Munchkin Warhammer 40k - Running Away - Automatic Escape vs Automatic Failure

Question

I recently played a game of Munchkin Warhammer 40k.

In the middle of a fight I was losing, I was cursed with a "Can't Locate the Astronimican" which I responded by playing a "Tactical Rearward Advance". This lead to great disagreement within the group.

Card Text:

Curse! Can't locate the Astronimican. Automatically fail your next run away attempt.

and

Tactical Rearward Advance. Play before rolling the die to Run Away from the first monster in your combat. You automatically escape from all monsters.

My argument was that

1. I was still allowed to play the Tactical Rearward Advance, as I had not rolled the die to Run away yet; and,
2. it would negate the Curse entirely as my escape was "automatic" - ie I was not making a "Run Away Attempt" as explicitly stated on the curse card

My opponent argued that the Curse would have effect immediately as there is no "stack"

In the event, we negotiated a compromise and moved on with the game, but I am curious as to other peoples interpretation of those two cards.

Answer 1

You cannot escape this way

From the Steve Jackson Games Forums, on a thread about running away, the Munchkin Line Editor wrote:

If a monster doesn't allow you to Run Away at all, then there's no attempt that will automatically succeed or fail. (But some Items will allow you to try to escape even from monsters that don't normally allow a try; they will explicitly say you can roll even from those monsters.)

If you're under a Curse or Bad Stuff that means you automatically fail your next attempt, you can't use something else to make that attempt succeed (unless, as above, it says it can even supersede automatic failure -- Magic Lamp, for instance, or Tomb Dust, as you mentioned).

You can't use a Hireling to escape an automatic failure. You also can't use an automatic success to counteract an automatic failure, unless the auto-success says so; automatic failure trumps automatic success.

A monster that won't even pursue you never causes a Run Away attempt in the first place, so it doesn't trigger an automatic failure effect -- you're still stuck with it. However, if another card (such as Flask of Glue) counteracts the "will not pursue" clause, then your automatic failure kicks in.

Tactical Rearward Advance does not indicate that it supersedes automatic failures, therefore it does not.