Ghoul Patrol and Escalation

[Grimnaud]

How would you play the Ghoul Patrol war scroll battalion in the Escalation Pitched Battle? The rules for the Ghoul Patrol says that they are not deployed normally, but must set them up 6" from any table edge. Most of the time that's not an issue. However, the Escalation pitched battle only lets you deploy a third of your units, then a third come on second hero phase, and the remaining come on in the third hero phase. You must deploy all your battle line units before deploying anything else. So what takes priority here?

My interpretation is that in my deployment, I would only be able to deploy any other battle line units I had. Then in my first movement phase the Ghoul Patrol would appear, as per their rules. Then in my second hero phase I would deploy a third of my units, and the remainder in my third hero phase. In other words, I would assume that the battalion deployment overrides the pitch battle deployment, yet the pitched battle rules prohibit me from deploying anything else until I have deployed all my battle line units (which I can't do in deployment do to the Ghoul Patrol rule). Does that make sense, or has someone slipped something in my coffee this morning?

[Nico]

You can deploy the Ghouls off the table (in the Celestial Realm or in a Grave or whatever) as your first wave of Battleline drops (deployed off the table still counts as a drop). I would ignore the bit of the Ghoul Patrol that mandates that they must all come on together during turn one as it's only the Escalation battleplan that is preventing that. A degree of fudging is required.

By wave 2, you should have the entire Ghoul Patrol ready in your hero phase, so you can now deploy the formation in the movement phase. This is the balanced approach.

 

 

[Grimnaud]

25 minutes ago, Nico said:

You can deploy the Ghouls off the table (in the Celestial Realm or in a Grave or whatever) as your first wave of Battleline drops (deployed off the table still counts as a drop). I would ignore the bit of the Ghoul Patrol that mandates that they must all come on together during turn one as it's only the Escalation battleplan that is preventing that. A degree of fudging is required.

By wave 2, you should have the entire Ghoul Patrol ready in your hero phase, so you can now deploy the formation in the movement phase. This is the balanced approach.

 

 

Meaning that I wouldn't get models on the table until the second movement phase? That would give my opponent a huge advantage.

Edit;

Or do you mean that I 'formally' deploy them of the table in deployment, deploying the entire battalion as one unit, thus getting to deploy 1/3 of my units - 1 on the table in my deployment, and then moving the ghoul patrol onto the table in my second turn?

[Nico]

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Meaning that I wouldn't get models on the table until the second movement phase? That would give my opponent a huge advantage.

Yeah - it's not great. If you had 10 drops in the whole army, then you could deploy waves of 4, 4, 2, so you could deploy the Ghast and the 3 Ghoul units in wave one using the formation rules.

An alternative would be to deploy (say) 2 units of Ghouls on the table; and the other one with the Ghast; and deploy the latter in Battleround 2. This again might be fudging the formation rule slightly.

Trust me - you would not want to play this scenario on the basis that a formation is a single unit for wave purposes - Stormcast would just roflstomp everything.

Don't forget that you cannot score in Battleround One of Escalation. Sometimes it's good to build up a crushing second turn wave to smack the enemy off the objectives.

[Grimnaud]

3 minutes ago, Nico said:

Yeah - it's not great. If you had 10 drops in the whole army, then you could deploy waves of 4, 4, 2, so you could deploy the Ghast and the 3 Ghoul units in wave one using the formation rules.

An alternative would be to deploy (say) 2 units of Ghouls on the table; and the other one with the Ghast; and deploy the latter in Battleround 2. This again might be fudging the formation rule slightly.

Trust me - you would not want to play this scenario on the basis that a formation is a single unit for wave purposes - Stormcast would just roflstomp everything.

Don't forget that you cannot score in Battleround One of Escalation. Sometimes it's good to build up a crushing second turn wave to smack the enemy off the objectives.

Very good points. In casual play I wouldn't really care all that much, but I'm bringing a Ghoul Patrol to a tournament in January, and need some inkling of what to expect, and how to plan it. 

Sorta wish GW had dropped in a line saying "This deployment overrides the special deployment rules for battalions". No such luck however...

[rokapoke]

38 minutes ago, Grimnaud said:

Sorta wish GW had dropped in a line saying "This deployment overrides the special deployment rules for battalions". No such luck however...

That said, doesn't the battleplan specifically state that you divide your units in three groups, thereby strongly implying that battalion deployments are null and void?

[Grimnaud]

7 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

That said, doesn't the battleplan specifically state that you divide your units in three groups, thereby strongly implying that battalion deployments are null and void?

It does, until we start specifying that technicaly you "deploy" your units off the table, as Nico said earlier. The complications are made worse by the fact that battalions can be counted as a single unit.

[Nico]

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The complications are made worse by the fact that battalions can be counted as a single unit.

Basically, at The Warlords and other events, the waves mechanic has overriden this. Try to keep everything else in the formation viable with some fudging as required.

This is not to say that if you were running an Ironfist of 3 Battleline units and your wave one was 3 units, that you could not deploy all 3 Battleline units as a single drop in order to seize initiative (however, you couldn't also deploy 2 other units). 

 

[nuttyknatty]

Having played Escalation with the Ghoul Patrol at a recent two dayer, I elected to assume that the Battleplan rules overrode the battalion rules, and just deployed my units as per scenario, without any of the deployment benefits.

I lost, but then, I tend to come second in most games of AoS.

[Hampshire Hammerers]

Played Escalation at the Honour & Glory one-dayer a few weeks ago, I assumed that I had to deploy my battle line units first as per the mission. I actually wouldn't recommend using the 'patrols' deployment in this mission, as you say it gives your opponent a potential advantage early on, however the returning models through the formations other ability are invaluable!

[Grimnaud]

5 minutes ago, Hampshire Hammerers said:

Played Escalation at the Honour & Glory one-dayer a few weeks ago, I assumed that I had to deploy my battle line units first as per the mission. I actually wouldn't recommend using the 'patrols' deployment in this mission, as you say it gives your opponent a potential advantage early on, however the returning models through the formations other ability are invaluable!

Usually it's not a choice, but in this case it could be an option, giving the conflicting rules. Guess it'll have to come down to a discussion with my opponent, whether the battalion or pitched battle takes president. Both options could be useful, as it would give me 8 deployments plus summoning on the second turn...

[Hampshire Hammerers]

There's always the command abilities like summon Royal guard - they can help give you extra units early in the mission too

[BaldoBeardo]

WSB can count as a single unit deployment choice in normal circumstances. However, the WSB isn't a unit in and of itself, so isn't a discrete unit for the purposes of escalation.

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