1: Attacked with a zealot with sadistic mutation attached, dealt 1 damage to a defender of the hold, triggered sadistic mutation to put the second and lethal point of damage on a dwarf ranger. After all timing has resolved does the dwarf ranger get to trigger his ability when the defender of the hold dies or do i kill him before he gets the chance?

2: Do multiple effects that say at the beginning of the turn happen simultaneously or in an order chosen by a player?. I have managed to trigger as many as 4 of these at once now in a game. I say active player decides, others say they are simultaneous, and ive lost 1 game because of it so far.

All force effects which meet their triggering requirements do so immediately (as far as can be determined by the rules). Effects must be resolved one at a time so there needs to be some determination when there are conflicting forced effects. Until there is something giving concrete direction most players seem to be having the active player decide the order. This more or less how the two other LCGs FFG produces work, so it stands to reason that is how this one will...

That said the rules give no guidance one way or another here, so a house rule will have to suffice until FFG hands down a reading.

In answer to question 1, the problem is the somewhat imprecise wording on Sadistic Mutation. "After the attached unit deals damage in combat, deal 1 damage to one target unit or capital." When exactly is damage "dealt", is it after it has been assigned or after it has been applied?

Personally I'd say that damage hasn't been dealt until it has been successfully applied, in which case the Dwarf Ranger would still be alive to react to the Defender being killed.

Since Stubborn Refusal requires the damage to be on a unit for it to move it (per FFG's ruling), and toughness cancels damage before it reaches a unit (per the rules), it stands to reason damage is dealt only after it has been successfully applied to a unit or zone. there is at least one person trying to argue that damage dealt and damage received are not the same thing, but that pretty much ignores the previous rulings and both common and "proper" definitions of dealt/received, as well as logic. It is always possible FFG could alter this, but as of right now there is little in the rules that can be brought forward in support of the stance, so we should play it straight until otherwise informed.

ChaosChild said:

Sice we're counting up all damage before assigning them this could lead to discussions on who did damage on who. If i have three attackers doing one damage each and each one has the option to trigger an different action on dealt damage and the opposing player has three units that has one hitpoint each and he have the possibility to sacrifice one of them in the end of assigning damage phase.

Who would then decide which effect that triggers. To make it even more complex we can do the same math with stronger units that deals more damage, lets say three damage and defending units have three hitpoints. Since were forced to devide the damage between all targets before assigning it to the capital we can assume the damage from each unit could be devided in any way. Could I not say that one damage from each of my attackers goes to each of the defenders? This could lead to hit point counting battles.

We are playing that a damage dealth is damage that has been assigned. If it later are redirected, prevented of just fizzles is another matter.

I don't know if it's correct or not and i'm looking forward to an faq on this.

Damage assigned is potential damage. Damage is dealt only when it is applied. No effects that require a unit to deal damage can be triggered when damage is assigned.

As far as pooling damage and then figuring out which damage misfired... for that we'll need a FAQ, but I would suggest that when damage is assigned simply declare where it came from. Everyone could then use effects with full knowledge of its consequences.

Im my opinion we're reverting to unit combat in a similar way as in (put in the M-word here). I actually like the mass combat idea but if we're going to specify what damage point was assigned by whom and on what target then I think some of that idea goes lost and the flow of the game slows down.

I cold prove wrong since I havent been able to try it out with another player yet but our battles so far has been rather complex so I suspect the added hitpoint tracking would make it slower and by slower I don't mean less good but I really like the fast paced combats when playing they way we do.

The more I think about it the more I agree with your assumption and the added choices for both sides could lead to interesting combat scenarios.

Since we have to dish out damage to all defenders up to their current hitpoints I suppose that this would imply that we can devide the damage from one of our units on several targets as we see fit. I can't find a card released so far where this will make any difference but it could prove important in the future.

Tricky question but I guess we'll soon find out by the powers that be.

It won't slow it down beyond your trying to finesse a point. If You have a 2 power character with Sadistic Mutation, you are going to want to split that damage up to two different cards to try and ensure one of those damage does not get canceled by a tactic and therefor triggers SM. Unless of course there is any chance your opponent may have a way to give one or more cards toughness during the action phase between assign and apply, in which case doubling that damage up, putting both points on the same character may still get one point through.

I'm sure this is something that will be dealt with in the FAQ. It is still mass damage, all your characters hitting at the same time, you aiming that damage, we just may have a bit more control over assigning and countering than the word "mass" first implies.