Best posts made by Krieghund

@thrasher1 said in AAZ Rule Question: Desperate Meassures Card: DECOY TEAM:

To quote myself:

“During the turn of the player before you the Zs were victorious in combat (that is: Phase 5). However the Zs do NOT take control of that area as that only happens during Phase 3 of a turn! So during your turn the last country that had units there (or the original owner) still controls that area. While there are Zs now.”

Just to be 100 % sure. This is the case?

Not exactly. They don’t take control immediately if all player units are wiped out during combat, but they will take control in phase 3 of the next player’s turn. As a result, the power controlling the territory before the zombies wiped out all player units will only control it for part of your turn. By the time you do your combat moves, it will be zombie-controlled.

Zs do NOT take control (place a control marker) if they happen to be the only units left in an area after combat (Phase 5).
Was this intended by the game creators?

Yes.

My experience is that new players automatically want to place a control marker there then. Immediatelly after combat (Phase 5). This will have the effect that the Zs might reach the 25 IPC level ‘faster’…

It also gives the controller a chance to noncombat move other units in to retain the territory, as it is still friendly at that time.

@Cernel said in Offloading In Both Combat And Non Combat Movement:

Does “a transport that has been in combat” mean only a transport that took part in a sea battle (as I always assumed this was the only meaning), or is a transport that offloaded units into combat from a friendly sea zone also counted as “having been in combat” (I always assumed it wasn’t, and this part of the rulebook was only referring to transports actually moved to the battleboard, on that turn)?

That’s a fair point. However, a transport’s move is over once it’s been in combat and/or offloaded. Since the rules state that a transport cannot offload to more than one territory, it’s fair to assume that it also may not load from a different territory after offloading (which would requiring “moving” to a different coast within the same sea zone). That would mean that if it were to load again after offloading, it would need to load from that same territory, and since any units in the amphibiously assaulted territory have been in combat, they may not load.

I, of course, take your word, but how can be inferred from the rulebook (or any clarifications) that ending your movement as cargo into a hostile sea zone (thus even being moved as cargo on the battleboard itself) does not possibly count for satisfying the requirement to “end their move in a hostile space”?

The loaded units ended their movement on the transport, in a friendly sea zone. The movement of the transport after they were loaded was not theirs, but the transport’s. In order to fulfill the requirement, they must offload into a hostile territory, thus ending their movement there.

@Cernel The latter.

Bear in mind that at the time Hawaii was not a state, but a territory, although a strategically important one. It was one among many Pacific island territories of the USA, and while a nearby Japanese presence would certainly have raised eyebrows, it would not have had the same effect that such a presence closer to the mainland would have.

While Alaska was also still a territory at the time, the fact of its closer proximity to the continental USA makes it worthy of inclusion in the restriction.

@joephillips There is no provision in the rules of the game for “annexing” territories. If you want to create house rules for this, it’s up to you what happens; however, when it comes to a hostile power, “annex” is just a diplomatic word for “attack”.

@DoManMacgee is correct.

@Cernel said in Offloading In Both Combat And Non Combat Movement:

As long as we are following Revised OOB rules literally, I think we can all agree that we should be allowed always to load during Non Combat Move, from any adjacent territories, after having offloaded, during Combat Move or Non Combat Move or both, as long as we didn’t offload during Non Combat Move after having been in a (victorious) sea battle and as long as we didn’t load and offload without otherwise moving (bridging). Correct?

You could interpret it that way, if you read the core transport rules in a vacuum, without taking other rules mentioned above into account. However, those other rules cast doubt on that interpretation, which is why we’re having this discussion.

Then, you are (and here we go past a purely literal interpretation) saying that the rule that restricts a transport offloading only to one territory per turn can also be taken as barring loading from any other territories, after you offloaded, this based on the understanding that the intention of the original author was actually to say that, after offloading, the transport is stuck on that one “coast”, within that sea zone, for the rest of the turn.

Basically, you are saying that the original author simply forgot to add the restriction of loading only from the territory you offloaded to, after you offloaded (implying you have to stay on that coast, only, for the rest of the turn). I guess that is your guess. My guess (much less informed, as I’ve never even met Larry Harris), instead, is that the original author didn’t have in mind, thus didn’t forgot, that, but, rather, simply forgot to say that you can never load after having offloaded (this rule actually existing only for the bridging and for the offloading after victorious sea battle cases).

OK. That’s what I said in my last post. It’s cleaner and makes more sense.

So, as I see it, here we have a split between two different rulesets, that I could call “Revised OOB Literal” and “Revised OOB Intentional”, the first one based on interpreting what Larry Harris said and the second one based on surmising what Larry Harris intended to say, instead.

I disagree. The “literal” rules are confusing and even contradictory on this point, so they must be interpreted. The best way to do that is to resolve the confusion and contradiction based on what makes sense within the context of the rules. Of course, knowing what the authors’ intention actually was helps.

Up until this point, I follow, if you can confirm I’m actually following. However what I’m really not understanding is how your assumption of expanding the single territory offloading turn-based restriction into restricting loading too can be any closer to a literal interpretation of the rulebook than my proposal of generally expanding the no-loading-after-offloading restriction at the bridging rules.

It’s not, and I agreed with your proposal in my last post. At any rate, one arrives at the same conclusion either way.

What I really don’t get is why expanding the single territory offload to loading too is a “fair assumption” while generalizing the no loading after offloading bridging only rule is merely a “maybe”.

My “maybe” was simply a segue into a deeper discussion further down, during which I agreed.

In my mind, either we go for a literal interpretation of Revised OOB and, in this case, both these assumptions are unacceptable, as literally not part of the rulebook, its errata, nor its official clarifications (as far as I know), or we go for an intentional evaluation of Revised OOB and, in this case, I cannot see how these two assumption are one any less easily admissible than the other one.

So, if it is true that you actually feel it is “safer” or “fairer” to expand the single territory offload restriction rule, rather than generalizing the no loading after offloading bridging rule (are you?), and assuming that you agree, anyways, we are, in both cases, going out of a strictly literal reading of the Revised OOB ruleset, I would be interested to know how exactly do you believe one of these assumption is so much “safer” or “fairer” than the other one?

Again, I can’t agree with a “literal” interpretation, for the reasons I outlined above, and both applications of related rules are equally viable (and necessary to resolve the conflict).

Because, to me, it merely looks like we are moving into some personal interpretation of the actual intentions of the original author, substantially creating unofficial “errata” (with the meaning of changing the rulebook), in both cases alike, while only on a merely personal level one could subscribe to one or the other or both (though subscribing to both is practically equivalent to subscribing to the second one only, as generally barring loading after offloading covers all that is covered by the other case and more).

We are moving into interpretation, as that is necessary to resolve the conflict in the rules, but I disagree that it is changing the rulebook, as I outlined above. It is merely making sense of contradictions within it.

Thanks.

@Cernel said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

However, as I said, going with the prior rulings leaves an open question which I’ve made at my previous post, specifically

The loaded units ended their movement on the transport, in a friendly sea zone. The movement of the transport after they were loaded was not theirs, but the transport’s. In order to fulfill the requirement, they must offload into a hostile territory, thus ending their movement there.

(About this, it was recently clarified that in Classic you can load transports in hostile sea zones (even after entering them on the same turn), so that way (in Classic) the loaded units could end their movement in a hostile sea zone. Thus, on this basis, one may argue that in Classic it should nevertheless be legal to move an empty transport into a hostile sea zone and then load one or two units onto the transport (so into a hostile sea zone) to keep them on board during the sea battle and for the rest of the turn. Right?)

No. Land units may only be loaded during combat movement for participation in an amphibious assault.

This matter has not been addressed previously because I didn’t know that in Classic you are allowed to load onto transports which are inside hostile sea zones (which was subsequently positively clarified), so here I cannot just “go with the prior rulings”, or rather I would argue that doing so would literally make this sequence of actions legal unless we say that units which are inside a transport are not inside the sea zone of which the transport is inside, so loading onto a transport does not count as moving into the sea zone where the transport is. Does it?

Yes, it does, but that doesn’t satisfy the requirement for doing so in combat movement unless doing so for an amphibious assault.

There were no changes to the treatment of neutrals in general, but the Soviet-Mongolian Defense Pact was added in the 2nd Edition.

@Cernel Zombies is out of print. Renegade has not yet (and may never) put any Rulebooks for out-of-print games on their website.

AA50 is being reprinted by Renegade (they are taking preorders), but they have not added the Rulebook to their website yet.

I have asked twice about how Zombie card “stacking” should work, but I have yet to receive an answer. @smo63, have you heard anything about this issue in your discussions?

@Cernel said in Offloading In Both Combat And Non Combat Movement:

@Krieghund Ok, then. For my plan of creating a list of transport rules differences between 2nd/3rd, Revised OOB and Revised LHTR (not promising I will actually get around doing it, but I hope so), I was actually inclined splitting Revised OOB between “Revised OOB Literal” and “Revised OOB Intentional”, the first one based only on a literal reading of the rulebook and its official errata, no matter how absurd or contradictory, the second one expanding over it, to reconstruct the original intent of the author, beyond the arguable poor quality of the wording.

Now I understand that you will never subscribe to such a classification, so I get that I’ll have to keep a single column only for “Revised OOB” (substantially getting rid of what would have been the “Revised OOB Literal” column, and keeping only the “Revised OOB Intentional” one, but renamed as just “Revised OOB”).

OK. Good luck! If it helps, over 10 years ago I created such a document comparing and contrasting AA50, AAR OOB, and AAR LHTR. It may make a good starting point:

http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1726

Anyway, I think at least here we have fully clarified 1 rule for “Revised OOB”:

“You can never load anything onto a transport after having offloaded anything from the same transport, on the same turn (no exceptions)”.

Which is, then, not going to be part of any 2nd/3rd, Revised OOB and Revised LHTR rules differences, since this is true, with not a single exception, for every single Axis & Allies game that ever existed since the first edition, right?

Yes, as far as the strategic-level games go.

Let me anyways clarify that, by “Revised OOB Literal”, I was not meaning at all that was the “true” Revised, or anything like that. That would have been merely a personal point of view, and you can have a literal interpretation (or a whole set of possible literal interpretations) that is filled with contradictions, conflicts and absurdities. I was substantially referring to a similar matter in the interpretation of the law, where you could read the law as what it is literally saying (no matter how absurd the consequences of that might be) or you could read it by trying to follow the actual intentions of the law, instead (the “golden rule”). When you said “You could interpret it that way, if you read the core transport rules in a vacuum, without taking other rules mentioned above into account”, then I can assure you were saying the same thing as what I was meaning by “literal”, if by “without taking other rules mentioned above into account” you meant “integrating the original rulebook with only the official errata and clarifications, and nothing else at all, and nothing more than by their strict literal meaning”.

I meant not taking the bridging and not offloading into more than one territory rules into account, which are what create the inconsistency.

@Cernel said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

Is this the only case in all Axis & Allies WW2 strategic games in which non-air units can both participate in combat and move in noncombat during the same turn?

I believe so.

However, the Revised OOB also states that

Transports that have
been in combat may either load
or offload (not both) during this
phase, but not if they have
retreated from combat this turn.

So, is this to be taken as a special rule which overrides the aforementioned general principle, making the already loaded units able to noncombat move despite having participated in combat?

Yes.

The Political Situation rules for Powers on pages 8 through 10 apply only in Pacific games, as they are replaced with the ones on pages 35 through 39 in Global games. Thus, the 30 IPC payment to the US on page 9 applies only to Pacific games, and not to Global games, as it does not appear in the Global rules.

@allister Witt’s answer was mostly correct. However, in this case the battleship would not have the option to retreat. Per page 20 of the Rulebook, combat is over when “all units that can either fire at a valid target or retreat on one or both sides have been destroyed”. Since only a transport remains for the defender, and it can neither fire nor retreat, the combat is over and the battleship must remain in the sea zone.

Yes, it does.

@Cernel said in Offloading In Both Combat And Non Combat Movement:

After all these years, do you feel positive that you have documented all actual possible generic differences between Revise OOB and Revised LHTR, in that document, assuming exaustivity was an aim, or do you assign a chance there may be something you might have missed (if not excluded)?

There’s always a chance that I missed something, but that document has been examined pretty exhaustively over the years.

Also, now that I think about that, could that be taken as hint, if not proof, that in Revised OOB you can never load after having offloaded, on the same turn, giving the fact that it is not a listed element and the fact that we are clear that is how it works in LHTR? Does that chart counts as an official clarification?

That’s a fair point. I guess you could call it official, since it was “blessed” by Larry.

If so, is it supposed to cover absolutely everything that is different, beside specific rules that are integrally new or removed, like National Advantages? If so, can absence of evidence be taken as evidence of absence?

In the introduction, the document states that it covers only differences in rules that exist in all of the games, and not rules that are either removed from or added to any of them. However, the rules in which we’re currently interested (transports and amphibious assaults) exist in all three games, so it is intended to be comprehensive in that area.

Two more questions right away, regarding transports that surely cannot move and the matter of implied coast-to-coast movement:

1. Can a single transport that has been in combat load from multiple (two) territories, after combat?

2. Can you move units into a single allied transport from multiple (two) territories, on the same turn?

I know that, according to the rulebook, both answers are yes, but just wanted to make sure.

Yes.

@Cernel said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

@Krieghund said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

@Cernel Cases 1 and 2 are legal in versions up to and including Revised OOB, but not legal in Revised LHTR or later. Cases 3 through 5 are not legal in any version.

Even though you stated
@Krieghund said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

@Cernel Forget what I said here to the contrary, and go with the prior rulings. I have edited my above answers in accordance with this.

I’ve seen that you have not yet edited this post.

Does this mean that, in this case, you stand by this latest clarification of yours (which should be taken as prevalent)?

No. I did not edit the post because I amended this answer in a later post in this thread (which was made before I edited the posts).

So, summarizing, it seems that, to my first two cases at the first post of this topic, specifically
@Cernel said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

1. A transport has one or two units already on board at the start of the turn, does not load any more units, moves into a hostile sea zone during the same turn and does not offload any units during Combat Move, partakes to a successful sea battle without being removed and offloads any number of its cargo into an own or allied territory during the subsequent Non-Combat Move phase.

2. A transport has one or two units already on board at the start of the turn, starts the turn inside a hostile sea zone and neither moves nor loads any units nor offloads any units during Combat Move, partakes to a successful sea battle without being removed and offloads any number of its cargo into an own or allied territory during the subsequent Non-Combat Move phase.

we have two possible official answers (both from you).

In this topic, you said that
@Krieghund said in Some cases of transport-related rules across "Axis & Allies" games from Classic to the most recent ones:

@Cernel Cases 1 and 2 are legal in versions up to and including Revised OOB, but not legal in Revised LHTR or later.

whereas, based on what you said previously and I quoted at this post, I understand that your answer based on those answers would be something like

Cases 1 and 2 are legal in Revised OOB and the original Europe and Pacific, but not legal in the Classic games nor in Revised LHTR or later.

Which one is the correct ruling?

The second one, as I stated in my amended post above.

If you will, please don’t just tell me to go with whatever you said previously: if you are going with the previous rulings, I’d like to know on what they are based.

Would it be because of the concept that cargo inside a transport which took part in a battle is considered having taken part in the battle too (and therefore cannot do anything during the subsequent Noncombat Move phase) coupled with the fact that every Classic rules-book is missing a special rule like the one in Revised OOB stating that

Transports that have been in combat may either load or offload (not both) during this phase, but not if they have retreated from combat this turn.

If this is not the reason, what is the reason?

Yes, that’s the reason.

I understand that, as an official answerer, you can just limit yourself to say what’s what, but I would like to know the reasons behind the rulings at least for those which (apparently) changed over time or got answers at variance with each other if that is not too much to ask.

I think this was all covered adequately in the “Offloading in Both Combat and Noncombat Movement” thread that you linked. There’s no reason to go over it again.

As a side note, I apologize for not consulting that thread before I answered here initially. I was going from memory, which is always a bad thing to do when dealing with Revised OOB, for reasons discussed in that thread.

Trying to make a summary of a number of my topics, I believe that we can divide the matter into three main cases, namely “1”, “2” and “3”, the latter being actually “1+2”.

1. A transport with 2 units already on board at start turn offloads 1 unit during Combat Move (does not take part in any battles) and offloads the other unit during Noncombat Move (both units being offloaded into the same territory, which was enemy owned during Combat Move and is friendly during Noncombat Move).

2. A transport with 1 or 2 units already on board at start turn takes part in a battle (and does not offload any units during Conduct Combat) and offloads all or part of the units during Noncombat move (into a friendly territory).

3. A transport with 2 units already on board at start tun takes part in a battle and offloads 1 unit during Conduct Combat and offloads the other unit during Noncombat Move (both units being offloaded into the same territory, which was enemy owned during Conduct Combat and is friendly during Noncombat Move).

First of all, have we conclusively clarified that (for every rules-set) whether or not a transport moved before amphibiously offloading or taking part in a battle on the same turn is absolutely irrelevant for whatever it can do during Noncombat Move? Meaning that it would be completely pointless to split the aforementioned three cases into two cases each (for a total of six cases), stating whether the transport moved or not before offloading in Combat Move or taking part in combat. Correct?

Yes.

Secondarily, are we splitting all actual (WW2 and strategic) Axis & Allies games from Classic 1st Edition to the most recent ones into two main groups each of which has either all the above three cases (“1”, “2” and “1+2”) legal or illegal, or are there any such games which have only some of the above three cases legal and the rest illegal?

This grouping is correct.

Either way, I’d like to have the full list of them (Again, it does not need to be an actual list: something like “this full sequence of actions is illegal in every game since Revised LHTR but was legal in Revised OOB and every game beforehand” would be just as good.).

To be clear, I see two cases here.

If I take what you said at the post to which I’m replying now as prevailing over whatever you said in the past and I quoted at this post, what I understand is that,

• for the Classic games, 1 and 1+2 are illegal but 2 is legal.
• for Europe, Pacific and Revised OOB, 1, 2 and 1+2 are all legal.
• for Revised LHTR and later games, 1, 2 and 1+2 are all illegal.

If I take what you said in the past and I quoted at this post as prevailing over whatever you said at the post to which I’m replying now, what I understand is that,

• for the Classic games, Revised LHTR and later games, 1, 2 and 1+2 are all illegal.
• for Europe, Pacific and Revised OOB, 1, 2 and 1+2 are all legal.

(However, I’m quite unsure about (the original) Europe and Pacific.)

So take your time and let me/us know if you will. I understand that it’s a lot of rules-sets to be sure. Thank you.

For Classic and Revised LHTR and later, all are illegal.
For Europe, Pacific, and LHTR OOB, all are legal.

No. The (very small) border between those sea zones is west of Eire. The emblem between Northern Ireland and Scotland indicates that it’s one territory (Scotland) with no sea zone considered to be between them.

@DoManMacgee There is always playtester (and staff) turnover between projects. That is not the reason for this issue. I can’t comment on what the reason was, other than to say it was not the playtesters, and I’m saying this much only because I don’t like to see them unjustly criticized.