From: cthulhoid@aol.com (Cthulhoid) Description: AH Elric - GJR's Clarifications #1 Gary J. Robinson's Notes on Avalon Hills' ELRIC Battle at the End of Time 2.1 THE MAP - The map for Elric, like everything else about the game, is maddeningly ambiguous. Here are some clarifications: HILLS do not impede movement. Only MOUNTAINS do. Mountains may be recognized by their vertical lines; mountain ranges include the Serpent's Teeth, the ranges around the Vale of Xanyaw, and the ranges bordering the Sighing Desert. Note that province lines often go through hills (e.g., Dorel, or hills in Argimiliar) but they never go through mountains. If mountains do not totally close off a border, then they do not block it; there are several narrow entrances to the Sighing Desert. FORESTS have no effect on the game. Neither do RIVERS. WALLED CITIES are very poorly explained in the rules, to say the least. Note that if there is a second city in a province, it is there for decorative purposes ONLY! Multiple cities are treated as one city for combat purposes. You either control both of them, or neither of them; in effect it is the _province_ that you control, not the city. If you control the province, you gain the benefits of being inside a walled city - pretend the second one isn't even there. Note walled cities only protect a defender. Under 6.33, a player may only move units into a province/sea area containing enemy units if he plans to attack. That means if an enemy has units in a province containing one of your cities (but the enemy didn't capture the city), and you move units into the province, you must attack the enemy units. You cannot just jump into the city to defend it in case it is attacked next turn. I think an exception to this is entering a besieged port from the sea. 2.2 Counter errors - The BALO the JESTER spell counter has no name printed on it; it just says "(works on odd die-roll only)". Write "Balo the Jester" on it. The ARIOCH spell counter has both Arioch's name on it and Balo the Jester's name on it; just put a line through Balo's. The DRAGONS spell counter should have a "(5)" on it to show its effect on the Cosmic Balance (presumably toward Chaos - it doesn't say!). It is an Army/Fleet Eater and so the strength is parenthesized. The MABELRODE counter is missing a strength; write a "3" in the upper left corner. One of the TARKESH ARMY UNITS is actually a Pan Tangian army unit in the wrong colors - the army counter is identical to the Pan Tang army counters (two swords). The strange thing is, even if you give the unit back to the Pan Tangians, their total strength does not add up correctly to (map number minus 5). Whether you give this army to the Tarkesh or Pan Tang forces is up to you. But in the Chaosium versium of the game, this army is definitely in Pan Tangian colors. Inexplicably, Avalon Hill changed ALL the colors of the counters from the Chaosium version. Why they did this, I have no idea. By the way, I checked: all the other printed numbers on the map match the counter mix exactly (except Nadsokor - they treated it as if it was walled, which it isn't). Making Nadsokor walled removes the anomaly, but strengthens Nadsokor substantially. Don't forget to include Moonglum when mustering a neutral Eshmir - the printed number on the map includes him. 2.26 Alignments of Nations - The national alignments given in Table 2.26 (The Color Code Table) have NO SIGNIFICANCE in the game whatsoever. 3.5 Setting Up - Note the Melniboneans, with the exception of Elric, do not start with any spells. The magicians of countries that players start with DO start with their full complement of spells. 3.8 Start 3 armies in each province containing a city, NOT three armies in each city. This is a major misprint! 6.1 A player can never have more than one stack per province unless it is wilderness (and they haven't found each other). As mentioned in 9.1, all units in a province must fight together. Stacks in non-wilderness merge as soon as they meet. You can't have magicians with Chaos spells in one "stack" and magicians with Law spells in another "stack" in the same non-wilderness province. 6.3 Sea Movement is confusing and needs clarification. So here it is: A fleet is either at sea or in port. It should be VERY clear from a player's placement of a fleet which situation it is in. Fleets in port cannot carry armies or personalities; all passengers disembark, automatically and immediately, into the province of the port the instant the fleet enters port. Note if the port is in enemy hands, the fleets cannot enter and must stay at sea. They can enter neutral (uncontrolled) ports to drop someone off or pick someone up but must leave the port as soon as they have taken the passengers on board or dropped them off. Entering or leaving a port costs a fleet no movement points; it is part of the sea province. The fleet, however, can only enter/leave a port during its turn (except for retreats after battle). If passengers board a fleet (i.e. ARE NOT IN PORT ANYMORE) put the passenger counter(s) under the fleet counter the passenger(s) are aboard, and immediately move the fleet out of the port into the sea province. Passengers on a ship, as mentioned, pop into the province as soon as the fleet enters port. This costs nothing, and if the city is friendly, ex-passengers canbe considered inside it, even if it is besieged from the land side. Such disembarkation costs nothing; ports are handy. If there is no friendly or neutral, ungarrisoned port to use, the fleets must stay at sea. Passengers can land anyway with rowboats; this costs the ship 1 movement point. (NOTE: This rule comes directly from the Chaosium rules, and was somehow omitted from the Avalon Hill rules.) So, yes, you can land at the Unholy Fortress. The rules have some serious omissions! While a fleet can move from the sea into a port for free, embarkation by passengers is not free; as mentioned in the rules, it costs 1 point to embark on a fleet in port. Embarking from a coastline with no friendly or ungarrisoned neutral ports costs 4 movement points, as mentioned in the rules. However, also from the Chaosium rules: a personality can board a ship from a non-port province at the cost of only 1 point, not 4 points. Don't forget, if units use both land and sea movement in the same turn, to subtract from their movement points the movement points spent travelling on the first element; see 6.31. Just one more time: you CANNOT sit in port with passengers on board! You can't make people sit on a boat next to the dock for an entire turn so next turn they are "ready to sail." Don't forget each turn represents, most likely, several months. If you don't enforce this rule, everyone will "sit on board" in port so they can instantly put to sea or disembark for free and move on land, as the situation warrants - very unrealistic. Also see BLOCKADES, below. 6.51 The BOILING SEA - The procedure here is to roll a die for each fleet, one at a time. The resulting number is used to determine if that unit made its Heroic Escape attempt. Example: Two Fleets are present, one with a strength of 4 and the other with a strength of 2. The player rolls a "3" for the first one and a "3" for the second. The strength 4 Fleet made it, and all aboard are safe; the strength 2 Fleet is sunk, all armies aboard are lost, and any personalities on board must roll themselves, each seperately, to determine if they make Heroic Escapes. "One roll" means a unit may only be forced to undergo this roll once per turn, even if it enters and leaves the Boiling Sea in the same turn. 6.522 Captured enemy capitals: ignore this rule. It contradicts 10.12 and is completely inconsistent with that rule. Capture of an enemy capital yields no special benefits, other than the normal spell draw. Note captured enemy capitals DO count for victory conditions, if the capturing player still controls it at the end of the game. If he musters it after capturing it, he gives up this benefit, as it is no longer a "captured enemy capital" but a friendly capital. In effect, points are being traded for military might. You cannot brag about your conquest of Tarkesh if Tarkesh has become your ally - bad politics! Note that you cannot muster an enemy country unless you can enter the capital, something you cannot do unless you storm it. You can muster a neutral country just by walking into its capital, unless someone else has stormed the capital and still has control of it (by leaving a garrison; see Rule 9.913). In that case, you can only muster it by storming it or otherwise disposing of the garrison (such as by conquering and mustering the home country of the garrisoning unit). 6.572 "Half the defenders" means the defender must lose, in strength points, half the force present. If Yyrkoon (a "5") and three armies were defending, and the city held, Yyrkoon's force would have to lose 4 strength points. The only way it could do this would be to lose Yyrkoon. 'Bye, Yyrkoon. 6.591 A force needs Elric to attack Imrryr. Anybody can land on Melnibone by paying the disembarkment cost and jumping off ships that are in an adjacent seaprovince, but you need Elric to attack the city; see 9.943. Having Elric lets you besiege Imrryr (attack it like any other city); that is what the rule means by "enter." Imrryr still gets its five-point wall. Note if you are with Elric, you can park your ships in the port while besieging Imrryr (see below). Once Imrryr falls, substitute "any Melnibonean" for "Elric" in this paragraph. Section 9.943 is missing from the Chaosium rules; it is possible that Greg Stafford's original conception was that anyone could attack Imrryr, but you needed Elric to bypass the walls and make it a battle instead of a seige. Play it how you feel it. Note it is usually pointless to beseige Imrryr unless you have an Army Eater, because reducing it will take too many turns. 8 Magic spells held by personalities who are killed are discarded. 8.35 Conflicting Spell Alignments: The rules are fairly clear about this. Unless they are in seperate stacks in a wilderness area, a player's magicians may not hold spells of conflicting alignments (Law and Chaos) while occupying the same province. Obviously, a single magician may never hold spells of conflicting alignments himself. Elric himself is the great exception to this. He may hold any spells; furthermore, he may share a stack with other magicians peacefully regardless of what alignment spells they hold. On the initial spell draw a player can get a terrible start if his magician draws conflicting alignment spells. Note spells are drawn one at a time. If a spell is drawn which conflicts with other spells already allocated to persons in that province, allow the drawer to immediately transfer the spell to a non-magician in the province, for use as a muster. Note spells held by non-magicians (a maximum of one per non-magician) are ignored for alignment purposes; Rule 8.5. Note also that Pan Tangians cannot take advantage of this new rule (they have no non-magician personalities). Use this rule for the opening spell draw ONLY; do not use it for mustered nations' pieces or found spells or spells drawn for capturing capitals. On the opening spell draw only, the Pan Tangians may draw all their spells at once instead of one at a time. They may then examine all the spells they drew, and if conflicting alignments exist, may decide which spells to discard after looking at all of their starting spells. 9.4 "Eater" spells go before ANY other magic! Thus, they cannot be "dispelled." 9.82 Heroic Escapes by personalities with parenthesized strength: the rules state that "this rule does not apply to Elric." Presumably, this means that personalities with parenthesized strengths (human flowers) cannot "hitch a ride" with Elric, as they normally would with whomever present had the highest combat strength, when Heroic Escapes are called for. This makes sense; since Elric is a "6," he always makes his Heroic Escape roll, and to allow parenthesized females to hitch a ride with him would mean to allow them to always escape. And we can't have *that*. 9.93 Defense Values of neutral cities: this number (printed on the mapboard) INCLUDES the value of the city walls, which is three for a province containing only regular cities and five for provinces containing a capital. For regular city provinces, the defense value printed is always six, of course - the regular starting setup of three armies in the province, plus the three strengthwall. For a province containing a capital, it is always five (the wall) plus the combat strengths of all the personalities of the nation plus all the armies that would be left over after normal setup, i.e. after putting three armies in each regular-city-province. Thus, put all the nation's personalities (including the admiral, if any) in the capital province, plus whatever armies are required to bring the total up to the-number-printed-on-the-board-minus-five. It should add up; if it doesn't, a piece is missing or you screwed up. (Once I figured this out, I was able to determine that the Pan Tangian counters are screwed up - they don't add up to thirteen, which is 18 (printed on the board) minus five. The suspicious-looking Tarkesh army unit also tipped me off. See counter notes, above.) For simplicity, DON'T give the defending neutrals any spells; it's tough to get anywhere when the neutrals have Army Eaters! Also, never give self-mustering neutrals any fleets. Also note that NADSOKOR is not a walled city. Its printed defense number is therefore wrong; it should be 6, which is the total strength of the Nadsokor counters, not 11, which assumes a walled capital. Though, strictly speaking, I don't know that you can attack a neutral city with no wall.... Nobody gets a spell for capturing Nadsokor. 9.95 Blockade of enemy ports - Since fleets can't attack ports the way armies can attack cities, they can blockade instead by sitting in the adjoining sea area. (NOTE: in the Chaosium version fleets CAN attack ports!) Blockade doesn't affect the city or its occupants, as long as they remain in the city. Fleets may not retreat into the sea area as a result of a battle if enemy fleets are present (blockading); see 9.961. If fleets belonging to the blockaded player wish to enter the sea province from another sea province, with the intention of entering the port, in order to help defend the city/drop off troops in the city under siege (troops can't enter from the land side; 9.941) then they must divert the blockading enemy fleet. This is handled as per 9.92, Overruns, i.e. the player must allocate a portion of his naval force to divert the blockading fleet. This "diverting force" must have a total strength, in fleets and personalities, equal to twice the strength of the blockading force. Any ships not in the "diverting force," i.e. the "blockade running force," may then continue on into the port. If the blockade-runners wish, they may leave the port again after dropping off passengers in the city so that they may participate in the sea battle against the blockading ships. Note that ships may never enter/leave ports once movement is finished, except to retreat after a retreat is called for on the combat table. NOTE: If a blockading force is attacked, and it forces the attackers to retreat, they CANNOT retreat into the port; it is still cut off, just like in a land siege. Nothing can enter the port until the blockaders are driven off, unless an overrun, as detailed in the preceding paragraph, is carried out. EXCEPTION: ships that attack from inside the port, just like armies that attack siegers, CAN retreat back into the port if they are defeated. They can also retreat out of the sea province, just as armies in a besieged city can retreat out the province and abandon the city, i.e. "making a run for it." If ships from inside the port, and fleets from outside, join to attack blockaders, make sure to keep the attackers seperate so it is clear which fleets can retreat back into the port should the attack fail. Note that if ships wish to disembark passengers with rowboats (i.e. the land units pay a point to disembark from off the coast, rather than hopping off for free in a port) the same procedure described above is used if there is a blockade. That is, ships cannot land passengers if there is a blockading fleet present unless there is an overrun. Passengers that "hop off" from offshore are NOT considered to be landing inside a city if the city is under siege. Entering a city under siege is possible only by means of a port. If the city under siege is not a port (Example: Ryfel, in Pikarayd) it cannot be reinforced from sea. 9.962 This rule contains a nonsense sentence. It states that all ships that are in a port when it falls into enemy hands are destroyed. This is nonsense; ships are allowed to add their combat total to the defense, and since a city doesn't fall until all defenders are destroyed, there is no way any ships could be left inside when the city falls, unless they perversely didn't aid the defense and just sat there waiting to be torched. "Fleets in port are protected by the city walls" means they can't be attacked by enemy fleets in the adjoining sea. 9.8 Personalities of neutral nations do not get to make Heroic Escapes. What would be the point? They would do nothing except sit in some empty province for the rest of the game. 9.943 The Siege of Imrryr - If Imrryr is attacked while it is still in Melnibonean hands, the following special rules apply: - Neutral Melnibonean defenders do not get any spells. - Neutral Melniboneans do not get Heroic Escapes (where would they go?), and can thus be automatically killed by an Army Eater spell. - Neutral Melnibone DOES get the Battle Barge. - The total defense strength of Melnibone is 34, with wall. - Attackers can put their ships "in port," safe from attack by other players, while the siege is going on. The ships cannot participate in the battle, however. - Army Eater spells, while handy, will not eliminate the Battle Barge; only Fleet Eaters or a combat result can do that. The Battle Barge WILL defend Imrryr. 10 Melniboneans on the board cannot be mustered. In most scenarios, this means Imrryr must fall before any Melniboneans can be mustered. 11.122 Elric cannot be "influenced away" from another player while aboard a fleet (at sea). A seductive Cymoril cannot "swim out to the ships" like an 18th century Hawaiian girl stroking out to meet sex-starved British sailors. 14 Notes on Spells - Jeweled Bird: This is a flying spell; see 6.42. It is not a combat spell. The Combat Strength in the rules (p.11) is a misprint. Oonai: "Flies 1 or fights" means it can be used in combat OR can be used to fly one personality. The one personality still gets the normal number of flights; see 6.42. Quaolnargn: If this spell is drawn as part of the game set-up, or when mustering a new nation and drawing spells for its personalities, put it back inthe cup and draw another. No magician can enter the game with this spell. Ship of Land and Sea: Essentially a flying spell that can fly two armies and unlimited personalities. All travel together to the same destination. PLAY IMMEDIATELY Spells: If one of these spells is drawn as part of the game set-up, or when mustering a new nation and drawing spells for its personalities, put it back in the cup and draw another. No magician can enter the game with one of these spells. Horn of Fate: Treat this spell as an artifact, i.e. it is NOT discarded after being used but kept by Elric. Once used it does not count towards his three-spell limit. It can only be blown when the Balance is tipped, i.e. advanced beyond the last box on the track. Thus, for it to be blown "three times" the Balance must have been tipped three times, with the Horn being blowneach time. Eater Spells: These spells drive the pace of the action in the game and generally determine the outcome of big battles. They are also exceedingly obnoxious and should be used in conjunction with bulging eyes, a mocking leer and a loud "Yeeee!" in the victim's face. Note that personalities that make their Heroic Escapes still must appear elsewhere, so use of this spell in a siege leaves just the city wall as the defender in the combat roll, unless the defender cast spells as well. Note spells are not killed by an Eater spell. Eater spells go first, and thus cannot be dispelled. 14.8 Chaos Fleet/Pyaray: "Tilted" means the marker is on the Law side or the Chaos side; it is not the same thing as "tipped," where the marker is past the last ("6") box on one side or the other.