Fog blooper or new game rule?

[Notelrac]

I'm not sure if this is a blooper or an unrevealed game mechanic, but...

Look at the map. Assume that bats have a scouting radius of 1 -- ie, they can determine the terrain of the six hexes around them. Also assume that you must enter an enemy's hex to determine what units are in it.

If this is true, then there are two "fog of war" hexes that should be revealed. The six red arrows on this map are possible moves for Vinnie's Bats. Bat #5 would reveal what was in hex A. And Bat #6 would reveal what was in hex B.

An alternative explanation is that Bat units are allowed to move through a hex with an enemy unit. However, we know from the story that bat #6 went last. While a Bat could sneak through enemy hexes and leave hexes A and B fogged, it would not explain why we can see hexes C, D, and E. (D looks like a water hex. Maybe water is visible from two hexes away...)

I await input from the authors as to whether A, B, C, D, and E should have their fog-state flipped, or whether there's a new game mechanic at work...

[CNagy]

Why should we assume they have any scouting radius farther than the hex that they are in? In heavy forest, I would expect visibility to be limited. And according to this page, Vinny's bat visibility seems to be kind of low. We can see additional dragons in later frames, but whether or not Vinny saw all of the attackers; it seems he saw them at the last minute, not a hex away.

[Notelrac]

Why should we assume they have any scouting radius farther than the hex that they are in?

Given that assumption, I would expect hexes C, D, and E to be fogged.

[CNagy]

Unless they scouted around that as much as they could to see how far back the formation went. It said they lost six bats, not that they only used 6 bats.

Edit: I'm just saying that it isn't very sound logic to use an assumption to point out an error/introduce the concept of a new mechanic. Since we don't know the extent of their bat scouting, we have to accept what is shown at face value.

[Psychosomatic]

Heavy Forest could have a special mechanic involving fog of war; I assume it works in a manner such that visibilty is restricted to the hex your unit is directly on. Unforested terrain probably doesn't have this restriction.

[jindra34]

Given that assumption, I would expect hexes C, D, and E to be fogged.

C and E are partially fogged... d is fully fogged... and who says they used the drawn paths. (yes i know that is the most efficent route but efficency may not have been the key goal). And you made a lot of assumptions to say that there is a new rule or a blooper.

[katyn]

Erm...

The bats don't have any sight to the terrain around them. The only information they can get is the information about the hex they are presently in. Not the ones around them.

Otherwise, we could see the middle hex. Yes the bats died, but if they had that sight range they would still see it before getting croaked.

[Salk]

right then, let's think of this.

One bat got a scouting radius of, 1. This could be a total of scouting one hex, the one it stands on, or one hex away. Most often it's one hex away that a unit scouts, resulting in a full seven hexes scouted including the one the bat is standing within. This would have resulted in the middle hex to be scouted if there ain't a special rule that states that a hex that you have no clear acces too (fully surounded hex by dragons) is not possible to scout. This is quite common in your ordinary table or computer strategy game.

Now then, considering the nature of the map we got and the mentioning of the fact that bats are poor scout. We can conclude that example one is not the case. They have the scouting distance to only see the hex they are within if we consider how the bats had to move to find the last and weakest hex. This havn't revealed any other hexes further below thus we can conclude with certainty that they are only able to see what they walk upon and nothing that is bording to that hex.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

please note that terrain by and large does not change. Therefore, if the hexes have been investigated previously, the terrain will be known. It is also likely that it is a real map with them drawing or doing something that allows them to change stuff a bit so they are throwing down what information they have but may not put in unnecessary detail.

The bats can only see short distances, this would be fitting with the whole bats have bad eyesight motif, else the center hex would be shown. They may be able to identify terrain at longer range, but the identification of enemies probably needs close proximity. The bats were being used to swarm around in the woods and above certian places so that Vinnie could report to Ansom any changes fast...they are not very good scouts, but realiable insta cameras.

I am thinking that hexes that are shown are hexes that have been verified to be empty or have units in them...if a hex has not been adequitely investigated, it is shown as 'fog'. By doing that, you are sure to have no mistake that there is an unknown element to that hex.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

guess this is already answered... stilll don't know why does assumptiones were made.

just tu support the (strong) assumption that bats can only see in hex in which they are on: in panel 3 of http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0062.html we see that the surrounding hex to the dwagon formation are cleared (except for the opposite one to the column, which doesn't need to be since you can reach that one through adjacent hexes). Showing that the bats made all the route to the final 3 dwagon hex and cleared the path it took. I assume it is identical to the lower part of the dwagon formation although it is covered by the text.

[teratorn]

Vinny sent his bats scout the whole area around the column. Bats have little move but there were a lot of them. Probably they didn't go deeper because they think they've found what they were looking for.

Webinar could see a road, which looked like it was on another hex. I guess one hex radius is ok, but the poor bat only managed to cross the boundary, so he probably didn't get to see anything on the other hex. Besides I think he would only see landscape. Units are likely only seen if you're on their hex (or with magic, or items).

In fact, we have "proof" they can not see units outside of their hex: a system of flags would give all the info they needed inside the column.