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Some questions for (1 vs X opponents) BoB "boss vs blob" fights:

Some apparent observations:

a. Isn't there a clear weakest link "feeder" issue if a particular person within the outnumbering party deals a ("weak") attack that is easily defended against, inadvertently allowing the lone combatant to somehow "miraculously" gain initiative over everyone in the party instead of just the weakest character alone (or anyone else that lost to defense)? Is this the intended effect or just a side-effect of handling combat in the simplest way possible by treating the outnumbering party as a single unit blob? (instead of tracking individual initiatives within the blob...)
Nevertheless, this does makes things "easier" for the one that is outnumbered...or it might just be a ploy to deliberately give initiative over to the lone combatant?
I just feel that considering whether thinking twice whether a party member should attack or refrain from doing so... because of the "feeder" issue (which doesn't make too much sense, though) might be an intended gameplay feature? It wouldn't be good if a lousy player that dealt an easily-defended against attack, becomes a liability for his party (gah!, shouldn't have picked him!).

b. The rules assume a limitation of max 2 factions only (ie. 2-way fight) within a fight. If there are multiple factions, it has to consist of divided 2-way fights conducted seperately, right? ie. There can be no situation where 3 or more factions might exist simultaneously within a fight.

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1. If a lone combatant wishes to Pre-empt against multiple attacking opponents (likely 2, as 3 would be plainly suicidal if the 3rd guy can do him in) to deal attacks on both of them, must he pre-empt separately against each of them, or treat "them" as an entire blob and either one or several blob members can decide if they wish to contest, but only the highest score among any of the attacking blob opponents are compared to determine which side wins initiative?

2. Since it only takes a single winner of the positioning roll for your entire team blob to gain initiative and "get the rest of the gang in...", is it a viable tactic to get a single representative person to pump all his dice into positioning on behalf of everyone else (is discussion among party members possible?), rather than each one having to sacrifice dice individually for positioning and everyone ending up with sub-par individual rolls?
Also, is there a minimum among of dice (1 dice?) each combatant must spend to be considered able to join the fight?
eg. Assuming it's 3 vs 1, just get one representative to roll almost all his dice to "get his team in", then it's ensuring you get 2 fully CP-ed guys vs 1 guy. Of course, if he only gets 1 guy in, then he might become a liability since he expended a lot of his pool, so he'd probably not bother to attack if it ends up becoming a weak attack that is easily defended against...but the other guy would anyway. Worse case is if the plan backfires (ie. lone combatant still wins initaitive) and ends up with 1 vs 1 engagement with the "volunteer" obviously being chosen, since he expended so much CP....
Also, using this pawning technique might be potentially dangerous for the representative volunteer that decided to spend a large chunk of his CP to get his team to outnumber a lone character, because if he expends away his CP too much in order to "get his team in..", it might encourage a preemptive attack from the lone character on the volunteer (since the volunteer MUST enter the phrase and cannot suddenly sit out). However, even if the lone character does dispose off the volunteer, he still has 2 other characters to deal with...which means the lone character isn't probably going to survive anyway after paying preemptive attack costs and such....unless the lone character has an extremely large combat pool. This might cause the "pawning" tactic to outnumber a lone character, to become a sacrifice instead...lol.


3. When Positioning against multiple opponents, the outnumbered character declares his Positioning Roll first or the outnumbering party? Or is there an alternative way to do it simultaneously where everyone hides a number in a cup representing the number of dice he wishes to commit for Positioning, and simultaneously revealing it?

4. If the side with initiative doesn't wish to attack (or cannot do so), the side without initiative can still attack, right? I'd assume since there's no option to Defend With Initiative or perform a Quick Defense (after the defender declared his attack), the lone character with initiative would generally still be forced to attack regardless as the only option, right? (ie. could he assign everything he has left to perform a Disengage so long as he didn't attack at all in the previous tempo??). If up against multiple combatants, this would be a likely case since an outnumbered character will likely wish to have another attempt at a Positioning Roll to face off hopefully 1 opponent only.

5. Is it possible to Disengage with ALL dice against multiple opponents in the first tempo....since when up against multiple opponents, no red/white dice has to be be thrown (ie. Positioning Roll is used to determine initiative instead...but the rulebook only mentioned Disengage is not allowed only in the case of" "Red/White dice being thrown"), which doesn't include "Positioning Roll to determine initaitive..")
I think "Red/White" and initial "Positioning Roll to determine initiative" are treated as the same condition, is it? If not, likely the outnumbered character will simply spam Disengage continuously until he ends up with a 1 vs 1 conflict phrase. That would result in a repetitive exercise of attacking an outnumbered character that is obviously spamming Disengage with his entire pool continuously....

6. Also, without an explicit set of hard rules to precisely determine/allow players to contest for which individuals end up within the various 1-vs-1 or 1-vs-X engagements, is this arbitrarily decided by the GM? What if the players argue against it?
Something to accept as a "just-so/random" narrative?

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Once a phrase starts with a specific result for the Positioning Roll (eg. 1 vs 1, or 2 vs 1), in the latter Phrases, if there are more combatants that wish to join in to make it 3 vs 1, can they attempt to do so, and who is allowed to perform the Positioning Roll for such a task?
Would it be more interesting (though it's "realism" is arguable) to only allow those currently fighting within the Phrase, from that point on-wards, to make that roll? This does make things more challenging for the outnumbering party if the lone character managed to win a 1 vs 1 positioning roll for the initial First phrase, since for subsequent phrases, ONLY the other single party member currently engaged with the lone character can make the Positioning Roll from that point onwards on behalf of his team.

These are my opinions based on my understanding of the rules. I have not yet actually run any 1vX combats yet.

a. I don't think having a weak combatant with you is a "feeding" issue for the following reasons:
i) The winning team gets to CHOOSE which teammates will be joining them in the combat. This means someone can spend a lot on the opposition roll and bring in their bruisers with relatively large and full combat pools. In this case, the character who is the "feeder" has already done something very useful; they forced their opponent to spend a lot of dice to contest the positioning roll and they brought into the combat their strongest teammate who is still fullpowered.
ii) The fact that each attack has to be defended against separately means that even small attacks are still very worth while. For example, a feeder attacks with 2 dice and the bruiser attacks with 8. Even if the defender wants to "lock in" winning initiative he has to put about 3 or 4 dice to defend the weaker attack, as well as approx 8 to the stronger. He might still win initiative either way, but if he under defends the larger attack he will take Impact and lose any dice he was trying to save anyway.
iii) Losing initiative to the lone defender isn't that bad for the attackers. In say the scenario above, the defender used a bunch of dice for positioning and another 12 dice to defend and won initiative. He probably only has 2-4 dice left to make an attack back at whoever he chooses. That defender is still going to have like 10 dice left, ready to crush him with a expulsion or similar.

b. If you are talking about some kind of every-man-for-himself free for all like a bar brawl, I think it would be easy enough to just break it down into 1v1s like normal. It seems like a really rare situation where you have a legitimate 1v1v1 combat (and no pair of the combatants are willing to temporarily team up before turning on each other). Really, 1v1 is meant to be used in the majority of situations. 1v2 and 1xX is only really meant to be used to when you have say a 4v6 fight and you want to figure out where to put the last 2 guys.

1. The lone combatant can never make 2 attacks at the same time. Hes going to at best be able to preempt one attacker and kill them, before the second attacker resolves his unopposed attack. In this situation I think the lone defender would declare a preempt and a contest of speed. All 3 would roll their contest of speed and they would be resolved in the order of the number of successes they each made. In this situation, the lone defender is going to be taking an unopposed hit no matter what, so he had better have some good armour on.

2. Yes, but only to a point. If someone dumps all 15 dice into positioning in a 1v2 the lone combatant will just put in 0 dice and and it's basically a 1v1 fight. One character putting 10 or so dice in while the others do 0 is definitely a strong tactic. I would say it is bad sportsmanship to table talk how many dice you are each allocating. I would make all character choose their dice hidden and separately, and all revealed at once the same way red/white initiative is done. After a few rounds of combat though, through watching what each other character is doing the combatants might naturally fall into a pattern. Players who fight together often might learn how their comrades fight and act accordingly.

3. Usually the order that manoeuvres and dice are allocated is determined by who has initiative. Since the 1vX positioning roll is used to determine initiative those rules don't make sense. It doesn't specifically say in the rules (this should be clarified) but I believe it is done simultaneously and hidden like I mentioned in 2.

4. There is a rule somewhere that "if you have initiative and either have 0 dice or do not wish to attack, initiative is passed to the defender." So in this situation, the lone character would want to win the positioning roll to get initiative to make it effectively a 1v1 and then they may pass initiative by choosing to defend and use disengage with all his remaining dice in the first tempo. This is the classic "run the hell away" tactic.

5. Technically I think you are correct but it seems like an oversight. Disengage might need to be reworded to say "can't be used in the first tempo of a fight" instead of "after red/white throw".

6. In a skirmish it's going to come out of the order you each roll your Sequence. Basically, it seems like the skirmishing rules are going to look something like "if you are being attacked by someone you must fight against them, and not ignore them to attack someone else. Otherwise, pick someone to go fight." This will have the natural effect of breaking the combat down into 1v1s in the preference order or whoever rolled Sequence best. There may be something like positioning or contest of speed rolls to be able to change which 1vX group you are in.

Each phrase, anyone who wants to would roll the positioning roll. It sucks for the lone combatant, but running circles around 5 people is bloody hard.

There was a bunch of similar questions and discussion going on over at:
http://www.grandheresyforums.com/viewto ... &hilit=1v2

Glidias wrote:a. Isn't there a clear weakest link "feeder" issue if a particular person within the outnumbering party deals a ("weak") attack that is easily defended against, inadvertently allowing the lone combatant to somehow "miraculously" gain initiative over everyone in the party instead of just the weakest character alone (or anyone else that lost to defense)? Is this the intended effect or just a side-effect of handling combat in the simplest way possible by treating the outnumbering party as a single unit blob? (instead of tracking individual initiatives within the blob...)
Nevertheless, this does makes things "easier" for the one that is outnumbered...or it might just be a ploy to deliberately give initiative over to the lone combatant?
I just feel that considering whether thinking twice whether a party member should attack or refrain from doing so... because of the "feeder" issue (which doesn't make too much sense, though) might be an intended gameplay feature? It wouldn't be good if a lousy player that dealt an easily-defended against attack, becomes a liability for his party (gah!, shouldn't have picked him!).

Initiatives are still tracked individually. Let's say we have a lone combatant vs two guys, with the two having won positioning and they're both in it. Tempo one. Lone character has to defend two attacks. Say, he defends one, the other one gets in, but bounces off his armor. Then it's the second tempo. Now the lone guy can launch an attack vs the guy that he defended against, and must be prepared to make another defense vs the guy that got past his parry. There's a new phrase, pools refresh. If there are still three combatants around, new positioning rolls are made to determine whether the lone combatant will need to face two guys again, or can he just face one.

I agree we need to clarify this in the rules. An example would likely be the easiest way to do it.

Glidias wrote:b. The rules assume a limitation of max 2 factions only (ie. 2-way fight) within a fight. If there are multiple factions, it has to consist of divided 2-way fights conducted seperately, right? ie. There can be no situation where 3 or more factions might exist simultaneously within a fight.

Correct. The three-way fight scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean sequels aren't among the things we're trying to emulate.

Glidias wrote:1. If a lone combatant wishes to Pre-empt against multiple attacking opponents (likely 2, as 3 would be plainly suicidal if the 3rd guy can do him in) to deal attacks on both of them, must he pre-empt separately against each of them, or treat "them" as an entire blob and either one or several blob members can decide if they wish to contest, but only the highest score among any of the attacking blob opponents are compared to determine which side wins initiative?

I'm honestly saying that this has never come up But as with maneuvers and initiative, pre-empting is should be handled on an individual basis. Just because I pre-empt you, I don't automagically pre-empt your buddy. I must do it separately.

Glidias wrote:2. Since it only takes a single winner of the positioning roll for your entire team blob to gain initiative and "get the rest of the gang in...", is it a viable tactic to get a single representative person to pump all his dice into positioning on behalf of everyone else (is discussion among party members possible?), rather than each one having to sacrifice dice individually for positioning and everyone ending up with sub-par individual rolls?

The winner of the positioning roll must engage the lone combatant as "the rest of the gang" are additional combatants to him. So, if he decides that entering the fight with zero CP and probably dying is worth it then... it possibly CAN be a viable tactic? Main question is, is it worth dying though?

Glidias wrote:Also, is there a minimum among of dice (1 dice?) each combatant must spend to be considered able to join the fight?

Not spending any dice at all while you have initiative basically gives initiative to the opponent.

Glidias wrote:eg. Assuming it's 3 vs 1, just get one representative to roll almost all his dice to "get his team in", then it's ensuring you get 2 fully CP-ed guys vs 1 guy. Of course, if he only gets 1 guy in, then he might become a liability since he expended a lot of his pool, so he'd probably not bother to attack if it ends up becoming a weak attack that is easily defended against...but the other guy would anyway. Worse case is if the plan backfires (ie. lone combatant still wins initaitive) and ends up with 1 vs 1 engagement with the "volunteer" obviously being chosen, since he expended so much CP....
Also, using this pawning technique might be potentially dangerous for the representative volunteer that decided to spend a large chunk of his CP to get his team to outnumber a lone character, because if he expends away his CP too much in order to "get his team in..", it might encourage a preemptive attack from the lone character on the volunteer (since the volunteer MUST enter the phrase and cannot suddenly sit out). However, even if the lone character does dispose off the volunteer, he still has 2 other characters to deal with...which means the lone character isn't probably going to survive anyway after paying preemptive attack costs and such....unless the lone character has an extremely large combat pool. This might cause the "pawning" tactic to outnumber a lone character, to become a sacrifice instead...lol.

Throwing oneself upon the opponent's blade for your buddies to get in? Yup, can be done.

Glidias wrote:3. When Positioning against multiple opponents, the outnumbered character declares his Positioning Roll first or the outnumbering party? Or is there an alternative way to do it simultaneously where everyone hides a number in a cup representing the number of dice he wishes to commit for Positioning, and simultaneously revealing it?

Good question. We've currently been handling it via initiative, but I'm leaning towards outnumbering party declaring first. Simultaneous reveal would be too random and I've noticed that when run that the lone party declares first, it's a bigger gamble for him than I would like. And also it makes sort of sense for the larger party to coordinate first, give each other some direction and then the lone party reacts. Happy to debate this though.

Glidias wrote:4. If the side with initiative doesn't wish to attack (or cannot do so), the side without initiative can still attack, right?

Correct.

Glidias wrote:I'd assume since there's no option to Defend With Initiative or perform a Quick Defense (after the defender declared his attack), the lone character with initiative would generally still be forced to attack regardless as the only option, right? (ie. could he assign everything he has left to perform a Disengage so long as he didn't attack at all in the previous tempo??).

Correct, but you also can't Disengage right after red/white throw.

Glidias wrote:If up against multiple combatants, this would be a likely case since an outnumbered character will likely wish to have another attempt at a Positioning Roll to face off hopefully 1 opponent only.

5. Is it possible to Disengage with ALL dice against multiple opponents in the first tempo....since when up against multiple opponents, no red/white dice has to be be thrown (ie. Positioning Roll is used to determine initiative instead...but the rulebook only mentioned Disengage is not allowed only in the case of" "Red/White dice being thrown"), which doesn't include "Positioning Roll to determine initaitive..")
I think "Red/White" and initial "Positioning Roll to determine initiative" are treated as the same condition, is it? If not, likely the outnumbered character will simply spam Disengage continuously until he ends up with a 1 vs 1 conflict phrase. That would result in a repetitive exercise of attacking an outnumbered character that is obviously spamming Disengage with his entire pool continuously....

That should probably have to be another condition where one cannot Disengage, yes.

Glidias wrote:6. Also, without an explicit set of hard rules to precisely determine/allow players to contest for which individuals end up within the various 1-vs-1 or 1-vs-X engagements, is this arbitrarily decided by the GM? What if the players argue against it?
Something to accept as a "just-so/random" narrative?

I need more context to get what you mean. Can you bring an example where this issue crops up?

Glidias wrote:Once a phrase starts with a specific result for the Positioning Roll (eg. 1 vs 1, or 2 vs 1), in the latter Phrases, if there are more combatants that wish to join in to make it 3 vs 1, can they attempt to do so, and who is allowed to perform the Positioning Roll for such a task?

New positioning rolls are made every phrase, so, any character in reasonable proximity who is not already engaged can basically elect to join in.

Glidias wrote:Would it be more interesting (though it's "realism" is arguable) to only allow those currently fighting within the Phrase, from that point on-wards, to make that roll? This does make things more challenging for the outnumbering party if the lone character managed to win a 1 vs 1 positioning roll for the initial First phrase, since for subsequent phrases, ONLY the other single party member currently engaged with the lone character can make the Positioning Roll from that point onwards on behalf of his team.

I'm not sure how this suggestion makes sense and what it would model. If you and your buddy are throwing down with a thug, and your buddy is engaged with him, then finding an angle to get at the thug lies more in your hands than your buddy's. If it's solely your buddy's responsibility to find you an angle, then you're not in the fight. You're part of the scenery.

higgins wrote:Good question. We've currently been handling it via initiative, but I'm leaning towards outnumbering party declaring first. Simultaneous reveal would be too random and I've noticed that when run that the lone party declares first, it's a bigger gamble for him than I would like. And also it makes sort of sense for the larger party to coordinate first, give each other some direction and then the lone party reacts. Happy to debate this though.

I think it might end up coming down to context. If the outnumbering party starts the fight relatively close to each other, they would probably need to initiate a positioning roll first - to encircle their opponent and attack simultaneously. So they declare first. But if the situation is clear and the outnumbered warrior is already surrounded and his opponents are already on good positions to strike (surrounding him in open space, or two of them coming from the opposite ends of the corridor, or something), then I think he must initiate the roll and declare first, to change the fact that he is in disadvantageous position.

Korbel wrote:I think it might end up coming down to context. If the outnumbering party starts the fight relatively close to each other, they would probably need to initiate a positioning roll first - to encircle their opponent and attack simultaneously. So they declare first. But if the situation is clear and the outnumbered warrior is already surrounded and his opponents are already on good positions to strike (surrounding him in open space, or two of them coming from the opposite ends of the corridor, or something), then I think he must initiate the roll and declare first, to change the fact that he is in disadvantageous position.

Sounds too much of a slippery slope for arguments. We should have a clear rule on this.

higgins wrote:

Glidias wrote:a. Isn't there a clear weakest link "feeder" issue if a particular person within the outnumbering party deals a ("weak") attack that is easily defended against, inadvertently allowing the lone combatant to somehow "miraculously" gain initiative over everyone in the party instead of just the weakest character alone (or anyone else that lost to defense)? Is this the intended effect or just a side-effect of handling combat in the simplest way possible by treating the outnumbering party as a single unit blob? (instead of tracking individual initiatives within the blob...)
Nevertheless, this does makes things "easier" for the one that is outnumbered...or it might just be a ploy to deliberately give initiative over to the lone combatant?
I just feel that considering whether thinking twice whether a party member should attack or refrain from doing so... because of the "feeder" issue (which doesn't make too much sense, though) might be an intended gameplay feature? It wouldn't be good if a lousy player that dealt an easily-defended against attack, becomes a liability for his party (gah!, shouldn't have picked him!).

Initiatives are still tracked individually. Let's say we have a lone combatant vs two guys, with the two having won positioning and they're both in it. Tempo one. Lone character has to defend two attacks. Say, he defends one, the other one gets in, but bounces off his armor. Then it's the second tempo. Now the lone guy can launch an attack vs the guy that he defended against, and must be prepared to make another defense vs the guy that got past his parry. There's a new phrase, pools refresh. If there are still three combatants around, new positioning rolls are made to determine whether the lone combatant will need to face two guys again, or can he just face one.

I agree we need to clarify this in the rules. An example would likely be the easiest way to do it.

I was skimming the rulebook for example writing purposes and I realized I owe you guys an apology. This is all wrong. Sorry. What I explained was the OLD version of doing things.

Now we have indeed a "blob" mechanic, as you call it. We changed it to "blob" so we'd have less wildly differing mechanical solution as far as similar game concepts are concerned.

So, with that in mind, the "feeder" issue. If you wanted to be really narrative about it, you could argue this is what happens when you let amateurs help experts. They just get in the way.

After all, what is more dramatic and iconic than the skilled villain going "Leave him. He's mine." and telling their lackeys to get out of the way?

As far as favoring the outnumbered, that's also essentially correct. It's going to be hard enough for the single combatant to survive the first tempo, really. In real life, fighting multiple opponents often just means you're straight dead. If we've tipped the scales a touch, it's because nine times out of ten it's going to be the players being outnumbered if the GM is awake at the wheel.

And a lousy attack being a liability for the group? This cuts both ways. It's kind of unfortunate when it's the players doing it, but when it's a bunch of NPCs surrounding a single player?

thirtythr33 wrote: 6. In a skirmish it's going to come out of the order you each roll your Sequence. Basically, it seems like the skirmishing rules are going to look something like "if you are being attacked by someone you must fight against them, and not ignore them to attack someone else. Otherwise, pick someone to go fight." This will have the natural effect of breaking the combat down into 1v1s in the preference order or whoever rolled Sequence best. There may be something like positioning or contest of speed rolls to be able to change which 1vX group you are in.

I think the current beta solved the issue with single kamikaze representative approach to outnumbering opponent in a 1vX group, forcing everyone to have to invest CP accordingly for Positioning.

However, regarding your comment on number 6...it's true that in restricting bouts to 1 vs X, it allows things to be streamlined and is a necessary thing for BoB rule-set that only considers 2 main sides for multi-combatant rounds. But does that mean that if during a Skirmish, if someone melee-engages a target who was already stuck in Melee that had transpired earlier in the previous Round, and that target belongs to the "X" outnumbering group in that bout, that target is "magically" pulled out of his existing melee bout? (regardless of whether the players like it or not...). After all, what if both the target and the one the target was originally attacking are sworn enemies and insist on going at it against each other no matter what?. Why can't it be the case where the bout becomes `1vX+1v(against target in X)` sort of bout, where the target in X still gets to keep his original target and isn't forced to face another enemy solely?

It would seem like the only way to go about this, would be that the target must then attempt to Disengage on the Round he was attacked by the other guy and forced out of the "Xv1" bout, and then hopefully roll something "good" on Sequence for the next Round (better than the attacker in the previous Round) so he can engage back his sworn enemy for the next Round, right?

This is likely to be a canon for all TROSLike skirmish systems.

Assuming A and B are on a team and 1 and 2 are on a team.

1 is fighting against A and B.

2 rolls red and attempts to join the fight.

Then one of these happens in the next round:

• 1 fights A and 2 fights B
  OR
• 1 fights B and 2 fights A

In your example I would simply put the two sworn enemies fighting each other and have their respective allies forced aside to fight each other. I would also go with the most "obvious" pairings if for example new addition did something like tackling and grappling someone.

If it isn't obvious how they should be split because of the narrative AND the result is really important AND people are in disagreement over where they want to be paired, I would have whoever wins initiative on the following round choose their target. Another reasonable ruling rule be to have all 4 characters roll positioning rolls and have whoever scores the most successes chooses their target.

After the pairs have been established, if someone still desperately wants to change again they would have to disengage and attempt the process over again, hoping for the best like you said.

That's the thing with using grid per person system vs an abstract zone/blob approach. Because if sticking strictly to Sequence on a grid where the character specifically moves to attack a particular character adjacently, "pulling out" would have to be the only solution. Otherwise, if considering it in terms of a stacked "blob" and attacking anyone within it, then any narrative means of resolution can be used to determine the results arbitrarily within the "blob", without having to worry about re-arranging per-square positioning to match the given roll results.

I would say grid resolutions should be typically 9x9 yards per square/hex at the very most, and not go finer than that without running into all sorts of problems for TROSLike games. Using generic 9x9 feet grid (like how Fire Emblem) does it per square, allows for more abstraction in combat between adjacent units. The use of such a general grid to determine either paired-up formations or flanking adjacient approaches to Melee, can also be used to adjudicate Reach Control between multiple opponents in a more generalised fashion.

On a sidenote, what happens if someone threw a Red6 and found on his turn that there are no more targets nearby to attack? Can he still move a Short distance?

That depends.

He can still engage into a combat that has already fought that round, but he doesn't get to attack until the next round. He will just count as engaged for things like firing into combat.

If there is no more targets because everyone is now dead, behind cover or out of range, then he has wasted his action.

If he wants the flexibility to change his action, he should roll a d10.

Glidias wrote:On a sidenote, what happens if someone threw a Red6 and found on his turn that there are no more targets nearby to attack? Can he still move a Short distance?

After Sequence is established but before it is resolved he could either use:

• On A Second Thought (1 SA) to change his Sequence Action.
• In The Nick Of Time (2 SA) to intervene out of Sequence.

If he has no SA to spend it gets resolved like thirtythr33 explained.

I meant what happens if any target he was originally aiming for, moves away on the target's turn beyond Short distance before he gets to resolve his turn? I think that would mean he'll need to move up a Short distance to close in on his target first, as he won't get within engagement range yet? I guess rolling a D10 provides longer distance to move at the cost of less immediacy. But in either case, if his target moves away first, he won't be able to reach his target anyway.

I understand that if a particular melee combat had already transpired before he could join in while getting in melee range, he can only take part next round unless he burns his SAs to intervene.

Glidias wrote:I meant what happens if any target he was originally aiming for, moves away on the target's turn beyond Short distance before he gets to resolve his turn?

If he threw Red he moves up to Close range at his Sequence, and if there is a suitable target, he can initiate Melee. Otherwise he waits until next Round.

Otherwise, he could still use his action to used a ranged weapon if a target at a greater range is available.