Aggressive expansion and objectives on the border.

[Mark Williams]

For the battle tactic “Aggressive Expansion,” can you pick objectives that are on the border of your deployment zone?

[Bradd]

On 8/9/2021 at 6:26 AM, Liquidsteel said:

The battle tactic calls for objectives "wholly within" and not "within".

We had this come up recently, there are some battleplans where there is no-mans land in between territories (11" rather than 22" territories).

We came to the conclusion that on those battleplans where the territories meet, the objectives are considered to be within both, and thus not wholly within either, but for those battle plans where the objectives sit on the edge of your 11" deployment, they are wholly within and thus don't count for the tactic.

I fully agree with your interpretation for the battleplans where the opposing territories meet. In that case, 18.1 clearly applies, and they're "within," not "wholly within."

For the case where there's neutral space between territories, I did some further analysis. The game only refers to "territory" in three places: 18.1 Objective Markers, 28.2.8 Map, and the individual battleplans. The Deployment rule for each battleplan starts like this: "The attacker picks which territory is their territory. The other territory is the defender's territory." This implies that the gray neutral ground is not "territory" and therefore the clarification under 18.1 does not clearly apply.

Therefore, I think your neutral ground interpretation is reasonable, and if we played a game together, I would agree to your interpretation.

However, if you start from an assumption that points on the edge of an area are only "within" the area and not "wholly" within, there's still a consistent reading of 18.1: It simply clarifies that the point is within both areas. In other words, the emphasis in that rule is on both, not on within. Therefore, if an opponent preferred this interpretation, I would also agree (and I did, in a recent game).

Coming at this from a completely different angle, you could argue that those points are neither aggressive nor expansion, so by the spirit of the name, they should not count unless they actually border enemy territory. I think this leans toward your interpretation being the intention of the rules.

[GriinWan]

No, per Core Rules 18.1:

Quote

If an objective is placed on the border between two territories, it is considered
to be within both of them.

 

[Liquidsteel]

12 minutes ago, GriinWan said:

No, per Core Rules 18.1:

 

The battle tactic calls for objectives "wholly within" and not "within".

 

We had this come up recently, there are some battleplans where there is no-mans land in between territories (11" rather than 22" territories).

We came to the conclusion that on those battleplans where the territories meet, the objectives are considered to be within both, and thus not wholly within either, but for those battle plans where the objectives sit on the edge of your 11" deployment, they are wholly within and thus don't count for the tactic.

[Paul Buckler]

As per 18.1 quoted above they are within, not wholly within so yes you can .

[Kadeton]

In terms of the geometry, an objective is a singular point, no? An objective marker indicates where the point lies, but the point itself is the exact centre of the marker.

A point has no area. It is impossible for a point to be "within" an area and not also, intrinsically, "wholly within" that same area.

I would say that an objective on the edge of your territory is wholly within your territory. If it is on the border between your territory and your opponent's territory, it is wholly within both territories. That might not make intuitive sense, but that's geometry for you.