Block, parry and dodge are reactive actions and do not require an action as far as I understand from the rules.

But how about : Devious maneuvre, guarded position, assess the situation, I thought we were friends, fluster, conundrum and others like them? They all seem like something that could be done as a maneuvre. Devious maneuvre for instance lists throwing mud in your enemys face, which could be done as a maneuvre... the card even has maneuvre in it's name. Otherwise I don't see how a player would sacrifice an attack to perform these.

If you have built up a lot of stress or fatigue, you may be on the verge of passing out or your negative penalties are so high that you aren't likely to succeed with an attack anyway. Regaining stress/fatigue may be more important that round than making an attack. Guarded Position lets you take a defensive posture to protect your heavily wounded ally rather than making an attack. I don't have the cards in front of me, but I suspect Devious Maneuver is something similar. You sacrifice your attack to provide a bonus to another character. It's about teamwork and coordinating abilities rather than just everyone trying to make an effective attack each round.

Yeah perhaps you're right... it just seems with the rather deadly combat attacks are very important. It's pretty hard to actually miss even for beginning characters. Of course a combination of reactive defence and one of these cards could be a good idea to improve odds for the next round.

Since they are called "Action Cards", I would say that anything done with an Action Card counts as an action. The special Active Defense action cards don't use up a player's single-round-action, however, because they aren't played during that player's turn.