Let's say I have Rat Ogres & Clan Rats in my Kingdom. Then I do this at the Beginning of Turn phase:

[Corrupt Clan Rats to boost Rat Ogres.

Use Rat Ogres to restore Clan Rats.]

I repeat for 786 times.

Something is wrong, what an I missing?

Dystopian said:

You are missing something : Rat Ogres' Action is of the "only at the beginning of the turn" type. And the FAQ clearly states that this kind of action can only be taken once per turn (per card in play with such an action).

Plus, I won't be surprised that those "only at the beginning of the turn" actions must be taken before any other actions (like the Clan Rats' one) can be taken.

OK, found it, thanks for the help.

It doesn't say though that you can't take other actions before the "at the beginning of your turn.." ones. Unless I missed something again...

At the beginning of your turn was clarified as a restriction in and of itself.

Could you point where? Can't find it in the faq, is it in some forum?

It was clarified here in this forum. Check the thread Player FAQ or something along those lines. It should be on one of the first 3 pages.

The reasoning went like this, At the beginning of your turn was only usable as the first action you too because then it was no longer at the beginning of your turn, but after the beginning of your turn. I do not know if this clarification still holds true though, you may wish to send the question to James using the link at the bottom of this page.

I know the discussed restriction on one "beginning of turn" was not implemented, b/c of the Rat Ogre example in the FAQ ("per copy of the card in play.") But I don't know if you have to choose to trigger all Beginning of Turn actions in phase 0 prior to activating other types of actions.

It *seems* to me that, given that phase 0 is called "Beginning of Turn," you should be free to intermingle regular and BoT actions at your whim in phase 0. If BoT actions have to be played first, I still don't know if they resolve before the BoT action window or not, which could matter quite a bit with Rat Ogre, since you get another free uncorruption effect at the beginning of Kingdom.

If Beginning of Turn actions have to be played first, and resolve last in phase 0, that does at least make Rat Ogre + Deathmaster a little less ridiculous.

More questions for James... hope he likes his job.

Page 2 of the FAQ says:

"Response actions are a subset of actions that can only be triggered during the stated trigger in the ability. Each response action can be triggered once per copy of the response action and only once per stated trigger. So we have the following flow:

Trigger> Your turn begins

Response> You may play any action that has a card effect limitation of "at the beginning of your turn"

Since you can only resolve them one at a time, the active player can decide the particular order in which all of these responses respond to the trigger.

Once you play any other action that is not a response to that trigger, you have moved past the beginning of your turn and cannot then "go back" and try to play another of your limited response actions.

RexGator said:

Unless I misread something, this part isn't quoted from the FAQ.

BTW, one can always play Action in response of other Actions, and thanks to LIFO, we can have the following resolution that everyone will be happy with :

> Start of the Turn

1. Place the "Rat Ogres" Action in the stack (it is the beginning of the turn)
2. Place the "Clan Rats" Action in the stack in response of #1. Clan Rats get corrupted to play the "action cost" (unless one consider that corrupting the unit is part of the effect and not its cost, which is quite unlikely).

> Resolution (LIFO mode)

1. "Clan Rats" give +1 Power to "Rat Ogre"
2. "Rat Ogre" uncorrupt all Skaven units, including the "Clan Rats".

With this, all your Clan Rats units in play may give their "+1 Power" bonus to any other Skaven units, and still get restaured. But what if you have a second "Rat Ogres" in play ? WH:I rules don't state if you can, or can't, play Action once the "stack" started to get resolved.

-> If you can't (and must wait until the whole stack is resolved before one can add additional action to the stack, then the story ends here.

-> If you can, you may start doing some pretty "cool" things (your opponent will have a different point of view) :

> Start of the Turn

1. Place the "Rat Ogres #1" Action in the stack (it is the beginning of the turn)
2. Place the "Rat Ogres #2" Action in the stack (it is still the beginning of the turn)
3. Place the "Clan Rats" Action in the stack in response of #2. Clan Rats get corrupted to play the "action cost" (unless one consider that corrupting the unit is part of the effect and not its cost, which is quite unlikely).

> Resolution (LIFO mode)

1. "Clan Rats" give +1 Power to "Rat Ogre"
2. "Rat Ogre #2" uncorrupt all Skaven units, including the "Clan Rats".
3. In response to #2, place the "Clan Rats" Action in the stack. (it got corrupted, again)
4. "Clan Rats" give +1 Power to "Rat Ogre" (again)
5. "Rat Ogre #1" uncorrupt all Skaven units, including the "Clan Rats".

Once an action chain has started to resolve there is no interrupting it with new actions to place in the chain.

dormouse said:

Thanks for the clarification.

dormouse said:

Where is this stated? We've been playing differently.

Example: I play Seduced by Darkness targeting my opponent's Johannes Broheim, and in response he plays Iron Discipline targeting Johannes. I pay the four resources and Iron Discipline resolves. My opponent then plays a second Iron Discipline targeting Johannes. I cannot pay the four resources this time, so Iron Discipline #2 resolves, and the Seduced by Darkness is canceled.

I see nothing wrong with that sequence, just as I see nothing wrong with using Clan Rats in between the triggered abilities of two Rat Ogres.

Also, you should be able to use the Clan Rats again before your normal, once-per-turn, restore at the beginning of your Kingdom phase.

f7eleven said:

This is how most games with LIFO work, and you would think that they would have made it explicit if this game were different, but...

I did not intend to suggest my last portionwas from the FAQ. I have gone back and quickly looked at the original rules and the FAQ. I will concede that the following in fact does seem "legal"

1. turn begins.

2. Initiate Rat Ogre action.

3. In response initiate clan rats action(s).

resolve LIFO so the clan rats corrupt, pump up and then get reset.

My problem with the second scenario with multiple Rat Ogres is the "re-corrupting" of the Rats between Ogre 2 and Ogre 1in the chain.

However, I think you could achieve the same result by altering the order of action slightly.

1. Turn Begins and you have two Rat Ogres in play.

2. Active player chooses Rat Ogre 1 to resolve.

3. Active player then "responds" with all his clan rats.

4. Resolve chain.

5. Active player then chooses to resolve Rat Ogre 2 based off the begin turn trigger.

Still doesn't seem very clear and I'm not sure whether your second version works. With 2 Rat Ogres and Clan Rats in play, I can clearly pump up a unit with the Clan Rats at least 3 times, but it may be 4. I think it comes down to this:

If I have 2 Rat Ogres and Clan Rats in play, all uncorrupted, at beginning of turn, I have 2 triggers from the Rat Ogres. Do the Rat Ogres triggers form separate actions that I can respond to, or are they placed on the same stack at the beginning of the turn?

If they are on the same stack, the only way you can get 4 Clan Rats activations is if you can let part of the stack resolve then respond with more actions (and I haven't seen any indications that this is true in the rules, as dormouse says).

If they are separate actions that I can respond to then for sure I can do 4 Clan Rats activations.

I'll send this in to James, I think.

Why should they have to say, "we don't work like other games in this way..." None of the games I've played ever have. Instead they all say this is how things work here.

Is there anything that the rules say that gives the impression that you can stop an action chain once it starts to resolve in order to play additional responses?

dormouse said:

I'm fine with "this is how this game works" as long as it's clear. Though, I have seen other CCGs anticipate pitfalls that might result from past experience and make sure to differentiate their ruleset to avoid confusion (especially when borrowing concepts).

This isn't an instance in which the rules have to tell us we *can* do something, because they've already told us we can do it (we can play actions in response). The question is whether we can *still* do it in a particular situation (some responses have already resolved); so, the rules should be telling us we *can't* do it in this situation, if it is in fact an exception.

In any case, according to the rulebook, we "resolve the final response first and then work back through the action chain..." This *could* mean that once both players pass, that is the final (i.e. last allowed) response, *or* it could simply be a restatement of the LIFO rule, reminding us that the final (i.e. last played) response, whatever it may be at the time, is always resolved first. The position in the text (right after the bit about 'surprising and complex situations' or whatever) suggests to me the latter reading, but the first is valid as well. In any case, I think the uncertainty in this thread indicates that they could have been a little more explicit.

RexGator said:

Having a dedicated stack for each "Triggered Action" (to me, WH:I is the very first game to introduce this concept, I'm not sure how close it is to other games' "Reaction", like L5R) is an idea I like. And it sounds consistent with the FAQ. I'll play those this way.

@Cyberfunk : Dormouse's assertion about the way LIFO is resolved is coherent with the rulebook. Mine (using "MTG 6th edition" LIFO) isn't. So unless FFG rewrites this part of the rulebook, I'll consider WH:I to use the LIFO like it was in "pre-6th Ed" MTG.

IMO, this is just another subsection of issues that crop up because cards like Rat Ogres and Abandoned Mine just had to be "Action:", instead of Forced or like Temple of Shallya, which reads"At the beginning of your kingdom phase, you may...", these could've been "At the beginning of your turn...", they wouldn't have been Actions, thus none of this response, another chain, response doodaa.

Dam said:

They could have a Forced, instead of an Action. Afterall, I hardly see a player prefering his skavens to NOT get uncorrupted for free at the start of his turn (unless he prefers the opposing Gustav to keep its immunity to damage, of course)

"Temple of Shallya" and "Cloud of Flies" are definately belonging to the very unusual "constant but triggered effect" category. And all this to avoid writing "may" in the text of Forced effect...

i think the simpler way to understand how it works is just :

at the beginning of the turn, all actions that trigger at this time resolve. but players can't play actions until the window they have in phase 0 (after all "beginning of the turn" actions resolve)

it works the same way for "Forced" : when one or more trigger they must resolve and no player can respond (like beginning of the turn)

Mister Mask said:

Problem is that Actions can only take place during an "Action Window", and during such a window, any player is entitled to play additional Actions. Hopefully a clarification, or a set of erratas, will clarify everything one can, or can't, do.

I am going to post this scenario to James and see if he can give any guidance.

definitely it would be worth an official answer once for all

Hopefully my question was detailed enough to address all the questions. I walked through the scenario with two Rat Ogres and two Clan Rats all uncorrupted at the beginning of the turn.