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How literal does a player need to be when indicating that one of their companies is moving to a site already in play?
Short answer:
«When a player declares that one or more of their companies will move to a site already in play, they must also verbally declare which site card in play will be the destination site for each of those companies.»
(thanks to the JabberwocK for the definition)
Explanation:
CoE #118 ruled that each player may be as literal as they please, and this is also how it’s been played historically in tournaments:
However, further research has shown that this statement does not have a solid basis in the original rules.CoE RULINGS DIGEST #118
21-08-2007 NetRep: Mark Alfano Source
QUERY 6
Joe Bisz asked:
“The rules say:
Any company may declare as its new site a site already on the table. That site will remain on the table at least until the end of that company’s movement/hazard phase.
Does this mean a player must NAME the site his company is going to on the table, or can a player literally say, ‘this company is moving to a site on table’?”
The player may be as literal as he pleases.
In the Balrog Rules Summary, we find the following:
Although this passage doesn’t explicitly state whether a face-up destination site must be named or kept secret, it does state that “the new site you choose must meet certain criteria” (present tense), indicating that the resource player chooses at the time that they inform their opponent about movement during the organization phase, not later. Choosing something in one’s head without any record of that choice for an opponent or judge to confirm isn’t a concept otherwise utilized in the rules, as far as this committee has found.”If you wish to move a company to a site that is face down on the table (for another company), tell your opponent which site the company is moving to. If you wish to move a company to a site that is face up on the table (because another company is also moving there), tell your opponent the company is moving to a face up site.
The new site you choose must meet certain criteria. You may reach a site by either starter movement, or by region movement. Ringwraiths may not use region movement.”
Then we have this paragraph from the MELE rules:
The CRF has something to say about this, too:MOVING COMPANIES TO THE SAME NON-DARKHAVEN SITE
[During the organization phase, two or more companies may move to the same non-Darkhaven site, but one of the following cases must apply:] One company may already be at the site. In this case the other company moving to the site must state that its new site card is already in play (the current site card for the non-moving company). This site card remains in play until at least the end of the turn.
The CRF text is a correction to the MELE text, because the site remains in play at least until the end of the company’s movement/hazard phase, not “until the end of the turn”. Again, it is worth noting that neither of these citations state that the specific site card should not be indicated (and in fact, the MELE’s parenthetical hints at the need for more specificity). While this committee does not believe that this is enough evidence to prove that the specific site should be indicated, these citations are provided for historical context as well as to demonstrate that the rules don’t say to not indicate a specific face-up site.CRF Turn Sequence Rulings, Organization Phase, Choosing a New Site:
Any company may declare as its new site a site already on the table. That site will remain on the table at least until the end of that company’s movement/hazard phase.
At this same time, this is where problems begin to arise. How can the opponent or a judge track whether a site card needs to stay in play at the end of a company’s individual movement/hazard phase without knowing if that site will be needed by a different company that hasn’t moved yet? This can also lead to situations where a resource player would technically be cheating if they forgot to remove a site card immediately at the end of a company’s movement/hazard phase, because they would be indicating that the site would still be needed by a different company. Without declaring which specific site card in play is the destination for each company (whether face-up or face-down), both opponent and judge must trust that the resource player is “playing fairly”, which can be problematic for tournaments, to say the least. These problems are solved by indicating which card is the destination for which company, and cleaning up a rule that is, in this committee’s opinion, needlessly complicated.
Considering this approach, a counter-argument could be made that forcing the resource player to indicate which of multiple face-up sites is the destination for a company shifts the balance of power in the direction of the hazard player, as it gives the hazard player additional information to plan their upcoming hazard strategy. However, one must remember that the original rules as written require that moving companies indicate how far they are moving with region cards, which provide similar information (in terms of knowing which site in play is the designated number of regions away, how many regions might make for a better double-wilderness target, etc.), but which are no longer used by the vast majority of players. Thus the aforementioned balance has already shifted in favor of the resource player, and requiring a company to indicate the specific card for its destination site would arguably shift back toward the initial balance.
Note that this overturns CoE Digest #118 Q6
