Played the game this week, never played dune, but a big fan of twilight imperium. We had a few questions that came up regarding movement:

1. If the Sol player is hit by the "Sol Offensive" card they may move their units to any one space on the board. Does this include spaces occupied by enemy forces? What about allied forces? This creates an odd timing issue as these units don't fight until the battle phase (presumably) which seems weird...especially if Sol and allied units share a space in the battle phase.

2. The Hacan and their allies may instead of deploying units move units from one space to any other space on the board for 1 influence each. Can they do this to spaces occupied by other players (enemy or allied)?

3. Not a movement question, but putting it here, the Lazax is allowed to give his allies influence before they bid on a card;. The ally card says he can do this once per turn. Is this once for each ally (they each have their own ally card) or once total per turn?

4. This is more a strategy question than a rules question. In our game the Hacan, Sol, and Jol-nar allied against the Lazax, Xxcha, and Barony. The Lazax team had at various times erradicated all units of the other 3 races. In the end the Lazax held two strongholds, and the Xxcha and Barony each held one. Jol-nar had the last and had just deployed his entire force (20 units) to sit on that stronghold (thanks to some recruitment cards he was able to see and auction for). I am unsure how the Lazax team evicts the Jol-nar while protecting their strongholds from the Hacan and Sol. Especially since their is now way (that I'm aware of ) for two allies to team up to attack the same space. Time was running short and the Sol/Hacan were simply trying to draw out the game to win with their races victory conditions...I'm not sure what the Lazax team should of done to acquire that 5th stronghold.

1. If the Sol player is hit by the "Sol Offensive" card they may move their units to any one space on the board. Does this include spaces occupied by enemy forces? What about allied forces? This creates an odd timing issue as these units don't fight until the battle phase (presumably) which seems weird...especially if Sol and allied units share a space in the battle phase.

There is no clarification or rule example currently available that answers this question that I have found definitively. The only thing to do is apply logic to the best of our abilities and use other related rules. A couple can be answered using other rules.

In regards to allied forces the answer is no. Page 15 under Effects of an Alliance is quite clear “Players cannot deploy or move units in a space where one of their allies already has units”

As for enemy forces I would say yes you can. I would treat is as if it was a deployment like any other, the only difference in this case is that the units will share a space for a few extra phases, but because the collection phase is last in a round the conflict will be resolved before it makes a difference. Just like in the battle phase an area is considered not controlled until the battle is resolved, so as far as winning conditions go the space is not controlled by either player until after the battle phase.

2. The Hacan and their allies may instead of deploying units move units from one space to any other space on the board for 1 influence each. Can they do this to spaces occupied by other players (enemy or allied)?

I think the same rules apply that being just use normal deployment rules, no for deploying on allied spaces, yes for enemy spaces.

3. Not a movement question, but putting it here, the Lazax is allowed to give his allies influence before they bid on a card;. The ally card says he can do this once per turn. Is this once for each ally (they each have their own ally card) or once total per turn?

Since each ally has their own ally card, it makes sense to me that it would be once per turn separately for each ally, so he could do it twice, once for each ally.

4. This is more a strategy question than a rules question. In our game the Hacan, Sol, and Jol-nar allied against the Lazax, Xxcha, and Barony. The Lazax team had at various times eradicated all units of the other 3 races. In the end the Lazax held two strongholds, and the Xxcha and Barony each held one. Jol-nar had the last and had just deployed his entire force (20 units) to sit on that stronghold (thanks to some recruitment cards he was able to see and auction for). I am unsure how the Lazax team evicts the Jol-nar while protecting their strongholds from the Hacan and Sol. Especially since their is now way (that I'm aware of ) for two allies to team up to attack the same space. Time was running short and the Sol/Hacan were simply trying to draw out the game to win with their races victory conditions...I'm not sure what the Lazax team should of done to acquire that 5th stronghold.

This falls under the “working as intended” department of rules. The disadvantage of being in an alliance is that you must coordinate your attacks, but cannot wage battles together. This is a critical element of ensuring that alliances are less about double or triple teaming and more about coordinated efforts to win. My suggestion is, don’t get into these kind of alliances and if you do make sure it’s in the final moments with a firm plan in place on how you are going to steal the win from them, but even than I would be weary of treachery. Maybe its my own group dynamic but I don't trust my allies anymore than I trust my enemies and I only go into alliances when it serves me. I can't imagine a scenario in which I would find myself in a 3 man alliance, way too many complications and way too many ways to get screwed. You have discovered one of many such examples.

In regards to the first question, as previously mentioned, when the Sol Offensive card comes up, they simply aren't allowed to move into a territory shared with their allies.

However, an issue has come up where Sol moves into an opposing occupied territory due to Sol Offensive, and then the temporary ceasefire card comes up. The two players are sharing the same space, and that state came about when they were enemies, but now with the temporary ceasefire card, the two armies can decide to ally. This would put them in an illegal game state, where their armies are occupying the same territory. FFG is currently working on errata, so they don't have a solution to that one yet, but there's been some proposed solutions by players:

1.) The two players are not allowed to ally as they are occupying the same space. This would forcibly prevent the illegal game state.

2.) If the two players ally, then the Sol player must immediately move that army again, as though the Sol Offensive card had just come up. Thus putting the game back in a legal game state.

3.) One of the players has a forced move to move out of the occupied territory. This forces the players to use up part of their turn to change the game from an illegal game state to a legal one.

My personal favorite solution is solution 2, but I would personally be fine with 1 as well. I don't like the third solution at all as it literally forces play.

Regarding questions 1-3, I agree with Big Kahuna's answers 100%.

Asmuth said:

Well, if anyone on your team has that card that destroys a shield, you could send in a suicide bomber and hope that the bombardment cleans them out in time. Unfortunately, Xxxcha can only command people NOT to play cards in Rex (and it has to be your opponent who plays the shield), so it's difficult to manufacture a lasgun/shield explosion during battle, even if you did have the card.

Otherwise, if either Xxcha or Letnev was willing to give up their stronghold to the other, you could break up the alliance (assuming you get another Temporary Ceasefire) so that there's only two of you and try for a win that way. it would, of course, require someone to voluntarily give up the win (or get mercilessly backstabbed by his former allies after the ceasefire showed up.) That's what makes this game great, though. =)

Unfortunately I don't really see a solution that doesn't depend at least a little on getting the right cards. I suppose Xxcha would be sitting pretty if he had predicted either end-game special victory from the other team.

Edit: Actually, Letnev has some decent leaders, IIRC (and a good handful of traitors to boot.) Depending on how many rounds you had left, you could send in 5 or so Letnev units, play a strong leader and try to whittle him down by attrition. 5 units + your 6 leader + a mercenary weapon card = 14 combat strength. Even if you lose, he needs to bid at least 7 units to match you (using his strongest leader.) That means he loses at least 7 units no matter what. During the next bidding phase, have Lazax throw Letnev an absurd amount of money during the bidding phase and then keep it to recruit his units/leader back (does the Lazax ally power actually require the money to be spent on the bid? That might be an important rules change compared to Dune.) If you have two or three rounds left to go you might be able to whittle him down that way, but you'd need to be ready to swoop in with backup to hold the stronghold for that last round. And of course, if you have any Jol-Nar traitors to work with, you might just get lucky and bump him out by calling treachery.

Dolus said:

I still like option #4: those two players are forced to fight it out in the Battle Phase despite being allies. That's what you get for breaking the game.

Steve-O said:

Ya its an unusual situation, I can't imagine it coming up that often but the rule is that "you cannot deploy into a space where you have an ally", it doesn't really say anything about already being in the space when the alliance forms and any special actions you should take, so I would presume you take no special actions and follow the rules. So when the battle phase comes up, you follow the rules and have a battle regardless of the fact that you are allies. Just think of it as a portion of the city cut off by communication and the commanders haven't heard about the alliance yet.

I don't see it as a problem at all, personally. Allying with someone who shares your space is illegal. You can't do anything else in the game that creates illegal scenarios. All the other proposed solutions involve just making up rules. I don't see it needing errata, but if it did receive some, that would be the only way I'd get behind any rule to circumvent the situation. I mean, you have to figure if they are using the offensive card to attack that player, they most likely don't want to ally with them anyway, so forbidding the alliance isn't exactly harsh.

BigKahuna said:

Yeah, in Dune, the effects of Sol Bombardment and Temporary Ceasefire were combined in one card (and the "Ceasefire" was resolved first.) As such, it wasn't possible to create this situation. The rest of the game is set up in such a way that alliances cannot change in between when units can move and when battles take place, so this gap is a new situation created by Rex splitting the card effect in two.

BigKahuna said:

The entire purpose of the "allies can't share a space" rule was to prevent them from needing to fight each other (and to prevent them from fully occupying a stronghold - is that limitation still in Rex? I don't remember reading it now that I think about it.) As such, I find it fitting that allies who find themselves in a space together should be forced to fight it out.

Seems a bit goofy thematically though for a serious game. Sure, let's be friends, but first let's make our guys here fight to the death! As allies, they probably wouldn't even make it much of a battle as they'd have every reason to arrange the whole thing so it only costs one of them. Even still, I can't imagine it being worth it, as whoever has to lose could have just moved away had they not allied.

And no, there is no stronghold limit! I had to read the rules several times to make sure I hadn't missed it. It would have been nice if they'd had a "Differences from previous games using this game system" page. This is a huge change, and I haven't seen much mention of it when people discuss differences from Dune. An old popular strategy was to arrange deals with someone where you ship 1 token to their stronghold to prevent anyone else from shipping there, and in exchange they would not kill your leader. This blocking strategy was cheap and in my opinion not fun, so I'm glad to see it gone, though I suspect many are still playing with it not realizing it isn't in effect.

Adam said:

It is a bit goofy but its also a rather complex situation that isn't likely to arise that often. I mean first you deploy on a enemies space as a result of a coincidental bombardment. Than a cease fire has to come up and than the Sol player has to have a sudden change of heart and make friends with the guy he just decided to attack a second earlier. Its quirky but I can't imagine all that likely.

The simple house rule you can make to avoid the whole situation is simply state that when you have two units occupying the same space you cannot form an alliance. That solves the problem and I imagine if Fantasy Flight created erreta on this, this would probobly the route they take since it alieviates the nescessity for any additional rules changes or explainations. They usually try to keep it simple.

But I agree this is an oversight of the rule.

That wouldn't really be a house rule. You can't do anything else in the game that would cause something illegal to happen, so there's no reason to expect an exception here. The Sol player knows that this situation is possible. If he is that whimsical and knows he would have a change of heart in the event of a ceasefire, he shouldn't make the move. You can look through the influence discard pile any time to see the odds of a ceasefire appearing, too.

Adam said:

I really can't find anything in the rules that supports this...the only time it ever comes close to saying that being in the same space as an ally is an illegal game state is on p. 15, and even that is most straightforwardly read as an elaboration of the rule that keeps getting repeated, namely, you can't move or deploy into such a space (though, granted, it's an elaboration that overlooks this very scenario). Nor is there anything in the alliance rules to suggest that there are any constraints on alliance formation.

subochre said:

Thats correct, its the point I was trying to make but I think Adam missed it. It is a fact that there is no rule that suggests its illegale for two allies to be in the same spot, it merely states that you can't deploy to an area where an ally already is, there are a number of circumstances that can occur resulting in two allies being in the same spot. In fact the game assumes that circumstances where two allies are in the same spot will come up and clarifies for those special circumstances, for example in the case of the Xxcha special ability it states very clearly that xxcha units cannot be turned face up if allied units are present in the same location, as it presumes that this is a scenario that can occur.

The problem with the Sol rule is that it can occur before a cease fire, as a result you can have allies sharing a space during the battle phase for which their are absolutly no rules whatesover as this is a circumstance the rules simply do not expect to ever happen, which is why I call it an oversight and it can be handled one of two ways. Its a bit rules lawyerish though to even discuss it here at this point, its clear their are good solutions available and I would venture to guess at some point we might even see some official erretta on it.

Huh! Sorry, guys, I didn't realize that's what you were getting at, and now that I have done a quick search through both Rex and Dune's rule books for "ally" and "allied," I am baffled to see no reference to the rule I was absolutely certain was there. I guess after restating myself a hundred times I should have thought to double check, and I thought I had, but I don't see it now.

However, I would still contest what you mention with the Xxcha. That doesn't necessarily imply what you think, as there has never been anything wrong with an ally entering a space with coexisting tokens because coexisting tokens are treated "as if they are not even on the board," a line from both Dune and Rex. That line you reference seems to further the idea that allies are never meant to share a space as it is covering the one last means of creating a shared space outside of Sol Offensive, but I'm now forced to admit that it's not exactly certain, that's just what it seems to me they are going for.

I do still think the simplest rule fix would be to say that "Alliances cannot be formed between players who share a space," and for reasons already stated I don't think this is some huge disadvantage for Sol. It would make more sense than creating a battle outside of battle round between two supposed buddies. Forcing one of them to evacuate before the round's end could also work, but it for some reason still seems a bit awkward to me.

My only problem with the "cannot make an alliance when co-occupying" idea is that alliances are not something that can be forged whenever someone wants to. Perhaps Sol used his bonus move from Sol Offensive to go after an influence drop already held by someone else, but then the Ceasefire came up and alliances changed such that Sol and his most recent target realize they should really band together against other alliances forming around the table. If they're flat out denied the option of allying together, that could make a significant difference in how the game plays out based solely on random luck, and even if Sol and his target can be friends after their little battle is fought, they won't be able to ally properly until another Ceasefire shows up.

Another option would be to come up with a house rule that ensures the Ceasefire (if any) always gets resolved before the Offensive, unfortunately I can't think of a way to do that without drawing cards until an influence blow is found. That would mean both alliances AND Sol's bonus move (if any) will occur AFTER people know where the influence is showing up, and I'm not sure how unbalancing that one bit of info is.

Forcing one or the other of the new allies to move out during the Movement Phase works too, I GUESS. It's just so... boring. =P

It's not entirely random luck. The Sol player knows this can happen, so he makes his decision based on what the odds of a Ceasefire currently are and how valuable both the potential alliance and the location are. If Sol really wants both, he can just drop his troops off near the location. Then if there's no Ceasefire, he will at least be in movement range of the place he wants to be. Of course, part of the advantage of this ability is that it's a free move, which he's giving up if he plays it safe like this, but it's still an advantage because it allows him easy access to the other side of the board which he ordinarily would have to move more than once to get to.

Not saying it's perfect, but it fits with the way the rest of the game works where you are constantly trying to guess at what cards in the treachery, influence, or storm decks are next, or using various abilities to peek at them and find out.

Another way it could possibly be done: Any Ceasfire revealed when Sol shares a space with a non-coexisting opponent is either removed from the game without effect or is shuffled back into the deck without effect.

Basically, the idea would be that you can't call for a ceasefire when troops are face to face about to fight. This would actually give Sol a little boost in control as they could purposefully prevent ceasefires with their belligerent use of the Sol Offensive. Of course, it is still dependent on an Offensive being drawn immediately before a Ceasefire, so it's not like this is something they can accomplish with any reliability.