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Disclaimer: I'm going to apologize now, in the proofreading stages, because this post ended up a little stream-of-conscious-y.
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Originally Posted by GranitePenguin
2.02.3 Beach. A beach is hard, flat, and gently sloped terrain from water to land. These “beach hexsides” are shown in tan. GEVs may move through a beach hexside from land to water, or vice versa, without ending the turn at the edge of the water. If a road or railroad passes through a clear hex with a beach, a GEV may move from road/RR to water or vice versa and get a road bonus for that phase, if and only if it passes through the beach hex side.
Beaches appear only on overlays, for use in scenarios. |
Is it a moot point due to a bug in the video game? Maybe I'm not looking in the right place, but the ODE PDF doesn't say anything about having to stop before entering a swamp...just that it costs double and comes with a disable/stuck risk. Unless...the only other thing I can think of [as I don't have the Quagmire map in front of me] is maybe we're looking at the edge case of a water hex bordering a swamp hex?
When it comes to water/swamp transitions and the delayed movement rule, I can see an argument for why it shouldn't apply [units are already in the water, no bank/shore to cross], an argument for why it should [the ground under the water isn't guaranteed to play nice, which is also good for gameplay consistency], along with an argument that hover vehicles only should be exempt from the delay rule because they're on top the water.
Granted, that is all based on my internal "if this were real" justification for why Streams and Water <-> Land transitions delay movement...if the thought process I'm working off of is wrong, it's all a moot point, but lemme throw it out there and see what you guys think.
Said understanding:
In real-world warfare, Banks and Shorelines rarely cooperate with vehicles trying to cross them...reflected in-game by Infantry not being affected, heavier units having an easier time than lighter units, etc. From a game design / map-making perspective we'd be looking at a logistical nightmare if "rugged shoreline" was explicit, rather than implicit, especially when it comes to overlays...so it makes sense for "This edge is suitable for a vehicle landing" to be an overlay, ala beaches (naturally suitable) and ramps (artificially suitable).
If my thought process is correct, and because 'it still affects armor units due to navigating the water bed' is the best ease-of-play / internal consistency decision, then...maybe a "Marsh" hex-side is a good idea, just to handle the swamp-related edge cases. A Beach
can technically cover it, but would clog up the beach section with special case rules. Ramps
technically do the job, but are specific in their wording: they're a feature of roads, and as such we probably shouldn't go down the rabbit hole of "A road can have a ramp, but a ramp doesn't need a road". That way lies fodder for semantic arguments.
Besides...we already have a precedent for "This overlay means use these rules instead", in the form of Streams. To over-simplify, a stream overlay at an abstract level is "Treat this edge as a water/land transition in addition to any other hex-entry effects". Putting it all together, "Marsh" hexsides could perform a similar function to beaches or ramps, but with rules tailored to interacting with swamps rather than interacting with Water and Roads. The Combat Engineers supplement [Section 14] gives us plenty of rules that could be easily adapted for such a thing. For the below, I'm shamelessly plagiarizing 14.04.1 and 14.04.2...
Proposed new rule:
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2.02.3 Marsh Hexsides: A mottled green/blue hexside represents a Marsh. Marshes are transition areas between Swamp and non-Swamp hexes with firmer ground, fewer obstacles, and shallower water. When entering a Swamp through a Marsh hexside, units susceptible to becoming Disabled or Stuck do so only on a roll of 1. Units disabled by failing that roll remain Disabled only on a roll of 1. In addition, GEVs may transition between Water and Swamp hexes through a Marsh without stopping, as per the rules for Beaches (2.01.9). Marshes appear only on Overlays, for use in Scenarios.
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