I am unclear how to approach the Action Window for the marshaling and challenges when it nears its end. I'll provide 2 quick sample scenarios as a reference.

As first player with a lordsport shipwright out, I want to wait and see what my opponent plays for locations and then respond. They play out one character and then pause for a while thinking of whether to play something else. At some point they say, I am done. I don't see an Action Window at the end of the marshaling phase where I could legally still us the shipwright. Do I have to guess where his actions are?

Similar for the challenges phase. If I wanted to stand Illirio to win dominance after all actions or challenges, if my opponent decides not to do a challenge that I was expecting him to, I don't see a window I could use Illirio to stand my character before dominance kicks in. These sound like guesswork and seem a bit odd.

Am I correct on these points?

You are.

Marshalling: Once the last player is the active player, everyone passing signals the end of the phase (in joust, that's simply two players passing consecutively). While the Lordsport Shiprwright is easier to use (they marshal a kingsroad, you use his action to kneel it), the harder one is Consolidation of Power. It's easier for the opponent to bluff their way out of eating that!

Challenges: Once the last player is the active player, there is a pre-challenge action window (always) - once all players have passed consecutively, the active player either initiates a challenge or chooses to initiate no more challenges (even if they could not initiate any more, this still happens). If the latter, the phase immediately ends, and it's too late to use Ilyrio to win Dom.

This does involve a fair bit of... anticipating your opponent's decisions.

Marshalling: Once the last player is the active player, everyone passing signals the end of the phase (in joust, that's simply two players passing consecutively). While the Lordsport Shiprwright is easier to use (they marshal a kingsroad, you use his action to kneel it), the harder one is Consolidation of Power. It's easier for the opponent to bluff their way out of eating that!

If there are no targets currently on the board, yeah. But if there is a location like Meander or something that you may want to kneel and you wait to see if the opponent is dropping something else, then I might miss my opportunity. Ok. These are interesting points and I'll have to think carefully around these phases a bit more in a tournament setting to make sure I can win dom and not lose, or miss kneeling an important location just cause I want to wait and see what happens, heh.

You have got the game flow correct, but if anyone is looking for a more detailed discussion on these windows and why the game's timing requires you to anticipate what your opponent does in these situations, please see this thread .