I've come across a situation today in the Three Trials, and I just want to confirm that I can play this a certain way:

I've completed 2/3 of the stage 2s, and I am now doing the stage where the Key is attached to the guardian. I've got Boromir fully pumped up with Gondorian fire and he takes out the Guardian. The Key is freed and I attach it to a hero. Now I trigger the quest card effect and advance to stage 3A. All the guardians come back to the staging area. Now I advance to stage 3B. All the guardians engage me.

Now it's still the combat phase, so I can declare attacks against them right? So I trigger Boromir 3 more times to kill them all and I breeze through the rest of the quest.

I don't see why I can't do this, but it feels too broken to be true.

Maybe you can't declare another attack on the same guardian you just defeated for quest 2, but otherwise, it's just pure luck in my opinion

It sounds legal to me, but like alogos I'm wondering whether you can declare an attack against the Guardian who just returned from the victory display. Does the '1 attack per enemy' get reset when the enemy leaves play?

This could also be an issue with some cards that bring enemies back from the discard pile. Say you've got Tactics Aragorn. You defeat an Undead enemy, then use Aragorn's ability to engage a Dead Lord from The Lost Realm. This has the text: "Forced: After Dead Lord engages you, put the topmost Undead enemy in the discard pile into play engaged with you." The enemy you just defeated will now return and engage you. Can you attack him again?

I sent an official rules question for clarification.

Good point about the Guardian the was just defeated.

Alogos, I found this in your document:

Q : I use Erestor action this turn. He dies, I bring him back into play. Can I use its ability again? I use Sneak Attack on Erestor in Quest Phase. I use its action. I use Sneak Attack on another copy of Erestor during the Combat Phase. May I use its ability again? I quest with Beorn (Ally), and then I use its action to send it back in the deck. I use Timely Aid to bring back Beorn in play (the same or another copy…) May I use its action again?

A : If a card with a "limit once per round" ability leaves play after triggering its effect and is returned to play during the same round you can trigger its ability again. So, the answer to your first three examples is "yes."

In this case all the "Once per round" effects get reset after the relevant character leaves play. I would argue the same regarding enemies that leave play.

To add another layer of ambiguity to your reasoning, GrandSpleen: What if you defeat a non-unique enemy, then shuffle the discard pile back into the encounter deck (The End Comes) then sneak in Dunedain Hunter, and pick out the same kind of enemy. Is it the exact same enemy or not? How can you know? Are card ID's going to start coming into play? What about the quests before card IDs were added?

In this case you should be able to attack the new enemy by claiming ignorance. You can't claim ignorance for unique enemies, but it would mean the 1-attack per turn rule would have to apply differently to uniques and non-uniques.

official response: you can attack the enemy again. Here it is:

"Cool question. If you defeat an enemy in combat and an effect puts it back into play engaged with you, that enemy has no memory of being engaged with you. As far as the game is concerned, it is a brand new enemy that you have not interacted with yet. That means you can declare an attack against it.

Cheers,
Caleb"