On an Example Movement in Skirmishes

Dune: The Roleplaying Game
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Hi all!

I’m reading through the rules to get ready to run Harvesters of Dune next month, and I’m trying to wrap my head around the Conflict rules. I feel pretty good about it at this point, but a particular entry in the example of play on page 175 has me a little confused. Other threads have given me an idea of how this might work, but just so I’m clear, I thought I’d ask.

In the example, a thug attempts to move from his own zone into a zone occupied by a player character.

One of the thugs from another zone attempts to move into Kara’s, but he fails, so Kara holds him at bay.

I’m not clear on how exactly this interaction arises from the rules. From reading this post by @Modiphius-Nathan, I take it that Kara’s presence in the zone into which the thug is trying to move counts as a circumstance requiring a skill test for a normal move. However, the example is vague on how exactly this shakes out mechanically. How is the difficulty of such a move determined in a skirmish? An extended contest against Kara’s Battle skill seems extreme for a simple movement, but I can’t think of a good way to set the difficulty otherwise.

To extend that question, say a player in a duel wanted to move their knife from their right guard zone into their opponent’s left guard zone, which is occupied by the opponent’s knife. Would (or could) the presence of the opponent’s knife mean that this movement requires a check where it would not if the opponent’s guard zone were empty? If so, what would the difficulty of such a check be?

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Going by the rules in the book a normal move doesn’t require any check. (Subtle and Bold moves do but that is all specified).

From the example and Nathans comment I would say that he intends it would be a difficulty 1 test to move into a contested zone.

Difficulty 0 as a default, then modified by 1, either from the PC, their asset or a scene trait (such as Dark in the example on pgs 174 & 175). Otherwise the only way to fail is to roll a complication and why bother?
I can see the benefit if it is thematic for a scene to restrict movement. The example specifies it is a back alley, so Kara holding the thugs off at the entrance makes sense to me. If it is just a contested zone I probably wouldn’t bother.

If you wanted to apply this to the duelling example I would say it would also be Difficulty 1, using the knife as an asset to increase the difficulty.
Given this would apply both ways in the duel and it could be argued that subtle & bold movements should also suffer the same increase as a GM I would personally just drop it so as not to artificially increase the overall difficulty everyone faces.
But then I never got on well with duelling combats, so mostly ran skirmish or contested rolls when I did them.

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