If two lieutenants are in a town. They take their turn. Then Heroes move to this town. Upon arrival, heroes opt not to attack, and they "visit" some buildings and heal and buy potions.

A) Can the OL interrupt, and say "no, I'm going to attack you - you ended your game week move in a town with a lieutenant" and force a fight immediately? (even tho the LT already did other stuff like place a token).

B) If not, then can the OL force a battle after the heroes do their visit?

C) Would the OL have to wait till it's his part of the turn (next turn)

D) On the OL next turn, the LT may opt to attack? If the Heroes flee (back to the town) then...

E) Can the other LT in that town then attack immediately? (before the Heroes can do anything)

F) Can the LT's do both actions of place a siege marker (or roll for a siege) AND attack the party in the same turn?

poobaloo said:

A) No, because the OL already took their turn.

B) No, because the OL already took their turn.

C) Yes

D) Contested. I had always thought you could, but there is a line in the rulebook that says the Lt must move to the party's current location before attacking. Since he's on the city, that would mean he would have to move off the city and then back in order to attack the party. I am of the opinion that this is a strange rule and would love to see it changed.

E) See the answer for D

F) That's actually two different questions:

Can the Lts place a siege token and attack the party in the same turn? No, since its clearly defined in RtL that those are two different actions. Placing a seige token is one of the two orders a OL can give a Lt on his turn, the other is a Move action which is where the Lt can attack the party. You can't do both.

The second part to roll for a siege and attack is entirely different, since its not the Lt who rolls for the siege but the OL, and the roll is resolved a step ahead of issuing orders to Lts. So yes, you can roll for a seige and have the Lt move and attack the party the same turn.

Ok then I would say that D), based on your answer to F), is OK. The OL just has to declare his LT's action is a "move" turn, then whether or not he actually moves to the city seems arbitrary. He can just declare his turn a move, and end his move where it is, and attack. It would be silly to say he has to go away and come back, or the Heroes could shadow him, preventing an attack ever. The kicker is that LT cannot do something else, like place a token.

And the 2nd part of that makes sense too, that you check the roll first, then choose either to place a siege, or move/attack. (if you're to the point where you're rolling dice, then placing further tokens is moot)

poobaloo said:

Guess I should have quoted the line, since from what is written in the rulebook it is not okay to do that. And please understand, I fully agree that it should be possible but...

The rules sayeth:

Move: When moving, a lieutenant moves its marker from its current location, along one trail (of any type), to a new location. He does not check for encounters. However, lieutenants cannot enter Legendary Areas or Secret Master Areas. If a lieutenant enters the party’s location he may (but does not have to) attack the party (see “Encounters Involving Lieutenants” on page 16).

It actually specifies that if you chose to do a move action you actually have to move, and to attack the party you have to move and enter the party's location. This was probably done to avoid an OL stacking 4 Lts on the only passable location on a trail and forcing the Heroes to fight through 4 Lts to get to the next spot.

Yes but you said that line was "Contested". How do you play it?

poobaloo said:

I said contested because I've seen a number of people play it where they don't have to move, myself included until someone pointed out my mistake.

Big Remy said:

As discussed in a specific thread, I believe the wording is sufficiently vague, and inconsistent (poorly written) so that you can attack with a Lt when moving 0 trails. There are no imperatives on the actual moving part and the 'moving' could refer to physically moving along a trail or to taking a move action.

Additionally the game can be partially broken down by having the Lts sit on the heroes and trail them and be unattackable if you follow the cannot attack unless moved at least one trail option.

Corbon said:

I fully agree with the concept that you should be able to attack a Lt/Party if you are sharing the same space at the start of the turn. I was trying (poorly I might add) to give him the scope of things.

Well I appreciate all the thougths on it, and my consensus is the same. That while you could read that rule to imply a move of at least 1 trails is required before making an attack, it doesnt make sense, and isn't explicitly defined that an attack cannot occur unless the LT starts in a different space, and moves into the one w the Heroes. As always with questions, I'm more interested in what people actually do in practice and in the interest of a good enjoyable game, and not so much to draw an answer from a literal reading of a rule that perhaps wasnt meant to answer that question.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those cases, that it just never occurred to the writers "what if the LT takes a move action but doesnt move at all" or perhaps it was just implied (to them) cuz they knew what they intended.