Greetings, Forum!

So, my kid and I are working on playing our first game of RW. He leaves a single Daqan Knight unit in front of a group of my Latari, and - being the great dad that I am - I marched my troops in for the kill. I had 2 archers and a sorceress. My archers wounded the fellow, and my sorceress forced his retreat, ending our first battle in boring fashion...

BUT that brough up a couple of questions I couldn't find answers to: My archers are on the first initiative row, so they get to attack in the first round of combat. His knight is on the 4th Initiative row, and he has no one in rows 1-3. Does that mean that my archers - and anyone else in rows 1-3 - get "free shots" at he knight who cannot act until the 4th round? Or should we have resolved his round against the archers only and then again versus the sorceress? This issue seems to come up more against Neutral Units, as they often have higher (later) initiative than the troops moving against them.

Also, on the concept of "simultanious action" if my sorceress forces a unit to retreat, does that unit still resolve it's fate card?

Thanks, guys!

You are correct. Initiative is important. Having units with higher initiative means they get a chance to fire first, and possibly reducing the enemy's ability to fight back.

The only time "simultaneous" happens is with two groups with the same initiative level. If that happens, both draw their cards together, and all cards drawn are resolved*. But you finish all 1's before 2's, etc.

Incidentally, you said it was a Daqan Knight unit at Initiative 4. Something's amiss here, as the only Daqan unit that has Initiative 4 is the Roc Warrior from the expansion. Daqan Knights have Initiative 2, and Footmen have Initiative 3 (same as the Sorceress). If it was indeed a Daqan Knight, the Latari Archer's should go first. Then, if the Knight is still alive and standing, it would go next, and the Sorceress would go last.

I hope that helps.

* - While all cards are resolved, there are certain cases where a special ability may have no effect; the attacker resolves his cards first for each sub-type (orb, then rout, then damage), so if the attacker's orb does something to cause the defender to not have enough units to trigger his own orb, then the orb does nothing. This is somewhat rare, though, and only affects a small handful of units.

Thanks, Sigma. You're right. Now that I think about it, the archer's dealt 1 damage and a miss, the knight took one of them out, and then the sorceress pushed him out.

You bring up something I hadn't thought of, though. If I have an init 1 unit, he has an init 2 unit and I have an init 3 unit, we actually go "back and forth" with the attacks, as there are no units with matched initiatives to go toe to toe. Is that right?

Also, I gather from your answer that if a unit has drawn a fate card, and then is forced out of the battle and/or killed it doesn't get a chance to resolve it's card. That makes more sense to me than "Oops, they killed each other."

You bring up something I hadn't thought of, though. If I have an init 1 unit, he has an init 2 unit and I have an init 3 unit, we actually go "back and forth" with the attacks, as there are no units with matched initiatives to go toe to toe. Is that right?

Correct.

Also, I gather from your answer that if a unit has drawn a fate card, and then is forced out of the battle and/or killed it doesn't get a chance to resolve it's card. That makes more sense to me than "Oops, they killed each other."

If a card is drawn for a given unit, it will be resolved. Always. Sometimes the resolution is ineffectual by the time it happens, but anything drawn gets resolved. All units at the same initiative level draw cards simultaneously.

Ok. I'm sure I'm being really dense, here, but in the scenario above, my initiative 1 units get the first "volley", so to speak. Then his initiative 2 units get to attack. Who do their attacks resolve against? The initiative 1 units or the initiative 3?

EDIT: I just re-read the rules, and I think I have a better grasp now. The damage is dealt in general, rather than to a specific unit, and it's up to the controlling player where to "assign" the damage.

Yes and now you know why ini 1 units are really important! but equally important are big damage absorbing tanks (for example allied giants are perfect!) this way they absorb damage and all of your other units fight and kill

Also, I gather from your answer that if a unit has drawn a fate card, and then is forced out of the battle and/or killed it doesn't get a chance to resolve it's card. That makes more sense to me than "Oops, they killed each other."

If a card is drawn for a given unit, it will be resolved. Always. Sometimes the resolution is ineffectual by the time it happens, but anything drawn gets resolved. All units at the same initiative level draw cards simultaneously.

Just to add on to Steve and to clarify my previous statement, the exception I was talking about was specifically for a few units special abilities (the orbs). All "rout" and "damage" results will always be applied, regardless what happens to the unit. And most special abilities will, too.

The ones where the timing could matter are things like the Berserker ability, which requires you to sacrifice a STANDING Berserker. Or the Reanimate ability, which requires there to be two STANDING reanimates. In the Berserker case, for instance, lets say you have a lone Berserker defending against a lone Pegasus Rider, both Initiative 2. They both draw a card, and both get an Orb. Since the Pegasus Rider is the attacker, his Orb goes first, which routs the Berserker. Then the Uthuk player goes. While he still resolves his card, now the Orb ability cannot be satisfied as he has no standing Berserker units to sacrifice.

However, if both drew Damage results, the attacker's damage card goes first, killing the Berserker. But the Berserker's damage card is still resolved, dealing 1 damage to the Pegasus Rider. This is because dealing damage doesn't require any standing units at the time you resolve the card - if it was drawn, it just gets resolved. (Granted, the Pegasus Rider would survive, so perhaps this example would make more sense if the attacker was a Leonx rider or Necromancer).

Awesome. Thanks for all of the clarifications, gentlemen.

All units at the same initiative level draw cards simultaneously.

I think (but you got me doubting now) that this is only true if you have only a single unit type in that initiative level.

If you have for instance Latari archers and allied sorcerers, you have to choose for which ones you draw faith cards first. It would be possible for the enemy to kill the other type of units before they have a chance to draw cards, even if they have the same initiative.

All units at the same initiative level draw cards simultaneously.

I think (but you got me doubting now) that this is only true if you have only a single unit type in that initiative level.

If you have for instance Latari archers and allied sorcerers, you have to choose for which ones you draw faith cards first. It would be possible for the enemy to kill the other type of units before they have a chance to draw cards, even if they have the same initiative.

That is my understanding as well.

EDIT: Yeah, this is all pretty clear on page 22. I don't want to speak for sigmazero13, but I think he probably was just trying to give the simple explanation without going into all the gory detail. Plus, for the example above, there was only one unit type for each initiative level.

That is correct. If you have two units with the same initiative number, you draw for them separately.

Basically, in that case, you treat one of them as if it had initiative X, and the other has if it had X.1.

EXAMPLE:

Latari has a force containing 1 Archer and 1 Sorcerer. They are fighting a Flesh Ripper Brute.

Latari chooses to have the Archer go first. He draws a miss. However, the Flesh Ripper draws a 2-damage hit. Both Latari units are destroyed.

In this case, the Sorcerer would NOT get to draw a card. Even though it has initiative 1, when you have multiple units like this, they aren't done completely simultaneously.