So the rules say on page 31:

"If a player wishes to recruit a unit but all of the units are already in play, he may voluntarily destroy one of his units in any friendly area before recruiting."

So can you destroy units in a allready activated area, recrute them in a Stronghold and attack with them a second time during the next season? (Giving units are already in play)

yup. you can destroy whatever units you want

I would say yes.

You're not really "using the same unit twice" you're losing an old unit and building a new one. You won't be able to reinforce the activated area until next turn, so it's not like you're getting this unit without a cost. If an enemy player chooses to attack that hex after you remove one (or more) units to build elsewhere, then your forces there will be down a number of units they may otherwise have needed to repel invasion. Of course, if you're pulling routed units then they wouldn't have been able to fight anyway.

Setting all that aside, you're still spending to build the new units (with your order cards, etc.) in the normal fashion, so all the units on the board were acquired fair and square. In short: yes you can do this, but you're not really "getting away" with anything.

"exploit" is maybe not a good word for it

But It creates even more "chaos" (=total randomness) and the game already have lots of that. I like more the idea they use in TI3 where scrapping units is somewhere during a specific phase, just like rerouting your units in spring.

I like it when someone finds out, when he's recruiting, that he can't do it efficient becouse he ran out of units of that type ;-)
Especially if it happens to your enemy, who happens to be the undead player, who happens to have all his deadknights in play, 4 area's away from his home realm which you are invading right now

It should be pointed out, on a somewhat related note, that the Necromancer ability is NOT considered recruiting. Thus, if you have all your Reanimates on the board, and your Necromancer pulls an Orb, you CANNOT scrap other Reanimates to add new ones to the battle!

one nice thing about runewars is that you have 3 dials of units, and only choose 1 or 2 to recruit, so while you might have all your deathknights out in play, you can just recruit using your wood and food, and not get shafted.

of course, if you have all of your units out on the board, why the hell are you recruiting? go conquor!

Nephilim said:

In fairness, in TI3 you buy your units individually with Resources. If you run out of a particular type of ship it's your poor planning that got you there. In Runewars you get a big lump of units each time you recruit a dial - the most choice you have is which dial to recruit. As such, the different rules for voluntarily destroying units are tuned to the different methods of adding them.

Also remember that, IIRC, you CANNOT voluntarily destroy units unless you are actively recruiting more of that type.

Can i voluntarily move more than 8 unit into a region and destroy the excess. There may be a situation whereby i need to complete my objective which is no dragon in play. I thinking of moving my dragon with 8 unit into a region. And destroy the excess dragon.

whipko said:

• When you are going to be starting a battle.
• When you are forced to retreat after battle; you have to retreat to a friendly area if possible even if it causes overstacking, and destroy the excess.

Beyond that, you can't do it.

whipko said:

As Sigma said, you can't overstack a hex unless you're attacking or retreating there. You could, however, start a big fight with your dragon and make a point of killing it early, since you get to assign damage most of the time. It might end up dying before it gets to attack, but that's a question of how badly you want it dead.

The rules indicate that you can move extra units in and destroy the excess. Page 18 under "Movement Restrictions" states:

"If a player moves units into an area causing it to contain more than eight units, he must destroy units until he has eight or fewer in the area."

ChazM said:

This rule does not contradict anything that's been said so far in this thread, FYI. This rule refers to what happens IF more than 8 units have been moved into a hex, it doesn't say anything about when you're allowed to do so. Personally I read this rule more as something to cover unexpected play situations where more than 8 units end up in a hex despite the player's best efforts, it certainly does not say the player can choose to do this whenever he wants.

This has been further clarified by Corey pertaining to the question of overstacking a hex with neutrals before attempting diplomacy, so that you have a significant army if diplomacy fails. The answer was, btw, that you are not allowed to overstack the hex unless you are foregoing diplomacy in order to attack the neutrals outright.

I actually asked this question of Corey, and got a pretty speedy response. I hate this forum's crappy copy/paste methods, so I'll just paraphrase:

You CAN move units such that you'll exceed the stacking limit, and you would then have to destroy excess units. The previous ruling about Diplomacy stuff was clarified to say, basically, that if you bring more than 8 units into an area with neutrals, you can't have more than 8 if you are going to try diplomacy; IE, you either must start a battle with your excess units, or reduce your forces down to 8 before making the diplomacy attempt. In short, you can't bring in excess units for a diplomacy attempt in the expectation of a battle - if you are going to use diplomacy, you have to meet the 8-unit limit first.

I think this makes sense, and seems to mesh with what the rules say, and I think with Corey's added clarification to the diplomacy issue, I don't think it really even contradicts that ruling - just adds to it to make it clear.

sigmazero13 said:

Let me first say thank you for the "various rulings from Corey" you compiled - I've been studying it in detail and it's extremely helpful!

Regarding the stacking limit, this sounds right to me, but in your reply to Whipko (Reply #8 above) when he asked "Can I voluntarily move more than 8 unit into a region and destroy the excess?", you indicated that wasn't allowed. But this would be a rare scenario, like the unusual situation Whipko presented, to ever WANT to destroy a unit by overstacking me thinks. The rule you mention about what happens during Diplomacy is certainly a far more common and important concern.

ChazM said:

Yeah, i was wrong in my above response; Corey's ruling has corrected my mistake Not the first time I've been wrong, probably not the last!