Hi everybody,
I've a couple of questions regarding Charlie Kane's ability Connections (and sorry if this has been asked already). So, his unique ability says that "Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box". I'm interpreting this as whenever you have to return an ally to the box, Charlie may gain it, such as in case the terror level goes up by one. Instead of returning to the box an Ally from the Ally deck, Charlie may have this Ally with him. Is this right?

If it's right, what if enters play the Ma Mathison Blight ally card? All the remaining allies in the game have to be returned to the box, so Charlie can recruit all of them?

Second question: if he uses Sir William Brinton for restoring his stamina to the maximum, the Ally is discarded. Does this mean he may recruit him immidiately again? I don't think so, because "discarding" and "returning to the box" are not the same, are they? Don't know, I'm making a little (well, a couple of tons) of confusion over this point

Thanks for help!

If he gains an ally through an encounter, he may take it even if it has been returned to the box. He does not get to just gain allies when they are returened to the box. Essentially, if he would gain an ally, he may take it even if it's not in the deck. I do believe they needed to be in the deck at the start of the game though. Not sure if my explanation makes sense or not.

Well, actually ti makes sense. A lot of sense. This explains why the wording is "Charlie may gain Allies" and not "gains" (a point that was completely obscure to me until now). Thanks a lot for the clarification!

One other thing (I made this same mistake once).

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Ma_Mathison

This only causes you to discard all the allies. Discarding would just return them to the bottom of the allies deck. Discard does not mean return to the box.

I don't remember if it's been clarified if the effect is continuous or one time only. Someone who's read the proto-FAQ care to comment?

One thing I can definitely say though, is Charlie can only gain the initial 11 allies. That ruling I do remember clearly (I was bummed out by it).

Oh, and as I answered before, discard does not mean return to the box, so yes, if you can discard an ally, you can recruit the ally again.

Avi_dreader said:

Thank you for clarifying this point, Avi. As far as the continuous / one time only point is concerned, I hope it's a one time only (after all, the wording says "discard" and not "return all allies to the box" which should imply you can have them back, in some ways). But it's just a hope