Hazard and Push rules questions

[Krenolds]


So, my husband and I are playing through America's Finest Legacy: Scenario 2. I'm playing Tachyon and Legacy and my husband is playing Baron Blade. NOTE: I mislabeled the Blade Batallion Soldier as Powered Auto Turret 1. 

Step 1: Tachyon moves from her starting space through Impulsion Turret 1 and Baron Blade by using the Hypersonic Assault action. She ignores the Hazard spaces and ends her turn right behind Baron Blade; her damage dealt is irrelevant. She is in range of the Hazard attack from Impulsion Turret 1, so at the end of her turn in the To Be Continued... phase the turrect gets to attack her.

Step 2: Impulsion Turret 1 makes its attack and is able to move her 2 spaces down to in front of Impulsion Turret 2. 

Step 3: Impulsion Turret 2 gets to make an attack because Tachyon entered its Hazard space. Based on the attack roll, it gets to move Tachyon 4 spaces, so it moves her one space left, and then another space left, and then one space down, and then another space to the right. In the first space, she triggers the Hazard attack from the Blade Batallion Soldier, which deals her 1 damage. The second space triggers again that same Blade Battalion Soldier, who deals her two more damage. And then in the third space that same Blade Battallion Soldier deals at least one more damage and she is incapacitated. She was supposed to have been moved one more space, but we just stopped her movement there because she was down. The Auto Turret was placed as part of the scenario rules because Tachyon was incapacitated. I should have retaken the photos but I didn't realize it was there until I was done documenting the movement on the image. So, please ignore that turret.

So, in reviewing this image, we now realize Impulsion Turret 2 should have triggered when Tachyon was moved only one space, but we missed that at the time. It doesn't matter, though, because she still would have been moved into the Blade Batallion Soldier's Hazard space immediately and been subjected to the same number of attacks. Other than that, did we do this correctly? If we'd moved Tachyon using the attack from Impulsion Turret 2 into a second Hazard space controlled by that same turret, would it have triggered a second movement that superceded/interrupted the first movement? 

To us, this seems incredibly overpowered. This was Tachyon's first move in the game, and she was immediately incapacitated because she ended her turn on a Hazard space that moved her to another Hazard space that moved her through 3 (should have been 4) additional Hazard spaces that dealt actual damage. Why does Push allow bending and turning? I see on the forums that Push is in any direction, but we don't understand why the character can make turns, which is how the Blade Batallion Soldier was able to get 3 attacks on her and incapacitate her. This is the fourth time we've attempted this scenario, and it seems horribly broken either in favor of Baron Blade (if the heroes are melee based) or the Heroes (if they're ranged based). What are we doing wrong?

[Powerhound_2000]

Tachyon has three actions so your turn shouldn't end right behind Blade off of one use of Hypersonic Assault.   You at least have another action to go right back through with Hypersonic Asaault so that you aren't as big a target for the various Hazards.   

 

[phantaskippy]

Impulsion Turrets, unlike other hazard generating units do not trigger for every space, they are handled differently.

So far we have been instructed 2 different ways to handle them:

1.  They trigger once for movement and once for TBC each turn.

2.  They can only trigger once per turn.

I prefer the first, which was discussed during playtesting, the second was mentioned after playtesting when they realized the fix had been left out of the final copy.  I don't know which will be the official version, but I assume one of them will be.

The scenario is rough for Melee heroes, like Tachyon, but there are a few ways to turn the tables.

1.  Tachyon has synaptic interruption, if you can get 2 defense+1 tokens and dodge you can run into an impulsion turret and when it triggers have a really high chance of a defense of 5 6s, which will let you reapply the turrets entire attack to any enemy unit, including a turret or that blade battalion.  Since you don't alter the attack, the attack you reassign is still going to deal push, which you now control.  Launching the turret that should have pushed you 3 spaces out of any usable area for Blade is awesome.

2.  Like Powerhound mentions with 3 actions you can get in and out as Tachyon most turns without triggering the turrets, feel free to Hypersonic in and then out again.

 

[jdwiker]

Hello, aforementioned husband here.

This all came up because we found that tactical placement/usage of Impulsion Turrets brought the game to a halt while the target got pushed from one hazard space to another, no matter what phase it occurred in, over and over again.

That's obviously not optimal gameplay, so based on the responses we got here (and the previous time I asked the question), we decided to just house-rule Impulsion Turrets—and I thought it was worth sharing our conclusions with the forum:

1. An Impulsion Turret can only trigger once per phase. (That is, if you avoid its effects in the first space you enter, then enter another hazard space, it doesn't trigger again; also, if it moves you into another of its hazard spaces, it doesn't trigger again.)
2. An Impulsion Turret can only move a target in a straight line. (That is, it can't move you in an arc around itself, or another hazard, in order to maximize the number of hazard spaces you trigger.)
3. If an Impulsion Turret moves its target into the hazard space of another Impulsion Turret, the second turret only triggers if the targets ends the "push movement" (movement caused by the push effect of the Impulsion Turret) in that space. (That is, the second turret doesn't trigger if the target gets moved through its hazard spaces.)

These house rules are meant to specifically avoid the "pinball effect" of the target bouncing back and forth between two or more Impulsion Turrets (perhaps while passing through the hazard spaces of a different type of hazard, such as a Powered Auto-Turret). It de-powers Impulsion Turrets somewhat, but given that it puts an upper limit on the number of times that the target can be moved during any given phase, it corrects the game stoppage problem.

If you should try these house rules in your own games, please let us know if you find any issues with them. While they worked reasonably well for us for the rest of the scenario, we were really only trying to wrap up the game, rather than thoroughly playtest our solution.

Thanks for all your input.

[Koga]

I've always played that push can only move in a single direction, doesn't make much sense if it can arc around stuff. This would be for any push effects, not just the Impulsion turrets. While push is in any direction, I haven't seen it said anywhere that you can change that direction in the middle of a push.

[jdwiker]

Yep, and that's why we decided to include it in our house rule.

It seems self-evident, but it's nice to have it spelled out.