The text for the Church of Sigmar support card reads: " Kingdom . Opponents cannot target your units with card effects unless they pan an additional 1 resource per effect."

In general, what defines a "Card Effect?" Is the text on a Tactic card a Card Effect or is a Card Effect only the text on a card already in play?

Additionally, does Church of Sigmar's ability apply to all Card Effects or just ones that already have a resource cost? For example, it's clear to me that if my opponent had Church of Sigmar in play and I wanted to use a Nurgle Sorcerer's ability to deal one damage to a unit I'd have to pay four resources instead of three. Where I'm uncertain, though, is for abilities without costs. For example, if I attacked my opponent with a Church of Sigmar in play with a Savage Gors who deals +2 damage if there are two or more developments in the battlefield would I have to pay one resource to use this ability?

You definitely wouldn't have to pay for the Gors, because their ability doesn't target anything.

The other questions are dicier, but here's my read:

I think it would affect tactics. Just because a card is a tactic doesn't mean it has a target, or that the card specifically targets something. A tactic generates an effect, which occurs then goes away.

I also think you do have to pay the extra 1 even if there is no cost. The word "additional" in there makes this dicey, but this is at least consistent and avoids a lot of painful issues. For instance, if something reduces the cost and then the Church increases it (but only if it already has a cost) what happens?

Church of Sigmar affects all abilities, whether they are printed on tactics or cards in play. It affects any action that targets one or more of your units, regardless of whether or not the action has a cost.

It does not, to the best of my knowledge, affect forced effects that target your units (e.g Dwarf Ranger, Shrine to Nurgle), because "Forced effects always occur immediately whenever their trigger is met, and they cannot be cancelled or interrupted by other actions."

It also does not affect anything that does not specifically target one or more of your units. Judgement of Verena and Troll Vomit target "all units" without requiring a specific target for example. Lobber Crew's target is chosen by your opponent, so also wouldn't be affected.

According to page 15 of the rulebook there are four types of card effects: actions, forced effects, constant effects, and keywords. Of these four types Church of Sigmar will most frequently protect your units from the first two. Constant effects rarely target a specific unit so they will hardly ever be effected by Church of Sigmar. Keywords might seem like a grey area, but there are currently no keywords that target a specific unit. Counterstike may seem like an exception to this, but if you read carefully you'll note that this simply give you extra damage to assign and damage assignment is definitely not covered by the Church of Sigmar's effect.

In short, look at what the effect on the card says. If the description uses the word "target" then it is safe to assume that the Church of Sigmar applies. If the effect does not use the word target then it doesn't. For example: Seduced by Darkness would cost one more to target your units if you control Church of Sigmar, but Troll Vomit will still wipe out everyone's units for the same price. The difference is that one uses the word "target" and the other doesn't.

Finally, to answer your specific question. The extra damage dealt by Savage Gors is not subject to the Church of Sigmar. Savage Gors was a bit confusing to me at first as well. After all, there are other cards that raise and lower a unit's power, but the Savage Gor effect is a little bit different. The damage dealt by Savage Gors is assigned and applied along with its regular combat damage, but its actual power never changes.

Hope this helped.

It does not, to the best of my knowledge, affect forced effects that target your units (e.g Dwarf Ranger, Shrine to Nurgle), because "Forced effects always occur immediately whenever their trigger is met, and they cannot be cancelled or interrupted by other actions."

Forced effects that use the word "target" would be effected by Church of Sigmar just like other types of effects.

Garoath said:

That can't be possible since then it would be cancelled if you could not pay the additional cost. As the quoted rule says forced actions can never be cancelled. The rule book explicitly says that anything with 'cannot' in their rules can never ever be countered by anything.

ChaosChild said:

Just to be a stickler, an effect is any cards action text, while an ability is specifically the action text of a card in play. Tactics are not in play but are played, therefor they are an effect. This particular card effects them either way, but I wouldn't be surprised to find a card later that dealt specifcally with abilities rather than effects.

ChaosChild said:

Neither of those target any units. They affect all units but don't target any of them, and yes Lobber Crew also remains unaffected because they are forced to choose wich card is sacrificed... though even that card is not targeted.

the "cannot" in the decription of Church of sigmar overrides Forced: effects.

Rules quote pg.17:

Quote:
The Word "Cannot"
If an effect has the word "cannot" in its description,
then that effect is absolute, and it cannot be overridden
by other effects.

Forced: effects can't be canceld by the players will or by actions. But the church of sigmar has no action, it has a constant effect.

An other rules quote for good messure:

Quote:
Forced effects are triggered by specific
occurrences throughout a game, and they occur automatically,
whether the card’s controller wants them
to resolve or not. Forced effects always occur immediately
whenever their trigger is met, and they cannot
be cancelled or interrupted by other actions.

I just played a Chaos vs Empire game last night and this question came up. We went with the "target" unit ruling, ie treating "target unit" as if it were a keyword as in Garoath's reply and I resolved to look on here for some FAQ style clarification.

My opponent played two of the Churches and we also ruled that it stacked (wording was "one additional resource" or similar) so that I would have to pay two extra resources per targeting card effect. Ouch. Effectively nullifying a lot of the chaos abilities. Thinking about it I'm not sure if two of that same support card were allowed so we may have got that wrong.

But still, the Church did seem particularly powerful against an effect-heavy deck like Chaos. I would like to think that it could not stop "forced" effects and that it was more to prevent tactic card play.

I get the chance to ask something and clear some things up

At first, I'm pretty sure Church of Sigmar affects Forced effects when they involve a target.

Let's make a Game example (that happened and I'd like to know how YOU'd rule it):

Empire Player: Church of Sigmar + Pistoliers.

Chaos Player plays Festering Nurglings with no resource left. What happens?

Festering Nurglings has the "in any player's corresponding zone"...

Rulebook talks about "opponent's" corresponding zone...But here whe have the word "any" and the "any player's corresponding zone" may mean I can choose mine too.

Anyway, the Chaos player CAN't choose my Unit as a target because of the Church of Sigmar...But as you said, there's a "game" effect which prevents Forced from being cancelled...NOW, let me say I don't think in this case a Forced would be cancelled...I guess that it flizzes, or the like.

BTW, in the end, what do you think would happen?

A- Chaos player can corrupt Pistoliers because you think the "Forced cannot be canceled" definition is applied;

B- Chaos player corrupt his/her own Festering Nurglings;

C- Nothing happens (flizz).

Let's see what comes out, cause I'm pretty curious about this issue and there's anything helping us in the rules.

something to help determine the answer to this

the rulebook says

The Word “Cannot”:
If an effect has the word “cannot” in its description,
then that effect is absolute, and it cannot be overridden
by other effects.

Forced Effects
Forced effects are denoted by a bold “Forced:” trigger
on a card. Forced effects are triggered by specific
occurrences throughout a game, and they occur automatically,
whether the card’s controller wants them
to resolve or not. Forced effects always occur immediately
whenever their trigger is met, and they cannot
be cancelled or interrupted by other actions.

The Golden Rule
If the rules text of a card contradicts the text of this
rulebook, the rules on the card take precedence .

so a CARD CANNOT overrules a RULEBOOK CANNOT

so the church of sigmar CANNOT overrules the RULEBOOK CANNOTs, such as in the definition of FORCED EFFECTS .

Meaning, church of sigmar should be able to prevent forced effects.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

I ruled it this way each time, but I wasn't sure about the issue...

That makes sense.

There is a lot of shoulds and cannots going on here. I asked Nate this question and said one thing at first, I reminded him of something else and he changed his mind... the end result was Church of Sigmar cannot cancel a Forced Effect. Now unlike the other clarifications I've received from Nate, I'm not saying this one is guaranteed to stay this way. We may have a bit of eratta to either the card or the rules itself that allows for CoS to cancel a forced effect, or the card itself may change entirely form a cancel effect to an additional cost, which must be paid to even trigger the effect. I kind of suspect that this is the route that will be taken.

For now, unfortunately, I'd recommend just playing it however your meta can agree on knowing it is likely to change.

Actually, the CoS effects doesn't cancel...It says "Cannot..." and, as you pointed out, means that you cannot even trigger a forced if the only target you have is an Empire Unit and you don't have a resource...

The Mateoooo's version was the one I was more convinced about, but I'm not sure of anything, right now.

Crap, yeah, sorry, totally forgot the order in which the discussion happened (this is what happens when I answer off the cuff rather than referring to my notes and the cards). Church of Sigmar applies an additional conditional cost. You must pay it to target an opponents cards. If there were no other targets or you cannot not pay the cost the effect misfires.

In this case if the Festering Nurglings are the only unit in the zone and the Chaos player has no resources by which to pay the additional cost they corrupt themselves. If the Nurglings said opponents rather than any player then the effect would misfire instead.

This one is easy for my group (we used to play a lot of Magic and there you have a similar mechanics).

Some cards specifically say "target unit" so those are the only cards affected by "Church of Sigmar". Any other effects that don't explicitly say "target unit" are not affected. If you cannot pay the extra cost, then the effect won't take place.