Two Terrain Issues

[thomaso827]

I have two things that have come up that I generally deal with just rolling off for which interpretation but thought I would mention here and see how others handle these things.

First, light wood. Hindrance, can see through 1 but not 2 hexes. No problem. But if you are outside the first light woods hex, looking through an empty light woods hex at a unit in the next light woods hex, is it visible or not. That third hex is a second hex of light woods, so while not being able to see through it, can we see it?

Second, when two or more boards are in play, there is an overlap, and this can mean that the hex content changes depending on which board is on top of the overlap. As I place boards physically on top of each other so that joint hex is the same size as all the others, and keeping with the rules of hex terrain being whatever is covering at least 1/4 of the hex, what happens in something where the board edge is rough terrain on one and open on the other? So far, I have used board number priority, the bigger board number is on top. In one of the Pusan Perimeter games, this was a consideration for one of the rare face-to-face games I have played and we rolled for it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Tom Oxley

[Matt W]

Remember that light woods remains limiting terrain. As a result, in the situation you describe there could only be one intervening hex of clear terrain between the light woods hexes if you are to be able to see the opponent, otherwise you are correct.

As to the overlapping boards that is not how I set them up. The "half-hexes" on the board edges mate up with "half-hexes" on the abutting boards creating a whole hex. I do not overlap the boards but merely put them edge to edge. In nearly all cases where terrain is carried to the map edge hexes it fills a substantial component of the hex meaning that the combined half-hexes will usually be clearly more than a quarter full. This is, however, quite rare as most maps do not take terrain to the map edge hexes. This has been an issue in plays with large map sets as there are avenues of clear terrain following the map edges that are an artifact of the map construction process.

[plloyd1010]

First, light wood. Hindrance, can see through 1 but not 2 hexes. No problem. But if you are outside the first light woods hex, looking through an empty light woods hex at a unit in the next light woods hex, is it visible or not. That third hex is a second hex of light woods, so while not being able to see through it, can we see it?

I understan your LOS to be Clear(w/onserver)-Lt.Woods-Lt.Woods(w/target). The units can see each other.

Second, when two or more boards are in play, there is an overlap, and this can mean that the hex content changes depending on which board is on top of the overlap. As I place boards physically on top of each other so that joint hex is the same size as all the others, and keeping with the rules of hex terrain being whatever is covering at least 1/4 of the hex, what happens in something where the board edge is rough terrain on one and open on the other? So far, I have used board number priority, the bigger board number is on top. In one of the Pusan Perimeter games, this was a consideration for one of the rare face-to-face games I have played and we rolled for it.

Firstly we don't overlap, like you do. The hexes are squashed anyway, squashing them more makes little difference to us. Anyway we default to rule 8.24 first (8.23 in the 3rd Edition). If there is a combination of incomparable terrain, we deal with it in the following hierarchy (descending) Town-Hill-Field-Woods-Lt.Woods-Clear. Thus if a hex could be woods or field, we assume the farmers cleared and planted it, making it a field.

[Hugmenot]

Just to give an example using the wonderful resources available on PG-HQ. Map 22 can be seen at the URL located at the end of my post.

Assume there is an unspotted enemy unit in hex 1216 and that it is daytime.
Case 1. A unit in hex 1213 can spot it because 1) the hex it is within 3 hexes of the limiting terrain in 1216 (8.21), and 2) the LOS only crosses one light woods hex (the one in 1215)/
Case 2. A unit in hex 1212 cannot spot it because it is further than 3 hexes away from the limiting terrain n 1216.
Case 3. A unit in hex 0915 cannot spot it because although it is within 3 hexes of the limiting terrain, its LOS is traced though two light woods hexes (1015, 1116) and thus it is blocked as per the Light Woods note in the Terrain Effect Chart.

If the enemy unit in 1216 had a Spotted marker on it, then the unit in Case 2 above could spot it because it would be within normal spotting range (12 hexes). The unit in Case 3 would still unable to see it because tracing the LOS through to Light woods hexes blocks LOS.

Hope this helps!

http://www.pg-hq.com/library.php?type=map&id=22

[thomaso827]

Excellent. Thanks. For the most part, I think I've been doing it right.

As to the board edges, I understand, no overlapping. I'd have to go back through the specific Pusan Perimeter games and figure out which of the two boards brought this to question. In this instance, it had rough or rocky ground on that board edge on the one and clear on the other, and made it a 50-50 proposition. Overlapping actually made it more clear if we overlapped the right board. Most of the jungle games I've played were not so much of a problem. The occasional road ending in a board edge wasn't a problem in the few Eastern Front games I've encountered that so far.

And using the same library feature, I found it. http://www.pg-hq.com/library.php?type=map&id=94 The left side of 94 butted up against another board with a clear edge. It affected the game since units could run unobstructed up that slot more quickly than having to negotiate the rough hexes. We overlapped the open hex board over the rough and moved on.

Tom Oxley