Draft of CoE Digest #200 Q12 - Half-orcs and covert companies when playing FW - Open until August 27th

[Manuel]

In order to contribute to this thread please follow these rules:

1) The thread will be open until August 27th. The usual time is two weeks but having in mind that it's vacation time we've decided to leave it open a bit longer.
2) There will be a maximum of one reply per forum user, and that reply cannot be edited. We want to actively avoid starting "flame wars", so please speak your peace, let others speak their peace, and that's it.
3) After the review period, the ROC will carefully consider everyone's contributions, revise the draft as appropriate, and then the Digest will be published and official.

Which combinations of companies containing Half-orcs are considered overt when playing as a Fallen Wizard?

To answer this question, one must start by referring to these two rules:

MEWH Rulebook:

Orcs that are “Half-orcs” are special — if a Half-orc is in a company with only Half-orcs and Men, the company is not overt (i.e. the Half-orcs appear to be ugly men to the casual observer). Half-orcs cannot take trophies. However, for all other purposes a Half-orc is considered an Orc.

CRF, Rulings by Term, Company:

A hero company is Wizard player’s company, or a Fallen-wizard’s company that has no Orcs or Trolls. A minion company is a Ringwraith player’s company, or a Balrog player’s company. An overt company is a company with Orcs and/or Trolls in it. Note that some allies can make a company overt, but Half-orcs do not.”

With these two references in mind, some questions still arise:

• Is a company consisting of a single half-orc overt or not?
  
  Is a company consisting of a Fallen-wizard + half-orcs overt or not?

According to the CRF entry, Half-orcs do not make a company overt by themselves. Hence, these are the answers to some typical scenarios:

A company with only Half-orcs is not overt.
A company with a single Half-orc is not overt.
A company with Half-orcs + Men is not overt.
A company with Half-orcs + Orcs/Trolls/certain-allies-that-make-a-company-overt is overt
A company with a Fallen-wizard and Half-orcs is not overt (even though a Fallen-wizard is not a Man), because Half-orcs do not make a company overt, and a Fallen-wizard does not make a company overt.
It’s also worth noting this note in the MELE Rulesbook about Overt Companies:

Note: An overt company is readily identifiable as an evil force (i.e., it has Orcs, Trolls, etc.) and thus is subject to direct conflict with most Free Peoples. A covert company is not readily identifiable as an evil force, and thus can operate relatively freely in the domains of the Free Peoples.

This committee’s ruling is that if a company has nothing that makes it identifiable as an evil force (i.e. no Orcs, Trolls, or allies that would make the company overt), then it’s not an overt company.

Note that this ruling overturns ICE Rules Digest #502

[dirhaval]

I will agree to the Council on this to make it simple for the game.

My argument is that a lone Half-orc has no "Man" friend to cause doubt to the viewer to give a quick comparison.
That is when the hobbits were in Bree and seeing these half-orcs, there were in doubt that the person was anything but an ugly man.
Meeting a lone half-orc on the Greenway I feel would leave the viewer that this was a half-orc, though
such things were foreign ideas to the Free Folk. I feel that Bill Ferny would bring his guest into the Prancing
Pony to dispel doubt on the friend's traits allowing the friend to enter again on his own.

In addition,maybe the 9 body is given to allow moving to another site to join a company. These half-orcs
likely would be player after the game begins with no time to waste returning to the Wizardhaven that spawn them.
yes, these arguments are weak.

[Mordakai]

Totally agree with this one!

[Konrad Klar]

I am suspecting that FW non-overt company with only Elf is also covert.

[Theo]

A company with Half-orcs + Men is not overt.

First, I think this is a reasonable ruling to clarify a potentially ambiguous situation, the parsing of "a company with only Half-orcs and Men."

In my opinion, the parsing that would be necessary to require a man to avoid being overt---grouping syntax as "(only half-orcs) and (men)"---is far less linguistically probable than the parsing of "only (half-orcs and men)". I would expect that syntactic structure to appear instead as something akin to "(men) and (any number of other half-orcs)."

===

However,

This committee’s ruling is that if a company has nothing that makes it identifiable as an evil force (i.e. no Orcs, Trolls, or allies that would make the company overt), then it’s not an overt company.

I don't think this implies what you think it implies. (Note, I'm assuming the clause "that would make the company overt" is meant to only apply to "allies," otherwise the entire i.e. would be a pointless tautology and "identifiable as an evil force" would be underdefined.)

Note that this ruling overturns ICE Rules Digest #502

This doesn't overturn ICE Rules Digest #502 (or #501).

Following the rules text:

A company with any Orc or Troll characters is an overt company.
...
Orcs that are "Half-orcs" are special-if a Half-orc is in a company with only Half-orcs and Men, the company is not overt (i.e., the Half-orcs appear to be ugly men to the casual observer). Half-orcs cannot take trophies. However, for all other purposes a Half-orc is an Orc.

A Half-orc in a company with a Fallen-wizard is not in the category of "a Half-orc is in a company with only Half-orcs and Men." Thus, it is in the category of "all other purposes," in which it "is an Orc," and even under your proposed ruling would thus be "identifiable as an evil force," and its company would be overt.

A company with a Fallen-wizard and Half-orcs is not overt (even though a Fallen-wizard is not a Man), because Half-orcs do not make a company overt, and a Fallen-wizard does not make a company overt.

This is incorrect under your own proposed ruling.

===

Here I share my thoughts about where things went astray.

According to the CRF entry, Half-orcs do not make a company overt by themselves. Hence, these are the answers to some typical scenarios:

This suggests a misunderstanding of the CRF.

By the time this CRF entry was added (CRF 11), Rulings Mondays were well established. To review, Rulings Mondays stipulated that any rulings that "reverse previous rulings, introduce new rulings on non-ambiguous situations, and errata," would be announced via a Ruling Monday. In contrast, rulings that "cover ambiguous situations," would not need to be announced.

The ruling, which was based on CoE Rules Digest #41 (without the Half-orc clause), never appeared in a Rulings Monday, so it could not have reversed previous rulings, introduced new rulings on non-ambiguous situations, nor been errata. It did not cover ambiguous situations, because "all other purposes" is not ambiguous, nor is it ambiguous whether a Fallen-wizard is a Half-orc or Man for the one exception to all purposes:

Race: An attribute that helps define a character. The races are: Dúnadan, Dwarf, Elf, Hobbit, Man, and Wizard.

When you play a Fallen-wizard, assume that your Fallen-wizard is a METW "Wizard."

We must conclude that the CRF entry was meant only as a clarification, of limited scope, and not intended to change or disambiguate the existing rules text, which is unambiguous about the example company being overt (further demonstrated by CoE Rules Digest #501 and #502).

The half-orc clause, in the context of be above, only means: "Note that some allies can [(always)] make a company overt, but Half-orcs do not [(always)].”

===

For myself, 1 month of spare time is not enough to adequately notice discrepancies in all proposals and construct an explanation of my reasoning thoroughly in 1 post each. I will again plead with the CoE Council to use extreme caution in issuing new rulings to avoid repeating the past Councils' contributions toward greater confusion and discord.

[Manuel]

Thanks everyone for your contributions.

The ROC will study them carefully and come up with a final digest soon.

[Manuel]

The ROC has decided to study this case more thoroughly, and therefore this question will be left out of Digest #200 and included in a future digest.