Crushing Attack provide that "You may only play Crushing Attack if your army currently has more than twice as much total Force as the opposing army." Under the rules at the time, it was held that Crushing Attack cannot be played unless there are units in the opposing army. Is this still the case, or do Samurai rules make it so that Crushing Attack simply asks for the opposing army's force, gets a zero back if there are no units, and then compares that zero to your army's force?
Crushing Attack and no units in enemy "army"
A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
Crushing Attack provide that "You may only play Crushing Attack if your army currently has more than twice as much total Force as the opposing army." Under the rules at the time, it was held that Crushing Attack cannot be played unless there are units in the opposing army. Is this still the case, or do Samurai rules make it so that Crushing Attack simply asks for the opposing army's force, gets a zero back if there are no units, and then compares that zero to your army's force?
No, you cannot play Crushing Attack if there is no enemy army.
With older cards, a strict reading applying the current ruleset does not always yield the proper interaction. Sometimes, though this is certainly not always the case, the older interpretation should stand (The Longest Night being an excellent example).
Fortunately, nebulous cases such as these are one of the reasons that we have a Rules Team. And I thank you for the opportunity to make a current ruling that upholds the older one, so that I'll have something to link to in the Legacy ruling section.
On: Crushing Attack