Rally Cry ( tactics card )

Play during a battle or during your turn.

Stand up to 4 of your routed units and/or Heroes.

Situation.

An enemy activates an area you control and invades it with units, triggering a battle.

You have 5 units in there, but 4 of them are routed.

Can you play Rally Cry on the 4 routed units

or

Can you only play Rally Cry on units which actually get routed in THIS battle ?

Just looking at the rules, it would seem that you cannot, because you play tactics cards after you have decided what units are participating in the battle. I don't think that's 100% convincing though, so you will probably want to submit this.

Edit: Actually, that's just cards that say "at the start of a battle". I think you will definitely want to submit this.

DarkElf said:

No, I don't think you can stand them up. The card says Play during a battle or during your turn . It's not your turn, and those routed units are not actually in the battle.

p. 21 "Heroes and routed units are not placed to the right of the player's faction sheed and, instead, remain in the contested area. These figures may not participate in battle , and these routed units are destroyed if forced to retreat."

Since they may not participate in the battle, then they aren't there during a battle to stand up.

It is still an interesting question and worth submitting. Frankly, I think it would be interesting if you COULD stand them up with that card. I love little surprises like that in a battle.

Pilgrim said:

Going by the card text, I would also say they can't get into the fight.

But wouldn't the card be so much more intersting if they could. Jumping on a routed enemy is as difficult as stealing candy from a baby, but with this card around allowing you to stand up units ...

And since FFG is never really THAT accurate with card text, I still see a possibility ...

PS please note you CAN stand them up before a battle on your turn , so maybe that's balanced out vs not being able to stand up when being attacked

Then again, since cards are supposed to BREAK the normal rules, why not allowing those units to get into the fight altogether ?

Hence why it is a good idea to submit it as an official rules question. I can see it working either way, and when there is ambiguity like that it's not a puzzle that can be solved.

My group played that they could be, as this situation did come up, since it doesnt say the routed units dont take part in a battle, it just says they don't draw cards, but i ll take a closer look at the rules later

Taki said:

Yeah, check p. 21. I think it's pretty clear that routed units don't take part in the battle. It's one of those finer points that only occurs in the rules on that page to my knowledge.

That's going to be the learning curve of this game: becoming familiar all of little things the tactic cards, seasons, etc do, so that you can anticipate the possibilities a bit.

Part of the reason already routed units don't participate in the battle is to differentiate them from ones who rout during, as the already routed ones will be destroyed if the army is forced to retreat. I agree, however, that they aren't part of the battle, and therefore can't be the target of that card (as the rules are written)

You could, however, use the card to stand up units that are routed over the course of the battle, as the card says "during a battle" rather than "start of battle" You could therefore rally the troops after the final round of combat, immeditely before the tally strengh phase, and give your opponent a bit of a shock :-D

The card doesn't specify that it must target units that are participating in the battle, so RAW doesn't discount the ability to add them to the battle.

I think there is enough ambiguity to send the question to rule support and post the answer when you get it...

mateooo said:

This was one of a slew of questions I submitted to Corey last night

It took about 5 days to get my relpy, so this thread may well continue to theory-rulescraft answers for a while.