When a Stronghold is built and a pawn is on one of its corresponding vertices, it must move back toward its own board edge (if able). It often happens that I build a Stronghold such that moving the pawn only once directly backward still leaves it on an illegal vertex. In this case it must continue to travel directly back toward its own board edge, having been pushed two spaces by my move–correct?
If the pawn can’t make a legal retreat, I’m pretty sure you can’t build the Stronghold.
It’s not retreating backward into a captured state or anything like that. It ends two spaces back in a legal position. Phrased another way my question is, “is it a legal move to force a pawn to move backward two spaces by building a Stronghold?”
I don’t think it works like that. If you can’t push the pawn one space into a legal position, you can’t play the Stronghold. You don’t necessarily have to retreat directly backward though. I believe you can move back or sideways, just not toward your opponent’s end of the board.
So I went back to the rules to read again: “If a stronghold is built while a pawn is occupying the intersections it blocks, move that pawn out of the blocked area and onto an intersection that is closer to its own board edge. If it cannot move to its own board edge, move it left or right until it is out of the stronghold zone.”
My assumption was that “cannot move to its own board edge” is something that only happens when the pawn is blocked or up against the very edge of the board. Your reading of the rules, Shaun, takes it to mean “If it cannot move to its own board edge in one move…” which upon re-reading seems the most likely intent of the rules. However, I think it’s still unclear in the rules as they are written.