N18 Fleeing the Battlefield

Diosamblet

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Jan 21, 2023
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Hello everyone,

Is there any community consensus on what "If one gang voluntarily bottles out and flees, their opponent automatically wins the scenario" means exactly? Our group just finished playing Smash and Grab and we had two interpretations which affect who actually won:

1. You lose automatically if you voluntarily fail the bottle test and/or choose to flee once you've bottled out (either after failing the test or failing it voluntarily)
2. You only lose automatically if you voluntarily bottle out. If you decide to flee after having failed the bottle test roll, you do not lose automatically.

Thanks in advance!
 
The pedantic RAW rules lawyering interpretation of the most common wording of this rule are none of the options you provide. You must voluntarily bottle and then flee the battlefield (voluntarily or involuntarily. Or some could interpret it as you must voluntarily bottle and voluntarily flee.

You are referring to N18 and rules were very random back then, that solution is vague and ineffective. It has recently been improved in some scenarios in N22 to say "if one gang voluntarily bottles out and subsequently flees". Whether this is a stealth update that should be applied to existing scenarios is anyone's guess. It is a better wording and addresses some of the opportunistic exploits. This is still a common flaw in many scenarios that cannot easily be fixed without turn limits or other structure. Ref other GW skirmish games that largely avoids this problem like Blood Bow and Kill Team.
 
The pedantic RAW rules lawyering interpretation of the most common wording of this rule are none of the options you provide. You must voluntarily bottle and then flee the battlefield (voluntarily or involuntarily. Or some could interpret it as you must voluntarily bottle and voluntarily flee.

You are referring to N18 and rules were very random back then, that solution is vague and ineffective. It has recently been improved in some scenarios in N22 to say "if one gang voluntarily bottles out and subsequently flees". Whether this is a stealth update that should be applied to existing scenarios is anyone's guess. It is a better wording and addresses some of the opportunistic exploits. This is still a common flaw in many scenarios that cannot easily be fixed without turn limits or other structure. Ref other GW skirmish games that largely avoids this problem like Blood Bow and Kill Team.
Hi TopsyKretts,

Thank you for your reply. We just started playing our first Dominion campaign and we are indeed using the N18 rulebook.

You didn't say so explicitly, but based on your answer it seems there is no consensus on how the rule is supposed to be interpreted?

How does the new wording in N22 help fix some of the opportunistic exploits? For example, the new wording seems to imply you won't automatically lose the scenario if you fail the bottle test and then choose to flee. If applied to the Smash and Grab scenario, for example, this would allow a defender with a small starting crew to send a cheap ganger to die, hope for a failed bottle test and then choose to flee and grab an easy 6d6 x10 credits.
 
Haven't seen any consensus no. Use a strict interpretation or use what's best for the game. You are correct the new wording doesn't actually prevent exploits! I misremembered. What it does is at least make it more clear because there were some discussions I can't find now about whether both bottling and fleeing had to be voluntarily or not. It could possibly remove exploits if the interpretation was that you needed to both voluntarily bottle AND voluntarily flee, because it could be easy to trigger an "involuntarily" bottle and then voluntarily flee.