Over the past ten years I have observed many minor Scorched Earth rules infractions. These occur through misunderstanding, oversight, or, in some cases, prior arrangement. Recently I have been jotting these misdemeanors down so that I could bring them to your attention. However, if you are guilty don't be too hard on yourselves--breaking (or ignoring) these rules will probably have no discernable impact on the outcome of the game! Nonetheless, for those interested in totally correct play, here are a sampling of offenses.

1. Crime:

Spending RP's on a "pay as you go" basis to increase rail capacity. Rule 7A4 states that such resource points are "spent in the player's initial phase." However, this means that a precise player must totally pre-plot his move in the initial phase, so as to know just how much rail he will require during the movement phase.

Verdict: I don't need to tell you how much this slows down play, and to no real purpose. Most players agree in advance to ignore this rule and spend RPs for rail movement during the movement phase as needed.

2. Crime:

Advancing the Belornorsk to Arkhangelsk railroad construction two hexes from the same direction. To be eligible for building, Rule 7D requires that at the start of a player's initial phase a rail hex must be "adjacent to a friendly-owned railhead marker." If one builds two contiguous rail hexes from the direction of Arkhangelsk, the second hex will (in most cases) not have been adjacent to a friendly- owned railhead marker in the Soviet player's initial phase. The correct procedure is to build one hex at the Belomorsk end of the line and the second hex at the Arkhangelsk end of the line.

Verdict: This could slightly alter the movement of Soviet units into the Arctic, but it seems to me that only the most meticulous German player would give a hoot.

3. Crime:

Bringing Slovakian reinforcements on in Rumania. Rule 34A1 states that Slovakian reinforcements "are placed in any hexes on the west edge of the map in Greater Germany."

Verdict: In the ETO postal game the Slovakians appeared on the west edge of the map in Rumania and railed into the Iasi sector. As well-documented and closely scrutinized as this game was, nobody seems to have noticed. Ho hum...

4. Crime:

Placirg reinforcements for the Volga MD in Kirov. This comes up only once or twice a game when the Volga MD has a large contingent of reinforcements. It is easy to overlook the fact that Kirov (7A: 1905) is actually in the Urals MD. Verdict: Who cares?

5. Crime:

Using the special abilities of assault engineer units against forts. Although an assault engineer does have regular combat engineer ability when attacking a fort, it only has its combat strength and RE size doubled when attacking into a major city or fortress.

Verdict: This rule came up recently in a game of Kiev '43 on GEnie. The German player cried foul when the Soviet player submitted a battle plot containing this error. As a result, two Soviet initial attacks were reduced to lower-than-expected odds. The German player went on to win a marginal victory.

Rules Court

Oft-Broken Rules
Brian Moore's East Front Play Aids Kit Errata