In the new FAQ the attacker has to assign damage enough to destroy all defending units, before any damage can be assigned to defending capital. So it's Unit HP + any active damage cancellation effects at the defending units, when you go to Assign damage phase. With Toughness this is pretty simple as it's Current HP + Toughness value = amount of damage to destroy unit, but how this rule is applied when the defending unit has infinite damage cancellation?

A few example units:

#46 High Elf Unit - Dragonmage - 5R/3L - 2P, 3HP - Mage. Elite. "Whenever this unit is assigned damage, cancel all but 1 of that damage."

#23, 1x Unique: Gustav the Bear (Empire Unit) 4-EEE 2/3 Hero. Cavalry. Cancel all damage to this unit while any opponent controls a corrupted unit.

No amount of damage can be assigned to these units in order to destroy them and both of those abilities are present when you go to Assign damage phase. So does the attacker have to assign all of his damage to these units, before any can be assigned to the capital or is 3 damage still enough? I'd say it's the former if you follow the FAQ'd rule, making these units pretty good defenders.

Oh darn, wrong sub-forum. Thats what you get when copypasting stuff from multible tabs. Well it's a rule question anyway.

The rule is that you don't have to account for Toughness. Not sure why people are suddenly interpreting the FAQ to say differently? Am I missing something?

If they DID change that rule, it was certainly a short-sighted decision, I think.

Wytefang said:

Wytefang, have you been skipping over the Rules Questions section ?

"1) According to the FAQ during combat the attacker must assign enough damage to each unit to destroy it, before he may assign damage to the zone being attacked. Does the attacker have to account for cancellation effects (Toughness or Steel's Bane or the Warrior Priest's ability)? I.E. If the defender declares a Pistolier as defender and plays Steel's Bane on it, does the attacker have to assign 12 damage to the Pistoliers, before he may assign damage to the capital?

1) The short answer is yes. The attacker must assign enough damage to destroy any defending units before damage can be assigned to the capital. This includes any damage cancellation effects that are present when the damage is being assigned. (ie. Toughness on a unit). Your example is correct."

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Yeah, I see that. Wow, what a dumb design decision. There was no real good reason to change something like that...all it does is add one more exception to what people need to remember. Lame.

Agreed. I dislike the ruling. It was a definite oversight of cards such as these. And yes with the current ruling, these blockers can absorb infinite damage and it is stupid silly.

Simple fix too, just change the rule back to what it was before. Can leave everything else but this one needs to go.

The FAQ says "Note that more damage can be assigned to a unit at the attacker's discretion, in anticipation of damage cancellation effects." You only have to assign enough damage to equal the current HP of a unit. Damage is assigned before it is actually dealt and it doesn't check for things that cancel when you are assigning damage, only when damage is dealt does it check cancellation effects.

The way I see it is, you see a unit with toughness 1 and 2 hp left, you assign 2 as that is enough to destroy the unit, after damage is assigned, toughness reduces that by 1, and then the damage is applied.

It may need further clarification, but I think it still works the way it did before. They most likely had to change if from "equal to current hit point" to "enough to destroy the unit" because of things with x hp values, as X is typically considered 0 when another card is looking at it. Similar to how Flames of Tzeentch has X=0 when played with Slaanesh's Domination.

darkdeal, we aren't attempting to interpret the newly upped FAQ. We are literally saying how it is. A user sent an email question and received an answer regarding the new damage assignment during battle from the FAQ.

Linked Here

Aykenger said:

I fail to see how toughness is any better than just having another hit point then. This is a silly rule.

darkdeal said:

I can think of a couple small differences. Toughness acts differently than extra hit points when:

1) units with toughness are hit by uncancellable damage (e.g., Bloodthirster)

2) units with toughness are affected by hit point reducers (e.g., Horrific Mutation)

Although I also preferred the older rule too....

Sure if a thougness unit only gets hit once, with enough damage to kill it, then it's pretty much the same as an adittional hp. But a thougness unit can for example take an infinit amount of ranger fire without getting hurt. You can also mitigate a lot of indirect damage if you have thougness in play.

darkdeal said:

Agreed, I hope it will be corrected soon! I wonder if this was something done by the new lead developer or prior to him coming on. If it was it may be a shadow of things to come.....bad times

Well, we can't prove this was a decision of his and not just a goofy over-sight. Can we? I don't know but I'm worried also. Several of my friends have said that they're for sure onboard through this Corruption Cycle and will be buying the Elves set but after that, it'll really depend on what's planned. I tend to agree.

Seems likely that if it was an oversight, he would have corrected it in the email he sent (like the mistake in the FAQ where there was a missed spot where you could play actions).

This actually makes toughness a whole lot better, strengthening the dwarves significantly.

I also don't like that rule change. I'm curious why it was changed, it would be nice if someone could ask James why it was changed.

So how do we handle cards like Gustav with this ruling? Anyone know?

Wytefang said:

Simply don't consider "Warpstone Excavation" a must-include in your Destruction deck. And keep your units safe from corruption. Nothing one can't do, since Order has no tools to corrupt opposing cards.

BTW, I'm must more on a "let's play and see how this changes the game" line, rather than "this rules must be changed back".

Wytefang said:

Don't corrupt yourself.

I do not like this, more then any other reason for the fact that lots of players are not "hardcore" and download FAQ's 3min after they are put out. Many just like to buy the game and battlepacks and play and just want there discripantcy questions answered.

I would not want to be that smug son of a B sitting back with my arms crossed telling a casual player that they can;t do any damage to me at all cause I got gustav in the zone.

never mind playing it out, I HATE this rule, really do. Not sure if I will ignore it and convince most of my oppentents to, or run with it see what happens. I do not see it destroying my love of this game though, I will keep by expansions and playing regardless, but I am really dissappointed with this rule.

I think what bugs me about it, is this is not the result of a faq or a clarifaction, its a BIG shift in the way damage is resolved, why such a major change? Everything was working fine.

Before a company does a major rules change like this from the core rules, they should really be asking themselves, does this add something to the game? In this case I would say a resounding NO.

if it was this way from the beginning, I likey would have thought it was fine and never noticed, I just think it is confusing, creates potenial inbalances, and dosn;t help the game at all.

Dywnarc said:

Perhaps it was this way from the beginning : what did "remaining hp" mean in the developpers' mind ? We all read it as "printed hp minus damages on unit", but it may have been written with something totally different in mind.

Dywnarc said:

This really is a problem, and I hope that they will change the rulebook in the reprint and add a reworked rulebook to the companion edition. They also should think about reworking the tutorial video that explains combat, because there will certainly be quite a few people who learned the rules that way.

When a deck destruction is playing against a deck order

there is no reason to be worried about the infinite cancelling damage,

because there is so many way to destroy/corrupt that kinf of unit,

and you should not forget the dwarf-elf "bloodfister" and the new orc tactic "spoiler tooth and claw" which avoid any cancellation effect.

But there will be a problem when it´s the case of two order deck,

dwarf vs high elf ... for example

Dywnarc said:

Everything is not working fine,

1) dwarf faction is too weak...

2) If you remove all the cancel effect, the high elf faction is the weakest of the game, and tactic like "steel bane" are useless...

It´s just logical, I am sure that playing destruction vs order will be more funny with that rule, I am more pessimistic when order will play against order

And you can include a few "Mob Up" cards in your deck if Orc fancies you.