Re: [eia] battle of Bordeaux: British withdrawal roll, overwhelming odds and trivial combats

[Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thus spake MICHAEL P GORMAN:
> I understand that.  My point is that the notion of treating a corps as anythi
> ng other than a corps seems utterly alien to every other line of the rules.  
> To me this a dodge.  You get to turn a corps ito a garrison at the last mintu
> e to avoid losing points for doing things like throwing small corps in the wa
> y of an army or misunderstanding the strength of the enemy army.  To me the i
> dea of it is preposterous.  Yes, you can throw small corps away to pin down a
>  big army, but the price is you lose battle after battle.  But now, it's free
> .  Garrisons can be disguised as corps, force movement to stop and then turn 
> back into a garrison.  It's magic!
> 
> That is what this reading of the rule does.  It lets you dodge the consequenc
> es of commiting small corps into danger.  I think it's ludicrous that you can
>  away with that and it flies in the face of everything else in the game.

I thought the whole point of the overwhelming numbers rule was to let the
attacker retain the opportunity to reinforce battles adjacent to the
now-trivial combat.

I don't have a reference for this right now, but I think there were
historically lots of delaying actions by forces too small to win a battle.

> The other thing I don't get is why I should take a very strict reading of the
>  rule in the first half to say that since it requires you to do one thing wit
> hout saying that this counts as a choice so it isn't a choice.  But then I sh
> ould casually discard the withdrawal rule as being ill-conceived.  Why should
>  I assume they took great care in the first half of the rule and no care in t
> he second?
> 
> The withdrawal check after forces are revealed seems to be the only clearly w
> ritten part of the rule.  I think it makes little sense since it lets you cha
> nge your chit choice after you find out it was a mistake, but since the rule 
> already lets you turn your corps into a garrison when you are going lose a ba
> ttle big, why shouldn't it let you change your chit choice in that same situa
> tion?
> 
> The rule seems very clear.  If ever you are vastly outnumbered, you get a bon
> us chance to get out of the battle.  Why?  No clue, but turning your corps in
> to a garrison at the last minute makes no sense either.
> 
> 
> Sorry to be getting a bit pissy, but the longer this discussion goes, the mor
> e it seems like you guys are taking two opposing stances.  The first half of 
> the rule was well thought out because, um, it was?  But then let's assume the
>  second part wasn't, um, because it wasnt?  If you accept one part of this ru
> le as sensibly thought out and written, why are you so quick to assume the ne
> xt part was not thought out at all and the writer suddenly brain-farted and s
> topped reading the rules to the game.

I, for one, never said that the rule is well thought-out. And I did say that
the rule, as written, seems to permit a second withdrawal attempt if
withdrawal was chosen as a tactic and failed. 

-- 
J.
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