Here's a list of questions sent by Joe about the Ambush scenario and my current rulings on them:

1. Under the reserves rule it indicates that aircraft and teleporters are available in any turn, what is the effect of the delayed reserves rule on this – are they still available on any turn?

A: The attackers reserves are not delayed at all. The defender does not have the option of 'reserves' they instead have 'reinforcements' all of which may not be used until turn 2.  It is however fair to consider that the defender would be allowed to keep some of the second contigent of reinforcements in reserve (either tranported in aircraft or teleported) to be used later on in turns 2+.

2. Can aircraft spot concealed formations.

A: No.

3. It is possible in this scenario that the attacker will have concealed formations and non concealed formations (war engines for instance), what is the activation sequence in this case – all the concealed formations can wait until after the defender has finished moving. But it’s unclear what the non concealed formations are doing in this time.

A: If the attacking force contains a war engine (remember that WE's can't be concealed!) the the defender is able to act normally as soon as the game begins (though all actions MUST bring a formation onto a table when it activates).  In this case it is reasonable, for example, for the defender to take an action and then immediately pass the turn to the attacker pass on revealing a concealment marker or take an action with the WE.  Concealment markers that have passed on revealing themeselves may still reveal and fire overwatch once all the defenders have moved as described in the turn 1 special rules.

4. What constitutes revealing a non concealed formation – again the rules are unclear, is activating it revealing it, does it have to move into line of sight or perhaps shoot?

A: They already count as revealed as described above.

5. The concealed rules mention minefields are we using these and are we meant to bring some with us?

No and No :-)

6. Do you have to conceal a formation?

If it is not a war engine then yes.

7. Is the defenders board edge for purposes of setting up aircraft only the road section touching the board edge?

Yes.

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While MoK's rulings definitely stand for Winter Warmer, here's a couple of my thoughts:

Technically, the Attacker could deploy War Engines out of line of sight from the road and the ambush wouldn't be "revealed" until a Defender came into line of sight of it; at least that's the intent.

Also realize that, despite having to make "Road Marches", for their initial moves, there's nothing that requires the Defender to move their full distance each move.



Again, aircraft can be used to spot concealed formations, but, in the updated Concealment rules suffer a -1, in addition to any other modifiers, to make spotting checks.

If the Defender does have aircraft, it's a strong incentive for the Attacker to choose the defender contingent that has no aircraft as their ambush target... and encourages the Defender to split up their air power between contingents.

More to come.

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