Three Headed Monkey said:

Thanx a lot for your answers !

I didn't check if traitor had the secret route order ...

If he has not, how can he goes back to Vengeful Spirit if area (catacombs) once it is occupied by Emperor (even if emperor is alone).

In other words : If I play Imperium :

1. I protect one spaceport (just one with many armies and space marines around just to prevent traitor to get the 4 spaceports.

2. I place a big attack with boarding order on VS's catacombs, destroying its occupants and forcing Horus to runaway from Command Center.
And traitor has no way to come back on VS cause it is considered as ennemy areas !

R U agree with it ? (The more I write on forums, the badder my english is !!!)

formynder said:

This might be the hardest part, a lot harder than it sounds. Firstly, you can only sit 6 units at a Spaceport, while the Traitor could attack from all adjacent regions. Even if you have the Fabricator General at the Spaceport, Traitor should have Thunderhawks and/or Magnus to take care of the fortification, Mortarion to reduce your people in rank, making them much easier to kill (not to mention giving you less cards). Further, Traitor just needs to hold the Spaceport after the combat (assuming he has the other three in his control) and he wins, Imperials don't get a chance at retaking it.

This came up today in the first game of Horus Heresy I've played. I wanted to use Boarding Action to send the Emperor, Sanginius and a bunch of Marines onto the Vengeful Spirit (which seemed a reasonable thing to do). There were several traitor units in the catacombs and Horus by himself on the command deck. What I wanted to do was board the ship and then play an "attack adjacent area" card (I think it was "Assault") to attack Horus. I ended up not doing it as it didn't seem fair that I could ignore the other enemy units but it did bring up a whole bunch of questions about how you can actually Horus aboard the Spirit.

Boarding Actions does have "MOVE" in nice bold letters which would seem to indicate it allows a regular move action which would be prevented by the presence of enemy units in the destination area. The result though is that Horus is untouchable as long as the traitor player keeps him on the command deck with at least least one Chaos unit in the catacombs.

Is there an FAQ answer somewhere? How are other people handling this? If you're allowing Imperial units to move onto the Vengeful Spirit what are you doing about Chaos units already in the catacombs (assuming the initiative isn't changing straight away)?

We play it that Boarding Action can be played to move units into the catacombs, even if there are units there otherwise it would never be played and Horus would be invincible.

Also, the Imperial player ordering a combat to be fought from the catacombs would ignore the Traitor units there, as only traitor units in the target area become engaged. This is not unfair. You have to get a sizable force to the vengeful spirit and attack with them in one turn otherwise it would be too hard to kill Horus, as he could just leave if initiative gets back to him. It is supposed to be a suprise assault.

Three Headed Monkey said:

I agree with that.: Horus would be invicible !

So, Boarding Action should allow imperium to move in catacombs even if there are traitor units there.

Then, you resolve a COEXISTENCE BATTLE between units Imperium brought there and traitors.

Rules p.21 are not plain. It is said that "Secret Routes" & "Boarding Actions" are exceptions, but not regarding to ennemy areas.

How do you play that ?

And, to finish with 2 questions :

- What is the way for emperor to board Vengeful Spirit if there are traitor units there ?

- If Emperor takes the catacombs (with one ore more units), how can traitor player can come back to fight him if command center is under his control

-If Emperor occupies all the vengeful spirit (catacombs & command center), how can traitor player come back in those ennemies areas ?

thank you !

PS : Hope my english is not that bad :-)

formynder said:

Most likely, there is no coexistance battle at this point. CE battle only happens when you have a Change of Initiative, which, if the Imperial player has any brains, won't happen after his Boarding Action (his initiative marker will be tied or still closer to the start after paying for BA).

formynder said:

If you take BA to be an exception, then through BA.

If you take BA to follow the rules for normal movement, only if the Traitor clears Catacombs (so essentially, never).

formynder said:

Traitor can use Port Landing in the VS region to move units from a spaceport to either area of the VS. PL only activates the spaceport in question, so those units are free to act (probably attack) if the Traitor has initiative.

I suppose another question is, do you treat Port Landing as an exception like BA in terms of moving units to an enemy/contested area, if moving to the VS?

formynder said:

See above.

Three Headed Monkey said:

Without an FAQ it's still unclear if enemy units in origin area are engaged or not.

Just fighting three units in the Command Centre is too easy anyway.

 Thank you so much

1. For having read my message in an approximative english

2. For your very accurate response.

I think I will considere port landing and boarding action ordres as exceptions, allowing to move to the vengeful spirit even if occupied by ennemy. Otherwise it would be easy for traitor to keep Horus alive by letting just one unit in catacombs, and easy for Emperor to win, taking the catacombs and staying here, waiting for the end of the game.

Thanks a lot again !