We were faced with an odd situation last game, causing several questions, I am not certain about:

Situation:

My Citadel Guards attacked the opponent's Obscene and forced them to retreat. Due to their special ability "Ferocity", they were allowed to counter first. My opponent rolled a retreat, which caused me to retreat as well.

Question 1 (Not so important, since I am pretty sure about the answer) : Can a counter force retreats? I think so, since the rules say that a counter follows the usual combat steps. So we continued playing this way.

Situation (continued):

Now, neither unit was in its original space.

Question 2 (and the reason for my post) :

Can my Citadel Guards still advance to the Obscene's original space, effectively moving 2 or even more spaces??? Or can I ONLY advance, if my unit is still adjacent to the target unit's original space? We believe the rules imply exactly that (though not explicitly stated, I believe), so my Knights did not advance. What do you think, was I allowed to advance?

Situation (continued):

However, I did not advance, but instead used their special ability "Pursue" to attack another unit.

Question 3:

Was I allowed to do that, if I was not allowed to advance in the first place (assuming that was in fact the case)? Is "Pursue" bound to the ability to advance? In other words, if I cannot advance (supposedly because I was forced to retreat), I also cannot use "Pursue"?

I am rather sure that we played everything correctly, but I want to be certain, hence my post.

What do you think?

Question 1: Can a counter force a retreat?

Nothing in the RAW says that it doesn't so yes. That's apart of the risk when attacking.

Question 2:Can the Citidel guards advance after a retreat?

No, the reference guide clearly states that, "To advance the attacking unit moves into the target unit's original Hex." Once you retreated, you were unable to move into that hex.

Question 3: Could you trigger pursue?

No, once again the reference guide is a good source. Under the Pursue Section the first sentence states, "When a unit with the Pursue ability can advance, instead move the attacking unit and perform one additional attack." Since you were unable to trigger the advance as addressed in question 2, you would not be allowed to instead perform pursue.

Thank you. So the only thing we played wrong was the last step, namely using Pursue, which I was not allowed to do.

However, the rules seem ambivalent to me, when it comes to advance, even though I think you are right.

The rules say: "To advance, the attacking unit moves into the target unit's original hex."

The rules certainly imply that the target unit's original hex must be the very next one you move into, which forbids you to move into any other hex first. However, the rules don't explicitly state that. The way the text is written, I can imagine moving over 30 hexes, as long as I end up in the target unit's original hex and still be in line with the rules. Even though I am certain that's not implied, the rules do not explicitly state otherwise.

Maybe what confused me is the difference between "moving into" and "moving through". I can move though as many hexes as I like, as long as I end up moving into the target unit's original hex.

But I guess the rules use the phrase "moving into" as an equivalent to "moving though". Then again, even if that is the case, the rules don't explicitly forbid me to move into another hex first.

The only reason, I think that you can only advance if still adjacent to the target unit's original space, is that ranged units are not allowed to advance from a distance either, but only if they attacked adjacent units.

Maybe it seems ambivalent to me, because I am not a native speaker.

However, thanks for the quick response.

I finally found an explicit answer to my questions on page 10 of the reference book under "unstoppable (lore card)", which is basically the same ability as "Ferocity":

It says there: "If the counter forces the enemy unit to retreat one or more hexes, the enemy unit cannot advance or use a Pursue ability."

Obviously the designers thought it worth mentioning in the reference book, so my questions were not that absurd. However, it would have saved me some time, had they included "Ferocity" in the book as well.

These things have come up when I first started to play. Nothing to feel dumb about.