Interesting question came up last night:

A chest turned out to be a mimic (beastman) and attacked and killed Mad Carthos who had the skill Divine Retribution.

1) Does that trigger the skill? The clarification in FAQ or GLoAQ says something like a figure must deal the killing blow to trigger DR. A mimicked chest is still a chest marker, not a figure.

2) If the answer to 1) is Yes, does DR kill the mimicked chest? The skill says "kills any unnamed enemy figures", which the chest assumedly is not.

Thoughts?

I don't have the rules next to me (so take it or leave it) but for my friends and I, the chest becomes a Beastman figure and so an enemy figure with its pockets full of treasures. We put a normal beastman figure over the chest token to remember that there is some treasure after killing it.

So it would trigger Divine retribution and die since it is not a named monster (and surely not friendly one), spreading its treasures to the heroes in it falls dead.

There are many cards affecting "figures" so it would give a powerful immunity to this mimic if you play it otherwise.

Parathion said:

The trap card says to treat it as a Beastman, so the answer to both would be yes IMO. They're using "figure" as a generalization there, so that traps can't trigger DR for example. The marker being used is irrelevant for the purposes of the rules, since it says to treat it as a Beastman. It effectively becomes a "figure" at that point.

I agree with the others. The rules for effects like DR sort of assume that all enemies are in fact figures, so when the Mimic says it is treated like a Beastman then it should be considered a figure too. This also means it will block LOS, incidentally. If FFG comes out with a new set of monsters that are all tokens, that might cause a number of interesting rules changes. But I don't think that will happen.

I´m pretty certain that the trap card doesn´t say "treat it as a beastman". Regarding replacing the marker with an actual beastman, I used to do this as well, until I noticed that the card actually doesn´t say so, and you would run into some placing issues with chests that mimic an Ogre (treachery card) or a Giant (in a certain quest).

However, since I only have the German card (which I still have to look up), could someone please post the original English text here?

Parathion said:

What I posted was directly taken from the English card, which says "treat it as a Beastman", but I'll post the full text unless someone beats me to it.

Play this card when a hero opens a chest. The chest is alive, and its contents cannot be distributed until it is killed. Move the chest marker to an adjacent space. Treat it as a Beastman and activate it immediately. After its activation, the hero's turn resumes. If the chest is killed, the contents of the chest are immediately distributed.

I agree with other posters; the mimic should count as a figure for all purposes.

I´m still not 100% convinced. The card says "if the chest is killed", not "if the beastman is killed". It IS still a chest that is alive and acts like a beastman, but is not one.

Nevertheless, I have sent the question to FFG, doubting I will receive an answer...

I'm throwing in my two cents that the chest would be killed. It's being treated like a beastman that just happens to have lots of stuff in its pocketses.

Parathion said:

But the chest is alive. And its treated as a Beastman. Which makes it a monster, so DR would kill it.

Big Remy said:

You know, I was all ready to agree with this, but then I remembered the time we said no to playing a dark servant on a killer chest (ogre) because it wasn't a monster, but a chest. Of course, that card says replace the monster with a master monster...which you can't do because you have a one space chest vs. a 4 space master ogre. I don't think that treating a chest like a beastman means that it's technically a monster. I think though that it means you treat it like a monster/figure for all intents and purposes while still realizing it's a chest.

So..if you treat it like a beastman (a beastman being a monster and a figure) you can do things like play rage or aim on it. You can also say it's susceptible to things that affect a figure like DR (and attacks!). However, cards like Dark servant don't work because you can't replace the chest with something else. OR if you do replace that monster, the original monster/chest distributes its contents as a result of being removed from the board.

This may offer more confusion than clarity, and if so...I apologize.