"What if you can't use any cards?" Topic

We played another epic battle last Friday. Lots of fun. 10 players, lots of 15 mm figures on our 8 x 4 table.

We ran into a new problem, however. There were restrictions on what elements could be moved at certain points in time. I was in the center with a large contingent of light foot troops. The elements on the flank sections could not be given orders. The Carthage commander-in-chief had a handful of cards none of which could be played. Is he allowed to discard some of his cards so he may chance a new draw? We could not find an answer in the epic rulebook. We made a local solution but we wanted to know what is correct.

Thanks for any advice on this.

Hi Bob,

Not easy to answer without specifics. What do you mean by he 'had a handful of cards which could not be played'? Most cards contain a get out clause which allows you to activate a single unit if you have no units which can be activatex by that specific card.

Mollinary

We were playing Battle of Geronium. see here
link

we were doing Epic Scale so doubled the numbers.

I commanded the Light Troops in the center. No other units were allowed to be activated until certain conditions were met.

None of the CinC's cards allowed Light Troops in center to activate.

Thus no activation orders could be given. The Romans just kept coming at us.
With no card, I could just try a no card activation, but that is slow going.

Can the CinC just toss all of his cards back into discard pile and draw again?

I think it is a poorly written and/or playtested scenario. Because it allows exactly the situation that happened to you.

I don't know the rules answer off the top od=f my head, but discarding and redrawing your hand seems reasonable.

The scenario is not an official one, and you have doubled it to make it Epic, so I would think you are more than justified to deal with this how you wish. That said, I cannot find anywhere in the official base rules, or the Epic expansion rules, anything which allows you to discard either single cards or the whole hand, and replace them from the pack.

Mollinary

Thanks for your help on this. I agree that it it is a design problem. Our temporary solution for this game was to allow the commander-in-chief to give cards to players even if they could not be used, in effect discarding three cards each turn and re-drawing .

I was hoping to find something in the rules about this, thanks for trying

I think this is a scenario design issue. If that was the purpose of the scenario then I would say that you can give out the cards and nothing happens or you can allow generals to activate on their own. I believe that rules do state that you have to give out at least one card. So, give a flank a card and hope that the general in the center rolls something that can activate a light unit.

We play regular C&C and always use a house rule allowing discard entire hand and replace as a move.

I think you will find none of the official scenarios have this issue. Those do not have any quirky restrictions which would make a hand not playable.

This question comes up a bit on various C&C forums. There is no official answer or rule. However C&C Napoleonic's allow you to discard one card as your move. Some could argue this precedent could be used in C&C Ancients.

Is there any reason that the Battlelore 2nd edition rule couldn't be used that allows you to discard one card in exchange for being able to give 1 order to any 1 unit?

I think the OP may have missed a key point in the rules. You must ALWAYS play a card. You may have no units eleigible to order, in which case the card has no effect. Then you redraw. It is highly unlikely that several turns will go by without drawing a card that can be used for action.

Warhorse is right. In fact in an epic game you could give out 2 cards, to the flank generals, that will have no effect and then have the commander in the center roll for initiative and hope for something that moves lights.

This has to be the intended effect.

Jeff