How to Capture an Open, Hostile Territory?

Not necessarily. Any land unit can take an open hostile territory during a combat move. A tanks blitz can take that same space and then move one additional space during a combat move.

@NDfan:

How do you capture a territory that is open and belongs to a hostile territory?  You can’t do it doing during the Non-Combat Movement Phase, so is the only way to do it by blitzing?

Pag. 11 - Phase 2: Combat Move
Movement into a hostile territory counts as a combat movement whether the space is occupied or not

Thus if you want to capture an empty territory you need to move units there during combat movement.

Pag. 18 - Step 7 Conclude Combat
if you win a combat as the attacker in a territory and have one or more surviving land units, you take control of it

Since the defender has no units, you skip combat and take control of the territory at the end of the combat phase.

And you can also capture empty territories by blitzing armor through them during combat move (pag 13), as mentioned. The armor can afterwards continue its movement to attack a 2nd hostile territory, remain on the territory, or move its remaining move during non-combat to a friendly territory.

Actually, tank movement to a friendly territory after blitzing is done during combat movement.  Land units may never move in both combat and noncombat movement.

@Krieghund:

Actually, tank movement to a friendly territory after blitzing is done during combat movement.  Land units may never move in both combat and noncombat movement.

Krieghund, I’m curious about the reasoning behind it. That’s because that way the rule prevents a possible move for armor, where you’d blitz to a territory and then move during noncombat to reinforce an adjacent territory just captured.

The reasoning behind it is to not create an exception to the rule that land units cannot move in both combat and noncombat movement.

What would be the advantage in doing what you say?  Wouldn’t you rather just move the tank into the contested territory in combat movement and add its firepower to the attack?

@Krieghund:

The reasoning behind it is to not create an exception to the rule that land units cannot move in both combat and noncombat movement.

What would be the advantage in doing what you say?  Wouldn’t you rather just move the tank into the contested territory in combat movement and add its firepower to the attack?

Usually yes. But when you are trading territories back and forth you usually avoid using all your available armor to prevent it from being destroyed in counterattacks. However, on that kind of exchange the combat results can give you unexpected outcomes like suffering zero/minimal losses and thus allowing for the attacking units to survive a counterattack. The advantage of allowing blitzing armor to move during non-combat would be to exploit those unexpected opportunities by further reinforcing the territory.

Example: UK has 3 inf and 1 armor on East Africa and the Germans took Egypt with 2 units remaining and control Belgian Congo. German Med fleet is still alive but there are no more German ground units on Africa other those on Egypt.
UK attacks Egypt with 3 inf + planes and blitzes with armor to Congo. It conquers Egypt without losses. It then moves the armor to Egypt to further defend it from a German amphibious assault.

The rule also only applies to armor in any case (and mech on the other editions) since no other land units can move 2 spaces. Mech can’t blitz so it doesn’t change anything for that unit.

IIRC, I think you can do it on Game Table Online (moving armor during both combat and non-combat, which then goes against the rule) but haven’t played there for a while.

Interesting point but I can also see the choppy movement adding more complexity for less experienced players.

@PDXDuck:

Interesting point but I can also see the choppy movement adding more complexity for less experienced players.

It’s a detail, like allowing partial retreats of units brought by land during amphibious landings. It was only allowed after the AA50 edition but now is a part of the rules.
I hardly use the partial retreats because I don’t remember (and I’m not sure many players know about it either) or they’re not useful but sometimes they can very useful. And it benefits the attacker, like armor moving both in combat and non-combat, which is also another reason why I like them.

Well it would make sense to me that armor has 2 moves regardless (except if it was part of combat or unloaded from a transport).

But the rules also do not allow an armor to move 1 territory before being loaded to a transport, which I also think intuitively should be allowed.

@jiman79:

Well it would make sense to me that armor has 2 moves regardless (except if it was part of combat or unloaded from a transport).

But the rules also do not allow an armor to move 1 territory before being loaded to a transport, which I also think intuitively should be allowed.

Similar idea but the question then would be: why not also after being loaded?

@Hobbes:

@jiman79:

Well it would make sense to me that armor has 2 moves regardless (except if it was part of combat or unloaded from a transport).

But the rules also do not allow an armor to move 1 territory before being loaded to a transport, which I also think intuitively should be allowed.

Similar idea but the question then would be: why not also after being loaded?

Unloading ends the transporters turn regardless of prior number of moves, so to me it makes sense that it also ends the cargo’s turn.

It would be more than just remembering the rule itself, you also have to remember which armor moved 1 space and which didn’t move at all. Likely not hard to discern most of the time, especially for countries that don’t buy a lot of armor but losing track at a key moment could make a huge difference. I like the idea, don’t get me wrong.

We play with a house rule allowing armor to load onto a transport if it has only moved 1 space and is in a territory adjacent to the transport with a remaining move, I would curious to know why this isn’t the rule.

The rationale is that loading vehicles onto a transport is a far more labor- and time-intensive activity than loading men, thus it uses all of a tank’s movement potential.

Hobbes: Remember as the attacker you not only delcare what your attacking, you also decide which attack happens when. Using you example you delcare that your attacking Egypt and blitzing  with the intent for the tanks to reinforce Egypt. You then decide which of the attacks first, I.e. do the tanks blitz first then aid in the attack on Egypt (which IMOO, would be the better plan in your example) or do you attack Egypt first and then blitz congo with the tanks winding up in  as the second move in the blitz.

Like I said unless your worried about losing the attack and thus too many troops to make holding the territory a bad idea, adding the tanks to to  could help prevent this as they attack on a 3 or less.

-Ish

@Isnala:

Hobbes: Remember as the attacker you not only delcare what your attacking, you also decide which attack happens when. Using you example you delcare that your attacking Egypt and blitzing  with the intent for the tanks to reinforce Egypt. You then decide which of the attacks first, I.e. do the tanks blitz first then aid in the attack on Egypt (which IMOO, would be the better plan in your example) or do you attack Egypt first and then blitz congo with the tanks winding up in  as the second move in the blitz.

Like I said unless your worried about losing the attack and thus too many troops to make holding the territory a bad idea, adding the tanks to to  could help prevent this as they attack on a 3 or less.

-Ish

ALL attacks are considered to occur simultaneously.  If you’re moving tanks through the Congo and into Egypt, and attacking Egypt from another territory, those tanks are to be in the battle for Egypt as well.  You can’t move them in AFTER you takeEgypt.

@Isnala:

Hobbes: Remember as the attacker you not only delcare what your attacking, you also decide which attack happens when. Using you example you delcare that your attacking Egypt and blitzing  with the intent for the tanks to reinforce Egypt. You then decide which of the attacks first, I.e. do the tanks blitz first then aid in the attack on Egypt (which IMOO, would be the better plan in your example) or do you attack Egypt first and then blitz congo with the tanks winding up in  as the second move in the blitz.

Like I said unless your worried about losing the attack and thus too many troops to make holding the territory a bad idea, adding the tanks to to  could help prevent this as they attack on a 3 or less.

-Ish

I think you misunderstood my point. The idea was that the UK makes 2 combat movements to Egypt and Congo and then moves the armor in non-combat from Congo to Egypt.