Ruling — Tide of Iron

← Tide of Iron

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Tide of Ironbg-22825-en-1e

Setup

1. Choose a game scenario from the Scenario Guide, online, or expansion sets.[1]

2. Decide which nation each player will represent (e.g., German or American forces).[1]

3. Arrange the relevant map boards together to form the game board as instructed by the scenario.[1]

4. Place additional map pieces and special tokens on the game board as required by the scenario.[1]

5. Locate the required plastic infantry, vehicles, and squad bases from the game box and place them in your play area.[2][3]

6. Build squads by pushing the pegs of infantry figures into the holes of the squad bases.[2][3]

7. Ensure all squads are "full" (all four holes occupied) during setup.[2][3]

8. Customize squads with the mix of infantry types provided by the scenario, following the order of initiative.[2][3]

9. (Optional) Place specialization tokens into the slot on the back of a squad base if granted by the scenario.[3]

Game Structure

The game is played over a series of rounds, the number of which is designated by the individual scenario.[4] Each round consists of three phases in the following order:

1. The Action Phase [4]

2. The Command Phase [4]

3. The Status Phase [4]

The Action Phase

1. The player with initiative takes an action turn, performing the number of actions indicated by the specific scenario.[4]

2. Players alternate action turns; after the first player completes their actions, the opponent completes theirs, continuing until neither player has additional actions.[4]

3. During an action turn, a player may activate and resolve the effects of an eligible faceup Strategy card from their HQ area.[5]

4. To activate a Strategy card, the player must pay the card's command cost by taking the required command from their play area and returning it to the central command pile.[5]

5. After the Action Phase is over, play proceeds to the Command Phase.[4]

The Command Phase

1. Players receive command tokens from the command pile for each friendly or neutral command objective they control.[6]

2. Command tokens are placed in the player's play area as "available command".[6]

3. Available command can be used to activate Strategy cards, gain initiative, or for special purposes specified by the scenario.[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.7 · Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area

[2] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.8 · 4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens · 5. Build Squads

[3] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.8

[4] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.10 · Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE

[5] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.11 · The Action Turn

[6] RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook · p.14 · Receive Command Points

The sage rests. The game continues.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 245 ms · ask 8767 ms · total 9015 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 9015 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 7, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "To prepare the gaming area, follow the instructions below. Firsttime players should consult the 'Game Area' diagram as a reference to where the various game elements should be placed. in any combination the player wishes, including all from the same deck. These will be the available Strategy cards t", "headingPath": "Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.048652, "snippet": "Each player now claims any specific Strategy card decks that his nation is granted (as indicated by the scenario), shuffling each deck and placing each shuffled deck facedown in his HQ area. Then each player draws a number of starting Strategy cards as indicated by the scenario and places them faceu", "headingPath": "3. Claim Game Cards · 4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 35, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Whenever any value (firepower, movement, etc.) is affected by more than one modifier, always perform any addition and subtraction before any division or multiplication . Important : Any unit that has its firepower halved more than once may not attack . (See the sidebar on page 40.) Conflicts in Worl", "headingPath": "Calculating Modifiers · Three- and four-player Games · The Four-Player Game · Turn Order", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.046432, "snippet": "10 The following section will explain the structure of the game in detail. It will explain how the game round is played, facilitating an overall understanding of the game flow and how the various elements of TOI tie together. In the section titled 'The Rules of Engagement' (page 18) we will describe", "headingPath": "Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 41, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "Most scenarios give each player access to one or more Strategy card decks. These decks represent off-board events and forces that players may bring to the battle by spending the designated number of command points printed on each Strategy card. At the beginning of the game, and during the Status Pha", "headingPath": "Strategy Cards · 'Place in Your Play Area' · Card Types", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 14, "score": 0.042925, "snippet": "For each friendly or neutral command objective a player controls, he receives the indicated amount of command from the command pile, placing the command tokens prominently in his play area (along with any unused command from prior rounds). COMMAND TOKENS The amount of command in a player's play area", "headingPath": "Receive Command Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "18 This section will provide you with the detailed rules for the core elements of the game, such as movement, combat, line of sight, and other critical elements involving interaction among the game units. TOI includes two player reference sheets that list the detailed information and values for each", "headingPath": "Winning the Game · The rules of engagement · The Player Reference Sheets · Movement · Half Hexes", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.029877, "snippet": "The current player activates and resolves the effects of an eligible faceup Strategy card in his HQ area. For a Strategy card to be eligible for activation during the Action Phase, it must have the words 'Action Phase:' at the top of its text box. Before activating a Strategy card, a player must fir", "headingPath": "The Action Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens · 5. Build Squads", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "The Action Turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Receive Command Points", "sharpsignalDocId": 1172}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1172 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1172 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90563 of 1865 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 5, 2026 11:14 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area	p.7	0.04866 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	3. Claim Game Cards · 4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens	p.7	0.048652 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Calculating Modifiers · Three- and four-player Games · The Four-Player Game · Turn Order	p.35	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE	p.10	0.046432 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Strategy Cards · 'Place in Your Play Area' · Card Types	p.41	0.046394 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Receive Command Points	p.14	0.042925 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Winning the Game · The rules of engagement · The Player Reference Sheets · Movement · Half Hexes	p.18	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	The Action Turn	p.11	0.029877 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 80 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area	p.7	#1	0.04866 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE	p.10	#4	0.046432 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Calculating Modifiers · Three- and four-player Games · The Four-Player Game · Turn Order	p.35	#3	0.046452 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens · 5. Build Squads	p.8	#11	0.028006 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Stacking Limits	p.9	#21	0.023347 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)		p.8	#15	0.02632 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Receive Command Points	p.14	#6	0.042925 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	The Action Turn	p.11	#8	0.029877 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Starting the game · 1. Choose a Scenario and Nation · 2. Create the Game Board · Play Area and HQ Area	p.7	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	4. Place Round Marker and Game Tokens · 5. Build Squads	p.8	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)		p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Stacking Limits · THE GAME ROUND · THE ACTION PHASE	p.10	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	The Action Turn	p.11	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Tide of Iron — Rulebook (corpus doc 1172)	Receive Command Points	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 245 ms · first delta 4875 ms · total 9015 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 245 ms · ask 8767 ms · gateway work 9015 ms · total 9015 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3419
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 516
tok/sec: 128.9 tok/sec — 516 output tokens in 4.003 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 11s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 23h, checked 2s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 1102), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.