I played a handful of games (Chaos vs. Empire) last night and there were a handful of situations that I feel like we probably resolved correctly, but I'd certainly like to run it by others here on the forum.

1. It's the Empire's battle phase. They are attacking Chaos' battlefield with a couple of units (not important) totaling 4 power. Chaos' battlefield contains a single unit, Melekh The Changer. Melekh has a defense of 3 and has already been wounded for 1. Chaos assigns Melekh as a defender. During the assign damage phase, the Empire places two wound tokens near Melekh (enough to kill him during the apply damage phase) and 2 wound tokens near the battlefield portion of the Chaos capital board. Prior to the apply damage phase, Chaos plays a Blood For The Blood God tactic card directed at Sigmar's Blessed--who were in the Empire's battlefield, but were not assigned to attack. BftBG effectively kills Sigmar's Blessed triggering their forced response which reads "After this unit leaves play, return one target unit any any player's corresponding zone to its owner's hand." Melekh The Changer was the only unit in Chaos' battlefield, thus he was forced back to Chaos' hand. At this time, Melekh's single wound is removed, correct?. The question is what happens to the 2 wounds that were assigned, but not yet applied to Melekh? We played it as though those wounds were also removed. At first we thought they'd perhaps slide to the battlefield, but we then decided that we are past the assign damage phase and therefore those wounds are simply removed, and it was a nice maneuver that allowed Melekh to defend freely without getting killed. Thoughts?

2. Can a unit with Scout attack an empty, burning zone to trigger the Scout effect?

3. What happens when a Force March is used to move an opponent's hero unit to a zone containing anther hero unit? We resolved this by forcing the opponent to discard one hero unit. However, there was some debate about that particular use of a Forced March being illegal. Thoughts?

Thanks for your comments. And, I apologize in advance if these questions have already been answered elsewhere on the forum. I did browse the forum some prior to posting, but I didn't find any of these questions answered anywhere.

-Bucket

1) It all looks right except the Sigmar's Blessed targeting. Any of the other attackers could have been bounced instead. Save one of your units instead of one of your opponents. The choas unit was a legal target but the way you worded it sounded like you didn't realize you had other targets.

2) Attack away and make them discard.

3) Not clear to me. Needs a FAQ in my opinion.

3) You simply cannot move a hero into a zone where there already is another hero due to the limit of one hero per zone. For instance, if your opponent has one hero in each of his/her zones, your simply cannot move his/her heroes with Forced March.

Allavandrel said:

Totally agree with this.

Allavandrel said:

All we know at this point is we can only have one hero per zone. Your speculating at how attempts to break this rule are resolved. Your suggestion is one resolution but there are many more. Another way to handle this would be to move one of the heroes to the discard. This is frequently used in other games so that you can replace a hero with a different one as needed. How does it work in this game? There is no evidence either way which is why a FAQ is needed. The only vaguely close situation from the rules is the zone specific units. ie "battlefield only". In this case forced march does work since it the keywords only restrict the being put into play. For all we know one per zone is also a put into play only limitation and forced march does work.

Ratcur said:

Not really. It's a constant effect (not a keyword) that becomes active when the card enters play and until it leaves play. You cannot move a Hero to a zone where there's already another Hero.

Allavandrel and eloooooooi are correct. Because it is not a keyword and does not not contain a bold "Action" word before the text, it is a Constant effect which means without blanking the card there is at present no way around it in regards to moving a hero. There is no need for a FAQ for this. There is a need for a FAQ when we have Rip Der 'Eads Off flipping a development that turns out to be another Hero.

Ratcur said:

Oh right, we did play it as though the Chaos unit was the only viable target of Sigmar's effect. It didn't occur to us that you can target your own units. That seems like a silly thing to overlook since it reads "any player's corresponding zone", but we somehow had it in our head that the opponent's unit was the only available target of the effect.

In any case, thanks for all the responses.

Yes it's a constant effect but that has no bearing on the issue. Regardless of what type of action it is we don't know how to resolve the effect. In essence a placement limitation is only half a effect. We know "the specified conditions under which it is met" ie 1 hero per zone but we don't know how the constant effect "affects the game state."

In less technical terms we have a limitation on card placement. "Limit one hero per zone". We have no rule on what to do when an effect attempts to break that restriction. The card doesn't say effects attempting to place 2 heroes in the same zone fail. It just says you can only have 1 hero per zone. So upon playing forced march you could have

a) the effect fails and the hero stays where is

b) the effect works but any part of the effect that results in a violation fails (difference between a & b only matters for moving multiple units and the like)

c) the moving hero dies

d) the hero in the target zone dies

e) kill both heros

B is certainly the most likely resolution but it is not the only one and not even the most frequently used one in CCGs. All 5 answers equally satisfy the constant effect. You can't tell which one is correct without additional rules. Your assuming that having forced march fail is the correct resolution but that is not anywhere on the cards or in the rules. Limit 1 hero per zone if an additional hero enters the zone kill the original hero makes as much sense as limit 1 hero per zone if an additional hero attempts to enter the zone the effect fails.

Rip der 'eads off creates the exact same situation as forced match. An effect is attempting to put two heroes in the same zone and would be resolved in the same manner. As for FAQs neither of the cards need a FAQ. The resolution of effects which result in breaking zone limitations needs a FAQ and the FAQ would apply equally to both cards.

Battlefield only is mentioned only as a limitation where the resolution is completely surprising. There is nothing about keywords that indicates they are come into play rather battlefield only has specific rules which tell you what to do. Unique also has specific rules. Limit 1 per zone lacks these rules and thats what needs a FAQ. The arguement is not that they should be handled in the same way but that limitations need rules to deal with attempts to break those limitations. Most likely it will be something worded like unique but it certainly doesn't have to be and at this point we can't tell.