[Operational] Fast Move / Attack

[mrweasely]

We had an issue today, where there was Theoden, Eomer, Gandalf, four riders, and a spearman in Edoras. The SP was going to win the game, unless on the last action die the FP could liberate a settlment in Rohan Plains. One settlement was shadow controlled but not occupied. The other had an orc army. The FP wanted to attack the unoccupied one (fewer things can go wrong when you're attacking no one), however, there were no units there, so no attack. Furthermore, there was a lone orc army unit adjacent to the space the Edoras army had to move through, so they also could not fast-move into the settlement.

So he was forced to attack the other settlement, and though the orcs there would have been toasted, they ended the combat with Dense Fog.

I'm afraid he went away mad that he couldn't attack "nothing" in the unoccupied settlement. Anyway, I'm asking for a rules check on this. Did we play it right?

[SevenSpirits]

Sounds correct to me.

The "stop next to enemy" rules are exactly so that, say, a FP army can guard Edoras without occupying it - the idea being that you have to fight the army that stopped you first.

It does create an unintuitive dynamic where sometimes you can only capture a location (in one die) if there are units in it.

[mrweasely]

Yeah. It should be a truism that the better defended something is, the harder it is to attack.

Is that why there are "cave" areas scattered throughout Rohan? A plase to hide your troops where they can't be the target of enemy attacks from long range?

[Veldrin]

You played it correctly.

[glow=green,2,300]Veldrin[/glow]