I haven't seen anyone talking about this, but I thought I'd bring up specific rules lawyering question I have related to Ardus' special ability to copy the surge abilities of other units. When you roll attack die, they give you different results, to which you add enhancements from your command dial or what have you. The rules specifically talk about 'spending' your results (rule 76). This implies, like in Focus in XWing or Surges in IA or SWRPG, that you can choose how to spend your results if you have multiple surge abilities, and in what order you resolve the effects. So Ardus, based on my calculations, has a 4.8% or so chance of being able to 1) spend 2 surges to apply a Blight token and then 2) spend 1 more surge to deal Mortal Strike with a single melee attack. A unit of Reanimates with Ardus upgrade should have slightly less base chance because they have two red dice instead of his second white dice, but it should also be theoretically possible, and that number goes up with the greater number of rerolls they receive. I couldn't find a specific rule resolving the order of resolution though, what do you guys think? Has anyone found this reference?

I know that you would spend surges first (10.6) and then the mortal strike enhancement later (10.8), but is there anywhere that says you can choose which order to resolve in, or if you can choose the order of spending the surges?

83.9 says that if two or more of a player's effects have the same timing, the player can resolve those effects in any order. So if you are step 6 of combat (Spend Surges step), you should be able to choose which abilities to trigger first.

Spending surges is not done all at once, they are separate instances, otherwise surge+ abilities wouldn't be needed.

Does Ardus actually have to roll/spend the surges to activate these effects or are they automatic? ...the special rule doesn't explicitly state that you do.

16 minutes ago, nick_simmerson said:

Does Ardus actually have to roll/spend the surges to activate these effects or are they automatic? ...the special rule doesn't explicitly state that you do.

He gains the surge abilities of friendly units at range 1-3. Rule 80.1 clarifies that you must spend surges to resolve abilities that are preceded by a surge symbol. His effect doesn't need to state that you have to spend the surges because it is clear from the rules that you must spend surges to activate surge abilities.