Can you respond to treacheries? e.g. can one play Grim Resolve in response to Necromancer's Reach? Thanks!

There are two types of effects a player may trigger on player cards.

1. Responses

2. Actions

Responses can be triggered at any time their specified condition is met (for example, A Test of Will).

Actions can only be triggered during an action window. In the back of the rule book, there is a guide as to when there are action windows. You would not be able to play Grim Resolve in response to Necromancer's Reach because it is an Action and players are not allowed to play actions (only relevant responses) during the staging step.

If you had a way of knowing Necromancer's Reach was going to be revealed during the staging step, you could play Grim Resolve before you initiated the staging step and all your characters would be safe.

You can respond to treacheries, but only with Response effects (like A Test of Will) and not with Actions (like Grim Resolve). This is because there are only certain times during the round when actions can be played, and the staging step is not one of those times. However, once all the encounter cards are revealed, and before you total up the threat and resolve the quest, there is an action window. This will not help you save yourself from the Necromancer's Reach, but it means you could play Sneak Attack+Gandalf to kill an enemy in the staging area, which could make the difference between questing successfully and unsuccessfully.

Learning about all the action windows is hard, but very rewarding to your success rate. It might be handy to have a reference like this one ( http://www.kaybee.org/kirk/LoTR_LCG_QuickRef.pdf ) nearby as you are learning the game.

I keep a laminated copy of the kaybee quick reference guide nearby when playing and it is a godsend. So useful for making as few mistakes as possible and always seeing what my actual options are at any given point.