Regarding Tactical Retreat:

There's apparently a typo:

" Play at the start of a battle in which you are defending .

Cancel the battle. You must then and retreat your units to an adjacent friendly area or destroy them.

If a stronghold was present, your opponent gains control of it.

Your retreating units are routed."

1. Is the "and' there by mistake or was there more to the card besides retreating?

2. If you had routed units in that area (which wouldn't participate in the battle anyway) do they retreat as well or are they not affected by the card (i.e. they get destroyed by the conquering army moving in as would normally happen)? I'm assuming they get destroyed.

3. Does the stronghold get taken over undamaged? I'm assuming it does since it's a tactical retreat and no battle occurs...although an argument can be made that the forces would set it on fire as they abandon it.

Regarding Horrific Rumors:

" Play during your turn .

Choose 1 opponent and place 1 of his activation tokens in any area he does not control."

As I read it, this card allow you to pick an area (uncontrolled by that player) that your opponent will not then be able to attack the rest of that year. If you place it in an area controlled by another player or by neutral forces, it effectively blocks that area from movement even with Strategize order. If it's placed in an empty area it's almost useless as your opponent could still be able to move into it with Strategize (and possibly gain control of it that way) or through it with Mobilize or Conquer. Overall not a major hinderance.

I wonder if that was the original intent as placing the token in one of their controlled area would have been a nasty little effect by blocking that army that season (there is only one such card in the deck after all.).

Thoughts?

Masteriti said:

No, it was probably reworded somewhere along the line and not cleaned up; retreating is all that happens.

Masteriti said:

They actually DO retreat; this was ruled on by Corey K, the designer. It's one of the exceptions to the "routed units can't move" rule. However, while the unrouted units don't get routed, the previously-routed units stay routed.

Masteriti said:

Correct, you get the stronghold in whatever state it was in before the battle. However, one thing the defender CAN do is play Tactical Retreat and then Scorched Earth to burn the stronghold to the ground as they leave

Masteriti said:

The major point of the card is to protect an area from attack. It can be VERY powerful, especially near the end of the game. You wouldn't want to put it in an empty area for the reason you state.

Putting the token in the ENEMY area would be too powerful, as you could simply choose either a massive army (to lock them down), or an area that is getting weak (like a stronghold).

Used correctly with the way it's actually worded, though, Horrific Rumors can be one of the more powerful cards in the deck. It just depends on how you use it.