There does not seem to be any rule on placing the Champion, Heraldy, and Music figures in different trays as long as they are the front rank trays. Thus, unless these specific figures were killed, the normal figures would be removed first. This in theory could leave you with 3 trays and one specialized figure in each tray? Correct

I don't recall reading Normal figures die first, only back most trays die first and attacked chooses casualties based on that. So once they are to your front rank, they can assign damage to figure upgrades as they please. 38.6 supports this as does 22.5 (cannot be normally damaged wording).

Once you are allowed to assign damage to a row that has figure upgrades you may choose to deal damage to any figure in that row.

The only restriction to dealing damage to the last remaining row is that you may not assign damage to a figure that located on a tray that would cause the formation to split of removed. That means that in a formation that is three trays wide that only has a single rank, damage may not be assigned to the middle tray until one of the side trays has been eliminated.

1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

Once you are allowed to assign damage to a row that has figure upgrades you may choose to deal damage to any figure in that row.

The only restriction to dealing damage to the last remaining row is that you may not assign damage to a figure that located on a tray that would cause the formation to split of removed. That means that in a formation that is three trays wide that only has a single rank, damage may not be assigned to the middle tray until one of the side trays has been eliminated.

To add onto this thought, page 18 of the Learn to Play book has a section on Heavy Upgrades which states, "When a heavy figure upgrade is removed, replace the removed tray with a full tray from the back rank." So if your 3-tray-wide Spearman Unit had a Rune Golem in the middle, he could be removed and replaced with one of the other 2 trays.

Yeah, if you remove a tray because you kill a Heavy option, your opponent gets to choose one of the remaining trays in the rank to move into position to fill it.

54 minutes ago, DevilSquid said:

Yeah, if you remove a tray because you kill a Heavy option, your opponent gets to choose one of the remaining trays in the rank to move into position to fill it.

Why would your opponent get to choose?

I'm still unconvinced that if a Front Line Rune Golem is in the middle tray of a 3x3 Spearmen unit, and the front row is all that left, you can choose to assign damage to the Rune Golem. The way I read it, that would split the unit, so it is illegal to assign damage there. Yes, you subsequently move a tray over so that it is not split, but at the immediate point that it is removed, you have split the unit.

11 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

I'm still unconvinced that if a Front Line Rune Golem is in the middle tray of a 3x3 Spearmen unit, and the front row is all that left, you can choose to assign damage to the Rune Golem. The way I read it, that would split the unit, so it is illegal to assign damage there. Yes, you subsequently move a tray over so that it is not split, but at the immediate point that it is removed, you have split the unit.

But this reading would also say that as soon as one tray from the second rank is removed, you also cannot target the Rune Golem. As soon as the second rank loses a tray in a 3 wide formation, taking out the center tray of the front rank will "split off" at least 1 tray, if not 2. Makes the Rune Golem immune for more than half the life of the unit.

Because you are replacing the tray, the unit never ends up being split.

1 minute ago, rowdyoctopus said:

But this reading would also say that as soon as one tray from the second rank is removed, you also cannot target the Rune Golem. As soon as the second rank loses a tray in a 3 wide formation, taking out the center tray of the front rank with "split off" at least 1 tray, if not 2. Makes the Rune Golem immune for more than half the life of the unit.

Because you are replacing the tray, the unit never ends up being split.

[Jar Jar voice] Hmm. Yousa point is well seen.

3 minutes ago, Budgernaut said:

[Jar Jar voice] Hmm. Yousa point is well seen.

They could definitely make this more clear in the rules, however. It is basically just a logical deduction at this point. Haha.

4 hours ago, rowdyoctopus said:

Why would your opponent get to choose?

Due to the Heavy Upgrade rules in the L2P book.

4 hours ago, rowdyoctopus said:

They could definitely make this more clear in the rules, however. It is basically just a logical deduction at this point. Haha.

Shame on you, bringing logic into these discussions

10 hours ago, DevilSquid said:

Due to the Heavy Upgrade rules in the L2P book.

Nowhere does it say the attacker gets to choose.

1 hour ago, rowdyoctopus said:

Nowhere does it say the attacker gets to choose.

I never said the attacker gets to choose.

2 minutes ago, DevilSquid said:

I never said the attacker gets to choose.

Actually, I'm afraid you did, you said your opponent chooses which would be the attacker. However, I happen to agree with you.

While it's true that it doesn't explicitly mention who chooses which tray to replace the Rune Golem with, this is effectively still part of the selection of which models to remove; which is decided by the attacker.

If this were not the case you could have situations where the defender benefits from the opponents attack.

12 minutes ago, stet2 said:

Actually, I'm afraid you did, you said your opponent chooses which would be the attacker. However, I happen to agree with you.

While it's true that it doesn't explicitly mention who chooses which tray to replace the Rune Golem with, this is effectively still part of the selection of which models to remove; which is decided by the attacker.

If this were not the case you could have situations where the defender benefits from the opponents attack.

I mean they just lost their heavy upgrade, I hardly see that as a benefit.

5 minutes ago, rowdyoctopus said:

I mean they just lost their heavy upgrade, I hardly see that as a benefit.

It's pretty situational but it can occur and the point is it shouldn't.

1 minute ago, stet2 said:

It's pretty situational but it can occur and the point is it shouldn't.

Why not? And how could the defender benefit? It's not like they can disengage. If they remove a tray that was in contact with an enemy, that enemy unit will get to close in.

18 hours ago, DevilSquid said:

Yeah, if you remove a tray because you kill a Heavy option, your opponent gets to choose one of the remaining trays in the rank to move into position to fill it.

42 minutes ago, stet2 said:

Actually, I'm afraid you did, you said your opponent chooses which would be the attacker. However, I happen to agree with you.

While it's true that it doesn't explicitly mention who chooses which tray to replace the Rune Golem with, this is effectively still part of the selection of which models to remove; which is decided by the attacker.

If this were not the case you could have situations where the defender benefits from the opponents attack.

If you remove a tray because you kill a Heavy Upgrade (you, being the attacker, as you are deciding who takes the damage) then your opponent (the defender) gets to choose one of the remaining trays in the rank.

1 minute ago, DevilSquid said:

My mistake for misunderstanding you earlier!

1 minute ago, rowdyoctopus said:

My mistake for misunderstanding you earlier!

Mine too! Except now I disagree with you on who chooses the tray to replace it with.

Why? The defender chooses a model from the unit to replace hero upgrades that die, why would they not get to choose which tray replaces the Heavy upgrade?

12 minutes ago, DevilSquid said:

Why? The defender chooses a model from the unit to replace hero upgrades that die, why would they not get to choose which tray replaces the Heavy upgrade?

I don't think they do.

38.7 When a figure upgrade is destroyed, either through damage or other game effects, its upgrade card is discarded, and its figure is removed from its tray. Then, the figure upgrade’s empty slot in the front rank is replaced with another figure from that unit that could be assigned damage following normal rules.

Normal rules for assigning damage are that the attacker chooses.

As far as the defender benefiting of they get to choose which tray replaces the heavy upgrade... Imagine that there's a unit in position for a late flanking charge that the defender judges will barely have the range to make contact with a back corner. If you remove that side's corner, you can cause that charge to fail, protecting his unit. This is why the attacker gets to choose damage. Take the tray from the other side, and the attacker can still make their flank charge.

On 5/31/2017 at 7:30 AM, stet2 said:

I don't think they do.

38.7 When a figure upgrade is destroyed, either through damage or other game effects, its upgrade card is discarded, and its figure is removed from its tray. Then, the figure upgrade’s empty slot in the front rank is replaced with another figure from that unit that could be assigned damage following normal rules.

Normal rules for assigning damage are that the attacker chooses.

You are quoting the Rule Book which is talking about upgrade characters specifically. Siege units are different and for some reason are only covered in the back of the L2P book.
Siege units are replaced by an entire tray when removed. The tray is still following the same "could be assigned damage" rule, its just a tray instead of a single model since..yaknow...large model vs small model