. Then, the player slides the squaringup unit in either direction of his choice along the contacted edge, stopping at the first opportunity for the trays of the moving unit to be aligned with the trays of the enemy unit

8 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

So, this came up on the RMG FB page, so I thought it'd be good to talk about.

The rule in question is RR-82.1, which reads (in part) " When performing a melee attack, a units threat is equal to the number of trays that comprise the contacted edge. If the contacted edge is shortened by a partial rank, calculate the number of trays as if the partial rank was not present."

So, let's consider the following example.



Red was charged by Blue the previous turn ,resulting in the loss of a tray from Red's rearmost rank as per damage allocation rules.

Red then wants to attack Blue without reforming, so.

Red initiates a melee attack action, rolls the appropriate dice. Then we are asked to determine threat.



The black line indicates the "contacted edge" of this engagement. We can see that the number of trays comprising the contacted edge of Red is one single tray.

The contacted edge is shortened from two to one by the partial rear rank as shown.

EDIT: For the sake of clarity, let's define "Rank" here. RR 66 "Ranks" reads "Each horizontal row of trays running the width of a unit is one rank of that unit", 66.2 continues "A full rank is any rank that contains as many trays as the front rank for the unit", and 66.3 adds "A rank is partial if it contains at least one tray, but fewer trays than the front rank of the unit"

Also importantly, 66.4 reads "A unit's front rank is not full or partial" Thus, the front rank can never be considered a partial rank.

So, using this definition it is easy to establish that the rearmost rank is partial, as it contains at least one tray, but does not contain as many trays as the front rank of the unit.

Under 82.1 we are instructed to ignore the partial rank that caused the edge to be shortened.



This partial rank is ignored, and the Red's threat is one, as there is only one tray on the contacted edge.

Thoughts? Comments? Counterpoints?

I'm not sure where the question comes in... This seems extremely straight forward. There is 1 tray on the contacted edge. Threat is 1.

7 hours ago, Tvayumat said:

Let's go ahead and address the original question, too, now that you mention it. It's a good example with an answer that isn't immediately obvious.

So, Blue charges Red, squares up as shown, and eliminates a tray.



Now, Blue can perform a Close In as per RR-17.1 "To close in, a unit performs a speed-1 shift action and must collide with the enemy unit it was recently engaged with - the enemy unit that had one or more of its trays removed. If there is a collision with that unit, the unit squares up as normal, but any other game effects that are triggered when units collide are ignored"

RR-18 states "After a unit is [sic] performs a march or shift action, if it is touching an obstacle that it was not touching before performing that action, it has collided with that obstacle"

This means that Blue can either shift forward or to the side to collide and thus re-engage Red.



Blue chooses to shift forward, into the gap left by the empty tray.



Now, when Red attacks Blue, Red is engaged along two contacted edges. As per RR 82.1 "If the attacker has multiple contacted edges with the defender, the attacker chooses which contacted edge to use"

In this case, both contacted edges have two trays, and so Red's threat would be two.

I think the lesson here is... don't do that. Shift to the side.

I think the ruling is going to be that the edge sort of breaks, and indents. Meaning the edge to the left of the blue unit is considered part of the back edge and the edge in front of the blue unit (using their facing) is considered part of the left flank of the red unit. That isn't really clear in the rules though, but it makes the "ignore a partial rank" rule make a whole lot more sense.

It ends up with the same result, though.

3 hours ago, rowdyoctopus said:

I'm not sure where the question comes in... This seems extremely straight forward. There is 1 tray on the contacted edge. Threat is 1.

You'd think so.

It's more of a thorough explanation because I was frustrated that someone kept telling me units threat it always the same because the rule tells you to ignore part of the front rank, or something.

9 hours ago, s4ndm4ns said:

I dont think your last diagram is right... contacted edge has one tray. Your edge line seem to "cut" one tray out in each case.

This is probably the least certain portion of the diagram, but... contacted edge seems to count trays even if you aren't contacting those trays, just the edge.

The attacker gets to pick which contacted edge to use if there are multiple and, if he picks the rear edge of the front rank, that rank has two trays.

Until clarification or FAQ is issued, this seems like the soundest interpretation IMO.

Thanks for trying to give solid examples and referencing the rules with your explanations, post like these will definitely clear things up for some players.

I do have one more question for this thread. Similar situation but what if the attacker was attacking the rear of red trays and was only touching the single back tray. What would Red players threat be when they attack? The contacted edge is 1 tray. That is pretty clear. But what about the whole ignore this rank rule? If you ignore that rank then there are no contacted edges. Is that 0 threat? Or do you default forward to the next rank that isn't touching and call it 2? Or does the "ignore partial ranks" not get used here for some reason and it is 1?

8 minutes ago, epicallen said:

Thanks for trying to give solid examples and referencing the rules with your explanations, post like these will definitely clear things up for some players.

I do have one more question for this thread. Similar situation but what if the attacker was attacking the rear of red trays and was only touching the single back tray. What would Red players threat be when they attack? The contacted edge is 1 tray. That is pretty clear. But what about the whole ignore this rank rule? If you ignore that rank then there are no contacted edges. Is that 0 threat? Or do you default forward to the next rank that isn't touching and call it 2? Or does the "ignore partial ranks" not get used here for some reason and it is 1?

This is a good question, given the wording used, and how specific the phrase "Rank" is.

Like a few rules in the RRG, there are outlier scenarios that don't seem to make sense thanks to loose use of nomenclature.

That said, I feel like it's pretty clear the contacted edge would still only be comprised of a single tray, so threat would still be one.

The wording is somewhat erroneous, though, and would probably be a good subject for an FAQ.

2 minutes ago, Tvayumat said:

This is a good question, given the wording used, and how specific the phrase "Rank" is.

Like a few rules in the RRG, there are outlier scenarios that don't seem to make sense thanks to loose use of nomenclature.

That said, I feel like it's pretty clear the contacted edge would still only be comprised of a single tray, so threat would still be one.

The wording is somewhat erroneous, though, and would probably be a good subject for an FAQ.

So in the Scenario I presented we should assume the "ignore partial ranks" should be ignored for now. That's how I've been teaching it. I'm sure we will have a FAQ clearing this up before any competitive play rolls out by FFG.

This could create interesting options during play. Lets say you charge the rear of a large 3x3 group of spearmen with a single carrion lancer and you get them down to 1 tray in the rear. You could choose to not attack every round with the carrion lancer so that you don't have a chance of removing that last tray. The spearmen only get to attack with a threat 1 unit making it much more difficult for them to take down the lancer. In effect you tie down 7 trays of spearmen this way until your opponent shifts out of the engagement. (Not a perfect example, but I'm sure you get the idea here) Bottom line is killing that last tray in the rear rank of the spearmen increases their threat from 1 to 3 from the back.

The ignore partial ranks is for when the attacking unit is "inside" the opposing unit. That is my understanding, anyway. If I had my PC handy, I would draw up some cool diagrams like he ones found in this thread already.

Tossing out a quick thread bump, since this thread is relevant to today's FAQ release.