Roger55
12-20-2007, 03:47 PM
First every time we play httk we have to relearn the rules and we sometimes wonder if our interpretations are correct.
Imagine an advance carried out entirely by initiative. Not a AP can be used because this side trip will never be in dispatch distance of the Center of Ops. But there the force can set of depots that trace a line of 1* road hexes back to a supply source all within nine of the source and within nine of each other. The rub is that the supply source is not the army's primary source.
Now we assume that the rules are saying that that supply source allows us to use the APs collected by the army as the basis for the march attrition rolls.
Take an example. The force has marched six hexes out from the first depot nine 1* road hexes from the supply source in two turns and this turn will move to a town where the next depot will be established three hexes away again by 1* road. Now the depot they are tracing to is a distance from the supply sorce that equals 1 attenuation. The army has 10 APs accumulated. Our idea is that this force will use 8 for its march attrition roll.
Second, there is the "did the designer ever consider this idea" discussion. See the ZOC rules have grated upon occasion (yes, bring this up after httk is out of print, bright guys right!). After some arguing back and forth, we wondered if the idea of a flypaper ZOC might not be revived. A force of 8 SP that contains at least 1 cavalry SP, and is within dispatch distance has a hard ZOC. Enter it, you have to attack. Want to get out of it in a retreat, you have to lose a SP as long as the force is still big enough to have a ZOC at the moment of retreat (multihex force--are you next to a hex that still contains enough SPs to have a ZOC). It's sticky enough to keep anything from moving through (from one ZOC hex to another) it including a LOC. It's blocked by rivers. Does not extend into the fortifications.
Roger
Imagine an advance carried out entirely by initiative. Not a AP can be used because this side trip will never be in dispatch distance of the Center of Ops. But there the force can set of depots that trace a line of 1* road hexes back to a supply source all within nine of the source and within nine of each other. The rub is that the supply source is not the army's primary source.
Now we assume that the rules are saying that that supply source allows us to use the APs collected by the army as the basis for the march attrition rolls.
Take an example. The force has marched six hexes out from the first depot nine 1* road hexes from the supply source in two turns and this turn will move to a town where the next depot will be established three hexes away again by 1* road. Now the depot they are tracing to is a distance from the supply sorce that equals 1 attenuation. The army has 10 APs accumulated. Our idea is that this force will use 8 for its march attrition roll.
Second, there is the "did the designer ever consider this idea" discussion. See the ZOC rules have grated upon occasion (yes, bring this up after httk is out of print, bright guys right!). After some arguing back and forth, we wondered if the idea of a flypaper ZOC might not be revived. A force of 8 SP that contains at least 1 cavalry SP, and is within dispatch distance has a hard ZOC. Enter it, you have to attack. Want to get out of it in a retreat, you have to lose a SP as long as the force is still big enough to have a ZOC at the moment of retreat (multihex force--are you next to a hex that still contains enough SPs to have a ZOC). It's sticky enough to keep anything from moving through (from one ZOC hex to another) it including a LOC. It's blocked by rivers. Does not extend into the fortifications.
Roger