006 Dara (530 AD)<===Question for the Group about this Scenario

Historical Background
When negotiation for peace between Justinian and...

006 Dara (530 AD)

"The Byzantine player may enter Pharas and his Cavalry units by the play of a Command card in the left section. Pharas and/or a unit, when ordered to enter, is placed on a hill hex or on an adjacent hex. The unit may not move but may battle."

A couple of doubts:
- Can the units only melee or also fire?
- If they can fire, do we consider they moved or held? (1d or 2d)
- Can you combine with ordering other units already present in the left section?

Vittoria Sassanide 7-5. Dopo uno scambio di frecce da entrambe le parti la cavalleria di Bouzes si fa avanti e carica il fianco sassanide. Riesce a sfondare ma avanza troppo in profondità e viene eliminata. L'azione si sposta nel centro dove la lotta si fa furiosa tra la fanteria pesante bizantina e qquella media sassanide. Belisario per coprire il fianco destro lasciato scoperto da Bouzes deve spostarsi lasciando il centro senza comando. Dopo alterne fortune il centro bizantino crolla. Faras purtroppo non riceve ordini e non può quindi intervenire per salvare la situazione.

Byzantines win 9-3 (finished the round after 7-3)

7-3 Sassanids. Most of the action was on the flanks as the Sassinid cav advanced. Instead of bringing on the reinforcements, the Byzantine (me) choose to do a mounted charge to counter. Which would have worked great, if the Sassinid had not had two first strike cards, followed by a Rally in his own turn to bring his Superheavies and Heavies back to almost full strength. After that there was a lot of shooting and Darken the Skies, and the Byzantine reinforcements eventually came on but then had no cards to move. The Sassinid wisely stood off and just attrited the Byzantine by archery for the most part, including nailing one leader.

Further to the last, the gates seem immaterial - they are too far away for the Sassinid really, who can largely keep their distance and use ranged combat to win unless things go very poorly for them. Also, not sure it makes sense for the Byzantine to garrison them even if the Sassanid moves in - my reading of the rules is that killing or forcing a unit on the gate to retreat opens it, so from the Byzantine perspective may be better to die in place in front of the gates, and then have the Sassinids have to force the unoccupied gate by getting a Sword hit, requiring at least two turns of effort.

My gaming partner and I have played this scenario 4 times face to face in the last week, and the Byzantine player won 3 of them. Our last two games went down to the last banner and were very exciting. So we overall thought the scenario was pretty balanced.

However we agreed, no way will the Sass player ever reach the gates before the banner count is already achieved for one side or the other.

1) The way the rules read, the Pharas can place on any of the hills, not just the two at the edge of the map.  He could basically teleport to the hill hex 3 hexes in from the edge even though there could be Sassanid forces between that hex and the edge of the map.  That is, unless you interpret the word "enter" to explicitly mean only the first hexes on the left edge on the map.
What does the forum say?  Which is it?

2)If you do rule that "Enter" means only the hill hexes on the left edge, then there are only 2 with 2 adjacent hexes between them.  This could mean that the Sassanid player might be able to occupy those hexes BEFORE the Phara's enters.  That being the case, does that mean that he cannot enter?  This possibility makes me think that in my first question above, the answer should be YES he CAN teleport onto any of those hexes because all of those plus the adjacent hexes would not be able to be covered by placing Sassanid troops on them.
What sayeth the forum about this?
 

There is some FAQ about this scenario
boardgamegeek.com/thread/2215456/article/32363284#32363284

Special Rules Dot Two: "The Byzantine player may enter Pharas and his Cavalry units by the play of a Command card in the left section. Pharas and/or a unit, when ordered to enter, is placed on a hill hex or on an adjacent hex. The unit may not move but may battle."

The key phrase here is " is placed on a hill hex or on an adjacent hex". The units do not move from offboard, and historically, the units were concealed and emerge from hiding.