So our good friends @flightmaster101 and @xelveki brought up a good question today: can you use Scuttling Horror to disengage from combat while occupying terrain? We went back and forth about treating as touching front edge, moving sideways, the way shifts resolve while exiting terrain, etc, and it has led me to believe this: Scuttling Horror can never be used to exit terrain, engaged or not. Here's why:
- Scuttling Horror reads: After each Command Phase, you may perform a speed-1 (shift) sideways, even if this card is exhausted.
- Excerpt from 55, Movement: To move a unit, a player places the appropriate movement template so that the start guide on the template is aligned with the tray edge that matches the direction the unit is moving. Then, the player holds the movement template firmly against the play surface and slides the unit along the template until the same tray edge that was aligned with the template’s start guide is aligned with the template’s end guide.
- 55.4: Units can move forward, backward, or sideways. If a unit is moving forward, the movement template’s start guide must be aligned with the unit’s front edge. If the unit is moving backward or sideways, the movement template’s start guide must be aligned with the unit’s back edge or one of its side edges, respectively.
- 81.3: While occupying terrain, a unit can perform all of its actions and modifiers as normal with the exception of the (march) and (shift) actions. If the unit performs a (march) or (shift) action while occupying terrain, it immediately exits the terrain.
Since a shift exiting terrain cannot satisfy the definition of "sideways", it is impossible to legally trigger Scuttling Horror's shift.
This is not a bullet-proof case, and ordinarily I probably wouldn't even consider it, but if ever there were a case for a pedantic restriction on a clear use for a card, Scuttling Horror is it. At least I think it's a strong enough case to warrant a ruling.
Edited by Bhelliom