Meticulous planning. A plan too far?

[Silbuster]

There are some serious reservations with regards to the “Meticulous planning” talent. In scenarios  “Bring him back alive”  and “Catch the pigeon”, the enemy playing piece escorting the captured piece can simply be moved back every time it moves forward. It never exits the board. The effect is less severe in the “Standard scenario” since there are more objectives but it still hurts. In “Breakthrough”, it is almost impossible to stop at least one piece with, effectively, a double move from making it to the other side of the board while in “Marked for Death”, the enemy’s chief is consistently moved towards the enemy every turn; it’s very hard to protect them.

This might be alright if “Meticulous planning” was not so comparatively cheap at 15 points and yet has no range limitation or way of resisting it. Its nearest equivalent is mesmerism, which costs 14 points, is limited to 12” and requires both the player to pass his pluck and the target to fail theirs. The latter point is particularly relevant since it allows one to make one’s opponent’s most powerful piece impotent.

This is a shame since “Meticulous Planning” is characteristic of the colour of the period and it would certainly be a great loss. What I would suggest is that its successful use should depend on its user passing a pluck test and on its target failing its pluck test. However, in the event of failure, then the player who owns the intended victim should return the favour by either moving one of his own or the casting player’s pieces as if he had “Meticulous planning” himself.

“Ha ha! So Moriarty! Another cunning plan foiled!”
“Damn you Holmes, you’ll pay tor this!”

Just to remove any confusion:
The player attempting “Meticulous Planning” must pass a pluck test and, if a member of his own team is his target, then his target must pass his pluck test too in order for the “Meticulous Plan” to succeed.
If his target is an enemy, the the enemy must fail his pluck test in order for the “Meticulous Plan” to succeed.
If, however, the enemy figure passes his pluck test then he may attempt to reply in kind by attempting his own “Meticulous Planning” using the previous target figure as the figure attempting it . If he fails then that’s the end of the sequence.

[Craig]

I have passed this onto its author