Today’s short article is yet another topic stemming from a discussion on the ASL Discord server. A user asked a question regarding MF/MP cost to enter a building hex. The hex in question was not only a building hex, but has a road depiction crossing the hexside. Such artwork is used to depict Vehicular Size Entrances (VSE) on factory buildings. Let’s look at the rules covering this situation and see what the entry cost and implications are.
Sample Map Depiction
The image at left is from board 51. Originally, the question was “What is the MF/MP cost to enter via the Road Location?” The original question also specified Factory Rules were not in play. While the question is confusing, the intent was to ask what is the cost to enter the C3 building Location from D3 via the road hexside. It turns out, this is a very interesting question.
Rules Dive
First let’s look at the cost to enter the Location. We learn Infantry may cross a road hexside for 1 Movement Factor (MF) in B3.4. Also, the example accompanying B3.4 discusses Infantry crossing the road hexside and entering the building for two MF using the Road Rate. Extrapolating that example and applying it to the original question, an Infantry unit MAY pay one MF to enter C3 from D3 across the road hexside. It could also opt to may two MF instead. We will see why they may opt to pay more in a moment.
For all the clarity in the Infantry movement, the rules governing vehicular movement are less clear. Referring to B3.41, vehicles pay ½ Movement Point (MP) when crossing a road hexside. This suggests a vehicle would pay ½ MP here. Unfortunately, there is no example depicting this. In my opinion, the rules don’t specifically tell us how to handle this. Clearly, the AFV is entering a Building Location. Since Factory rules are not in play, the vehicle isn’t using a VSE. A Bog check is required upon entrance.
I don’t think the intent of the rules is to allow an AFV to enter this Location for ½ MP. I think the intent was ½ MP for vehicles when moving from one road Location to another road Location across a road hexside. Every example I could find works this way. Sadly, the rule isn’t clear so if pressed, I would allow an AFV to enter C3 from D3 for ½ MP even though I think it should pay the standard ½ MP allotment. This would limit such movement to fully tracked vehicles and requires a Bog check on entry. The vehicle is entering a building after all. Honestly, I think a Q&A would quickly assert the cost to enter is ½ MP allotment though. I haven’t asked the Q&A since I think the intent is clear and I will continue to play it the way I have asserted.
Implications Of Entry
When reading B3.4 example, there is a reference to A4.132. This rule section provides an example of an Atypical LOS (A6.12). Specifically, a firer may opt to trace LOS to the road depiction where it crosses the hexside rather than the center dot. If the LOS is open, the shot would apply FFMO penalties rather than the DRM of the TEM. The second example under A4.132 covers this exact situation, albeit with an Infantry example.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why a unit might opt to pay the non-road rate cost to enter the building Location. There would have to be a pressing need to risk the FFMO penalty. Any need that pressing would likely require FFNAM as well compounding the risk. Still, a desperate situation could arise where the one extra MF is important so keep this in the back of your mind.
Conclusion
I hope this short example helps bring to light this edge case. It is nothing earth shattering. There are clearly several examples covering the situation, at least for Infantry movement. As far as vehicular movement goes, I leave it to you to decide what you think. I don’t think the intent was to enter at ½ MP but I will concede the point if you insist. But in return, I am going to insist on the Bog check and on the Atypical LOS. I think that’s a fair trade and consistent with the rules as written.
Interesting
I think the combination of atypical LoS, .5 MP entry for vehicles and a Bog Check for entry of the building makes sense. The rules are clear on the necessity for Bog Check upon Entry in this case as COWTRA would apply.
In this edge case as you put it, I think applying the rules as written is the only way to resolve it promptly.
You’ve certainly highlighted a wobbly bit of rules. Can vehicles ever be targeted using the atypical los of A4.132? (Obviously not to get FFMO but to shoot before the vehicle is in the TEM, or to weasel a los). If an AFV were to move into 5I9 as per the Example, why could it claim the road rate? The rule does only refer to infantry. But it’s a tempting parallel argument.
Vehicles can use road advantages in woods/road hexes analogous to Factory Entrance, paying road rate in but paying building/factory cost to get out any other way than the road. However, B23.41 is pretty explicit on the choices a vehicle has for building entry. Yet this is an intriguing speculation as to how to use such building /road hexes; they’re not acknowledged as such.
The printed road into a building might be better defined as not existing unless Factory rules are in effect. Otherwise they’re in play all the time.
Unless Factory rules are in play, I contend that a vehicle may not enter the building at the Open Ground rate, despite the presence of road artwork that connects the building to a road.
Nothing in the first edition rules deals entry of a Factory “across a road hexside.” This latter addition to B23.742 is a port from Red Barricades, specifically Chapter O, and O5.2 in particular. None of the boards released with the first edition of Beyond Valor (20-23), or earlier, feature a two- or multi-storey building with a road entering it. Hence the lack of a specific rule to address how vehicles (as opposed to Infantry) might enter an, as then, non-existent geomorphic-map Location.
Moreover, O5.2–and the amended second-edition B23.742, which contains four sentences not present in the original RB–both reference Factory rules. Therefore, unless B23.74 is in play via SSR, a vehicle cannot enter a Location such as 51C3 at the Open Ground COT, and if it does enter, it must be fully tracked, expend half of its MP allotment, and check for Bog.
IOW, the RAW do cover how to deal with vehicle entry of Locations such as 51C3.
Yet, the rules as written say that is a Road hexside and the RAW say an AFV may cross such a hexside at 1/2 MP. I am not saying that was the intent, but it is what they wrote.
Now, WRT vehicles, I am pretty sure they assumed a vehicle would be moving from one road hex to another, and that is how I have always played it.
The fact that the rules continue to say that a vehicle may cross a road hexside at the road rate (B3.41) does not mean that the introduction of a quasi-novel terrain type introduced on board 51 in Armies of Oblivion (2006) is necessarily consistent with a rule book originally published in 1985 and updated in 2000. When the current rules for vehicular-sized-entrances were added to the rules for Factories in the 2000 edition, they were predicated on the Factories in Red Barricades, and hexes such as RBM29. Moreover, it’s clear in B23.742 that entry at the vehicle road rate is conditional upon a building being identified as a Factory via SSR. Attempts to get around this by claiming that vehicles may always enter at the road rate because B3.41 says so, miss the point. If that were always the case, then vehicles would have been entering wooden buildings such as 5I9 long before Red Barricades-like buildings appeared on board 51. I’d be surprised to learn that someone won their case for such entry at a tournament, which brings me to A4.132.
If we concentrate on what the rules allow (COWTRA), it’s clear that A4.132 only ever allowed Infantry to enter a building across a road hexside. This included the unique ability to target portions of the road hexside crossed when entering a building such as 5I9. Therefore questions about where a vehicle might be targeted when entering 51C3 are therefore moot, because the atypical LOS (A6.12) in A4.132 only applies to Infantry.
The illustrated EX in B3.4 describes how an Infantry unit may enter building 3I10, including across a road hexside. In spite of the proximity of rule B3.41 to the EX, the diagram makes no mention of vehicle entry across the same road hexside. Hexes such as 51C3 and 51U3 are fundamentally the same as 3I10 and 5I9. This ought to put to rest any notion of a vehicle entering a non-Factory at the road rate. IMO, adding (a wordy) exception to B3.41 isn’t worth the ink. But go for it!
I accepted in the article there is no example covering an AFV, that is why I don’t think it was the intent. But the rules clearly state this is a road hexside and that vehicles may cross such a hexside at 1/2 MP. I don’t think this is the intent of the rule but it is pretty clearly stated.
I don’t think it takes a wordy EXC. All it has to say is this is intended for vehicles moving between road hexes. This would have everything absolutely clear.
I don’t dispute what B3.41 states about the vehicle road rate. And like you, I don’t think that this rule was intended to allow a vehicle to enter a building at the road rate. The introduction of RB-like terrain to the geomorphic maps created confusion where there was none before. (After all, we’ve had building-road terrain since Squad Leader.) Until the release of board 51, players understood that unless Factory rules were in play, entering was going to be as per the Terrain Chart, i.e., half the MP allotment of a fully tracked AFV and a Bog Check. It’s only the advent of these VSE wannabe hexes like 51C3 that someone has tried to justify entry where entry is, for all intents, verboten.
Your approach to B3.41, namely refining the definition rather than adding an exception, is sensible. Make it happen! 🙂