Hey all,

during our last game, the following situation occurred:

With a Cautious Scout that reads:

(Bushi. Scout.
While this character is attacking alone, treat the defending province as if its printed text box were blank (except for Traits).

who was declared as the only attacker during a military conflict, I ran into a Secret Cache Province of the Scorpions. It reads:

Air.
Reaction: After a conflict is declared against this province – search the top 5 cards of your conflict deck for a card and add it to your hand. Shuffle.

The province was covered when the conflict was declared and was than turned over. We were not sure if the reaction of the Province would resolve or if the Ability of the Scout blanks it "before" the reaction can take place. What do you think?

Thanks for helping out.

Pentarn

The very first step of a conflict is to declare attacker/s. (Or technically part of that first step).

The Cautious Scout has a constant ability, that is always 'active' so long as it is attacking alone.

Thus, the constant ability is in effect prior to the province being revealed.

Quote

In order to declare a conflict, the attacking player must:

◊ Declare the type and element of the conflict to be initiated. This is indicated by selecting a ring from the unclaimed ring pool (this ring is known as the contested ring, and defines the element of the conflict), and placing it on an opponent’s eligible unbroken province (this indicates which province is being attacked) with either the military side or the political side faceup (the faceup side of the contested ring defines the type of the conflict). If a player selects an unclaimed ring with fate on it to become the contested ring, that fate is moved from the ring to the attacking player’s fate pool.

◊ Declare which ready characters (under his or her control) are being committed as attackers. The attacking player may declare any number of eligible characters under his or her control as attackers. Slide these characters toward the center of the play area, away from the attacking player’s home area. At least one character must be declared as an attacker at this time in order to initiate a conflict. If any of the attackers have the covert keyword, the targets for covert are chosen at this time.

Each of the above items are considered to be performed simultaneously. If any of the above cannot be completed, the conflict cannot be initiated.

If the province being attacked is facedown, turn it faceup as soon as a conflict is successfully declared against it. This occurs before any reactions to the process of conflict declaration may be triggered.

Pulled this from the online Rules Reference document. As you can see, all steps of the conflict declaration (which is also the first step of the Conflict Resolution window) as well as revealing the facedown province, are completed prior to reactions triggering from conflict declaration. Since the Cautious Scout is already participating in the conflict, and confirmed attacking alone, I would say his ability automatically blanks the province ability when the province is revealed, before it can be triggered. Also note that this is a constant ability, so if at any point in the conflict he is no longer attacking alone, his ability is also "turned off".

Thank you for the quick response. Regarding the rules reference document, that was my interpretation, too, and we played it that way. But we were not sure if the Scout was already counting as "attacking" i.e. the conflict is already active when the province is turned face up. Thanks for making this clear.

Similar question, but with art of war. When the province breaks, does the defending player get 3 cards as a reaction to the province breaking, or does cautious scout prevent this as well?

Just now, Doji Hana said:

Similar question, but with art of war. When the province breaks, does the defending player get 3 cards as a reaction to the province breaking, or does cautious scout prevent this as well?

The last thing you do in a battle is characters go home, so the scout is still participating until he goes home. So these effects last until the end (Same with Steward of Law and the Ring of Fire). The "Break" resolves before you resolve and claim rings and after you calculate. Check out page 19 of the Rules Reference for the "Conflict Resolution" chart.