This problem came up in a game today. When an assist unit is attacked by a front-line unit, it says explicitly that a combat card is drawn, and the small values are used. Despite looking through all the forums posts here, I didn't see any official clarification which says that only the defensive value is used. As such we played that the both values of the card are used.

Is there any official clarification on this? Can assist units destroy FLU's if they get lucky?

If so, is it then possible to attack with an assist unit?

(The funny story this ended up with: I had an archon and two high templars trying to hold a CP from zerg. When attacked by a Guardian and Zergling, my archon was killed by the guardian, but my second high templar fought the zergling and drew a 6/5 Increased Reaver Capacity card, and killed the zergling. After withdrawing, as per assist unit rules, I attacked the guardian - just for kicks, being the final turn of the game - with my two HT's. Drew a SECOND 6/5 Reaver Capacity card, and used psionic storm, with special mobilize - destroying guardian. Very funny, unsure if possible, and thankfully didn't affect game outcome)

You resolved both battles completely wrong.

Assist units cannot be assigned as FLU (front-line unit), if a player has in the area at least one non-Assist unit (like Archon etc.). So that, in your example only one skirmish could be set for the first battle.

If set as FLU, Assist units have no use of attack values, because they have no attack capabilities in the boardgame (and none of their cards, even Plague or Psionic Storm, cannot give them for those units).

In second battle, you could not trigger Splash Damage of Psionic Storm, because your High Templar (FLU) could not kill any opposing units (no attack capabilities). It's required to trigger Splash Damage for any card (except of Plague).

Only Zerg Assist units (thanks to their technology cards) are able to kill anything as a FLU in the battle. Nothing forbids you to attack by Assist units only (there will be only one skirmish in such battle), but usually it has a point only if you are playing Zerg.

Cyb3r is of course correct. Basically the only good zerg assist only attack I can think of that is worth while is the defiler attack. you burrow and cast plague with a defiler and get a free kill, provided the enemy has no cloaking (its not free if you lose the defiler). but yeah. Cyb3r is right. Dude. Duuuude. Duuuhuuuhuude. Yep. Dude.

cyb3k said:

I suppose you could attack an expensive unit with an Arbiter just to burn its powerful combat card via Stasis Cell.

okorz001 said:

But why the enemy should use his best cards? He can use any card in such case.

Stasis Cell is much better if you use your Arbiters do tefend certain areas (especially air only). Without EMP your enemy probably won't be able to capture them.

So what would happen if I had a Queen and nothing else in a spot, and a single Marine attacks my Queen? How does that get resolved?

The both of you play a combat card and the zerg-player maybe a technologycard like spawn broodlings.

Since the queen stands alone in this area, iit can be destroyed like a normal unit (zergling, hydralisk, whatever), when the marine has a high enough attack value.

The Queen, however, only can destroy the marine by using spawn broodling. Otherwise the queen can't kill the marine, because the queen has no attack capabilities.

So in most cases ONLY the defence value is important for single assist units.

Of course, as normal, assist unist (exception: defiler with burrow) will use the minor values from every combat card.

As it say in the rules (not exact quoute) "only if all participating units are assist units you can put one as FLU". As no assist unit has an attack line they can never kill an opponent directly, but only through special abilities as Spawn Broodling. The minor combat card value will only help determine if you survive or not. This leads to the next paragraph: If only Assist units are left after all skirmishes, they must retreat. So you cannot hold a area by stacking 4 assist units and counting with max 1 dying each time.

/Y

How about the Scourge? I'm kind of confused about how this unit is used. Generally speaking assist units are not supposed to be used as frontline units, and yet the Scourge card is not a reinforcement card, but a frontline card. The card seems to imply that the scourge is a frontline unit. Can anyone clarify this for me?

Thanks.

Seven days and counting to Starcraft 2!

Never mind, I think I figured it out. I had assumed that the scourge was an 'assist' unit. I happened to notice on the Average Combat Values card, however, that it is not an assist unit, but rather a special attack unit. That cleared it up for me.