To Get You Away

[zarathustra]

Jaded brought up in this thread a weirdness concerning To Get You Away.

TO GET YOU AWAY -Permanent-event (R)
Tap an agent at target company's new site. Agent may attack (not counting against hazard limit) during the movement/hazard phase. Attacker chooses defending characters. A successful strike doesn't wound the defending character,instead the character is taken prisoner at one of the agent's home sites of the attacker's choice (regardless of site's location) and the agent returns to the same site. Rescue-attack: Same race as agent - 3 strikes with 8 prowess.

How can an agent return to that site , when the site is put off to the site with the hazard host?

He (quite reasonably) assumes that the rescue site too seems to be required to be "off to the side" with the hazard host. A look at the DM rules on Prisoners does not bear this out, however:

Certain hazard permanent-events cause a character to be taken prisoner – these are called ‘hazard hosts’. A character taken prisoner immediately leaves his original company and is placed under its hazard
host “off to the side.” Additionally, the player playing the hazard host must take a site card from his location deck and place it with the hazard host – this is called the ‘rescue site’.

The DM rules specify that the prisoner is set "off to the side", but not that the rescue site is. However, it is unclear where else the side would be in this case. Is it still considered to be in the location deck for other purposes? I can't imagine this is right. You shouldn't be able to visit a site you've designated as a rescue site. But then, by the same token, you shouldn't be able to send the agent back to that site either. After all, you couldn't move the agent there!

Perhaps this will work: the agent is now considered to be at that site, as if you had revealed him/her at the site without the site card. But how far should this analogy go? Must the agent be discarded at the end of the turn? Here's the relevant DM rule:

If one of your agents is revealed before it has moved, you must immediately choose which home site it is at – place the appropriate site card with the agent. If you do not have such a site card in your location
deck, discard the agent at the end of the current turn.

Once again, I'm baffled.

[miguel]

Certain hazard permanent-events cause a character to be taken prisoner – these are called ‘hazard hosts’. A character taken prisoner immediately leaves his original company and is placed under its hazard host “off to the side.” Additionally, the player playing the hazard host must take a site card from his location deck and place it with the hazard host – this is called the ‘rescue site’. Playing a rescue site is governed by the following rules.

From this I'd say the site will actually be in play.

You shouldn't be able to visit a site you've designated as a rescue site.

Hmm. Why not?

[zarathustra]

You shouldn't be able to visit a site you've designated as a rescue site.

Hmm. Why not?

Maybe I wasn't clear. As far as I know, you cannot visit a site you've played as a rescue site for your opponent. Why? Because it's in play already! Same reason you cannot visit it if one of your agents is using it.... Of course, you can visit a site to rescue your own guys, but that's not relevant here.

Am I missing something?

[miguel]

As far as I know, you cannot visit a site you've played as a rescue site for your opponent.

The opponent will use his own site if he has it available:

Note: If he has one available, a player must use a site from his own location deck to rescue imprisoned characters. If he does not have the site or if the site is in his discard pile, the copy with the hazard host can be used to show the rescuing company's movement (if the rescue attempt is successful, the site would remain in play until the company leaves the site).

Why? Because it's in play already!

Sites with No Strangers at this Time remain in play and you can revisit them.

[zarathustra]

Hmm... true....

But can you visit a site that one of your agents is using? This seems a little different.

[miguel]

As far as moving a company to a site where your agent is (emphasis is mine):

An agent is always located at a site. Once an agent has been revealed or has moved to a site that is not one of its home sites, one of your site cards must be used for this purpose.

I'd say the agent reserves the site card it has, be it face-up or face-down. You can't even have a 2nd agent with that site card.

And for agents going to a site in play (where one of your companies is):

If one of your agents is revealed before it has moved, you must immediately choose which home site it is at-place the appropriate site card with the agent. If you do not have such a site card in your location deck, discard the agent at the end of the current turn.

Were the agent able to use a site already in play, why'd you need to discard the agent if you can't get a site for him from the location deck...

[zarathustra]

OK, I think this partially solves the agent/company co-location problem (but not the original problem):

Agent hazards require the use of sites for movement, and your agent hazards must still use sites from your site deck.

So the agent cannot declare movement to a site already in play.

This does not yet address the question whether you can move a company to a site where your agent is located. The fact that you can move to a site with No Strangers at This Time played on it makes it hard to take a principled stance against such movement, but I feel very strange saying that such movement is legal!

Are there other cards besides prisoner-taking cards and No Strangers that keep a site in play indefinitely? It would be good to sort all this crap out at once.

[Sauron]

roots of the earth

[tharasix]

I would argue against being able to move to a site that your agent has in play. This is a designed-in difficulty with using an agent, and I feel that this could be used to actually help your resource play by, for instance, keeping Minas Tirith in play tapped indefinitely. Dangerous, but possible.

[miguel]

Would it make sense to think of agents as sort of "hazard companies"? Naturally they can't combine with a player's normal companies, and thus those companies could not share a non-haven site. And since you get to have multiple havens, it's just simpler to give the agent its own site card.
----> Agents may not use the same site card as a player's companies do, and vice versa.

As for the To Get You Away issue, isn't it quite clear from the actual card text that sites placed with hazard hosts are considered in play? I mean, since the agent returnes there, the site card can't be "off to the side". Normally an agent could not move to a site already in play, but To Get You Away overrides the rule.
----> Site cards placed with hazard hosts are considered in play.

Since site cards placed with hazard hosts are in play, shouldn't your companies be able to move there? The only problem I see with this is:

Whenever, the hazard host is discarded, the rescue site always returns to the location deck.

This might be something one could abuse... maybe. And what would happen if your co is at the site when it's supposed to go to location deck? Perhaps "always" was because of cards like Long Winter that would tap the site, normally causing it to get discarded when the hazard host is discarded... I do think the idea was that your companies cannot visit a site card which you place with the hazard host. I can't find anything solid to back that up, but perhaps we just need to rule that way? It would make the most sense I guess.

[miguel]

Ok, I think I found something that is different with sites assosiated with hazard hosts / agents than with companies / resource cards.

Site cards are placed with hazard hosts and agents:

Additionally, the player playing the hazard host must take a site card from his location deck and place it with the hazard host – this is called the ‘rescue site’.
...
If one of your agents is revealed before it has moved, you must immediately choose which home site it is at – place the appropriate site card with the agent.

I had a gut feeling that agents "reserve" the site for their own purpose, and I think the same goes for hazard hosts as well.

In comparison with companies, the site cards are not really placed with anything, they simply exist:

When you play a character, you may place him into a company already at his arrival site or he may become a new company (consisting of one character). In the second case, you must place the arrival site card next to the character played.

And as for resources that keep a site in play (No Strangers at this Time and Roots of the Earth), they are played on the site, so again the site seems to simply exist on its own.

So would it make sense if the site cards "reserved" by agents or hazard hosts could not be used for anything else? The sites would be considered in play though, and would be affected by Long Winter and such. To Get You Away would obviously be an exception, but then again its card text makes it clear what happens and card text wins over the rules...

I realize this isn't much more to go on with, but at least it's something.

[Wacho]

There already is a ruling that your companies can't use the sites your agents are at. This is from Digest #57

Can this be done? The agent in question (usually My Precious, I
suppose) will have to use a site card (since it's revealed), and thus
the site won't be available for your companies to move to, right?
*** You are correct. It cannot be done.
--------
A similar question: on your opponent's turn, can a (revealed) agent
move to a site one of your own companies is using?
*** No.

[zarathustra]

David: Right, but the question is whether that ruling is justifiable.

Miguel: According to your interpretation, it would not be possible to play, for example, No Strangers at This Time on a site "with" an agent? Say, for example, that I influence the Rangers of the North with Hour of Need. Then I want to do a little trick and bring Lobelia into play at Bree, so that I can get an extra point from No Strangers. This would not be possible if you are right?

[miguel]

Miguel: According to your interpretation, it would not be possible to play, for example, No Strangers at This Time on a site "with" an agent? Say, for example, that I influence the Rangers of the North with Hour of Need. Then I want to do a little trick and bring Lobelia into play at Bree, so that I can get an extra point from No Strangers. This would not be possible if you are right?

Right. It would also not be legal to for example reveal Wormtongue at wizardhaven Isengard and play Fortress of Isen on the site.

[Wacho]

I agree with miguel. I think allowing otherwise will lead to all sorts of abuses, and this is how people instinctively play anyway. I can't think of anyone I've actually seen trying to use the sites their agents are at.