From: Jonathan Arnold Subject: [Fwd: PIERCING THE REICH questions] - Answered! I had some serious questions with the withdrawal rules found in "Piercing the Reich" by Moments in History, so I asked the designer, Dirk Blennmann. His comments were so useful, I asked for and received permission to forward them along to Consim, in case anyone else was as troubled by the rules in a few places as I was. Here is the complete discussion - he was wonderfully accomodating: --------- Subject: "Piercing the Reich" rules questions From: Jonathan Arnold To: d.blennemann@genie.geis.com Hi, I picked up "Piercing the Reich" last week and have clipped the counters and set it up, playing thru the first 2 scenarios, and I've come across a major question in my mind about the Withdrawal rules. In a nutshell, I can't make head or tails out of them. The rules say you check effectiveness before taking any Combat Hits, but they don't say when you do the actual withdrawal. And there's a sentence in 15.56 about "Units that fail an Effectiveness Check in combat must perform a special kind of retreat", but then it fails to say what exactly that special kind of retreat is. This is similiar to 16.2, whihc says "a currently disrupted unit that fails another Effectiveness Check remains disrupted and *may* (my emphasis) suffer an additional Strength Point Loss if this additional disruption is resulting from combat...". When does it suffer an additional loss? If all units fail the check, do they withdraw *before* combat hits? My reading would have it be that the Combat Hits are distributed before withdrawal happens, and, if you have a surviving unit that isn't doing withdrawal, you may absorb one Combat Hit by retreating one hex *after* withdrawal happens. This doesn't explain about the additional Strength Point Loss though.... Also, a couple of other quickies: 1) Initiative DRM: Do you start it on, and move it up by 2, as mentioned in the rule book, or by 1 as mentioned on the back? And shouldn't there be a "flip over and" phrase just before the "move the marker directly" phrase, like in "Triumphant Fox"? Otherwise the marker never gets flipped! 2) Just to be anal about it, when you say "non-bold" Action Point Table result, you mean bracketed, correct? And, although it isn't mentioned in the rule text, it's implied in the example, the Formation succeeding its Reaction Attempt rolls on the Action Point Table to get its new action points, yes? Thanks for any light you can shed on these points, especially the withdrawal rules. --------- Subject: PIERCING THE REICH From: d.blennemann@genie.com Dear Jonathan, Thanks for your interest in PtR! I understand you are familiar with TF, and I guess you're standing somewhat to close to TF. Even though a lot of design concepts of PtR are taken from TF, the whole game system was streamlined and revised. Especially combat resolution became more straight forward. Withdrawal means theat a unit is forced to retreat one hex to absorb the second combat hit because it fails the EF check. Please keep in mind the following rules: - The first combat hit must always be taken as a strength point loss (15.52). - The attacker and the defender may convert one combat hit (only) into a retreat hex; further combat hits must be absorbed as strength point losses (15.52). - Neither the attacker nor the defender may retreat more than a single one hex (15.55), regarless if retreating voluntary or if forced to retreat ("Withdrawal"). - Withdrawal is required for absorbing the second combat hit (16.2). - A currently disrupted unit that fails the EF check remains disrupted and suffers an additional strength point loss (16.2). Initiative DRM: The rule book is correct, that means the marker is moved up by two. Unfortunately, the "flip over and" phrase sliped away, but the rules are pretty clear on this (9.2). Formation Reaction: Yes, a Formation succeeding its Reaction Attempt rolls on the Action Point Table to get its action points, and these action points are listed in brackets (instead of non- bold) on the Action Point Table. Hope that helps. Please feel free to ask if further questions occur. Best, DIRK ----------- Subject: Re: PIERCING THE REICH From: Jonathan Arnold > Thanks for your interest in PtR! And thanks for the quick reply! > I understand you are familiar with TF, and I guess you're standing Actually, I got both TF and PtR as a double pack from Boulder Games. I was just using the TF rules to help clarify some of the PtR ones (like the flip DRM one). But, like you said, the combat rules for TF are soooo much more intricate, I'm not even sure I'm going to attempt it! I'm more of a game player than a sim nut, but PtR seems to satisfy both pretty nicely. > Withdrawal means that a unit is forced to retreat one hex to > absorb the second combat hit because it fails the EF check. Sorry for being dense, but I'm still confused.... I'm not sure what the phrase "to absorb the 2nd combat hit" means, or where it applies. I thought that Withdrawn units *can't* be used to satisfy combat hits (15.56). Upon further reflection, this must mean that if *all* the units fail the EF check and have to withdraw, you take 1 combat hit in "damage" and one in the "retreat" part of withdrawal. And if only some of the units fail, one takes damage, some units Withdraw (which *doesn't* apply), then the rest can use retreat to absorb another one but must also absorb the rest. And what happens if the only remaining unit doesn't have enough points to absorb all the damage after the withdrawn unit(s) leave? Do the hits just go to waste? > - Withdrawal is required for absorbing the second combat hit > (16.2). Again, this sort of conflicts with the statement that Withdrawal can't be used to "absorb" damage. Is this statement only true if all the units in a stack fail the EF check? > - A currently disrupted unit that fails the EF check remains > disrupted and suffers an additional strength point loss (16.2). Okay, the problem with 16.2 is the word "may" as in "may suffer an additional SP loss". I guess the "may" means it "will" if the already disrupted unit failed the check due to the list that followed. I don't mean to be a rules lawyer (really I'm not!), but I would have phrased it "... remains disrupted, and suffers an additional SP loss if ...". > Initiative DRM: The rule book is correct, that means the marker is > moved up by two. Unfortunately, the "flip over and" phrase sliped > away, but the rules are pretty clear on this (9.2). Yes, the sample table cleared that up, as did the TF rules. Common sense really. Thanks again for your help. =--------------- Subject: PtR From: d.blennemann@genie.com Dear Jonathan, Consim mailing list: please feel free to post my response where you like. TRIUMPHANT FOX: PtR represents a much different kind of battle depicted at another scale. Therefore, the combat systems must be different, especially about armor superiority. But TF's combat system isn't that difficult. 15.56 Withdrawal reads: "If only _some units_ must withdraw while others do not, this does bot satify the remaining Combat Hits". That means, a player must retreat _all_ units (either voluntary or mandatory) to satisfy the second Combat Hit. If all units fail the EF check, all units have to retreat mandatory ("Withdrawal"), and the second Combat Hit is satisfied. 16.2 Failing An EF Check reads: "A currently disrupted unit that fails another EF Check remains disrupted, and may suffer an additional Strength Point Loss if this additional disruption is resulting from combat, over-stacking, German SS-Scharfschuetzen or US Tiger-Tank Scare". I used the word "may" because a currently disrupted unit that fails another EF Check will suffer an additional Strength Point Loss _only_ if this additional disruption is resulting from combat. Obviously it would have been better to do an additional section about EF Check and combat. Hope that helps. Please feel free to ask if further questions arise. Best, DIRK ------------- Thanks again to Dirk for being so helpful. Now, back Aachen.... -- +==================================================+ | Jonathan Arnold (mailto:jdarnold@world.std.com) | | Roger Wagner Publishing and HyperStudio | | 91 Clematis Ave. Weymouth MA USA 02188 | | http://world.std.com/~jdarnold CIS: 72762,1272 | +==================================================+