Curious about the timing when an attacker attached with "Horrific Mutation" goes against a defender with "Countersrike".

Horrific Mutation - "While attached unit is attacking, defending units get -1 hit points."
Countersrike - "this unit deals combat damage immediately after defending"

Assuming the -1 hit point is enough to kill the 'countersrike' unit and the counterstrike is enough to kill the attacking unit, does he get the counterstrike off before he dies? And if so, since the attacking unit would be killed would the effect kill the defending unit? Or would both units die?

I would think that the Horrific Mutation would kick-in first and kill the unit with Counterstrike.

If the counterstrike unit only has one hit point, as soon as it is declared a defender it goes down to zero hit points and immediately dies, even before the counterstrike effect goes off.

yeah, the developers already ruled on this one. Horrific mutation wins. I had an argument with a friend when he killed my precious reiksguard swordsmen like this

The question is, if the ruling is still right because the faq changed "All instances of “after” in card text boxes
should read “when.”" Someone should probably resend the question.

Horrific Mutation applies its -1 HP right after defenders are declared. Nothing has changed of when counterstrike occurs. So since you have to have declared attackers and defenders before counterstrike dmg is applied, counterstrike will always be second to this card.

It has not changed when it occurs, the question is, if it is added to the resolving order. When is a kind of cost thing. So you pay the cost "declare as defender" and then deal damage. And with Lobber Crew we have a example, were an effect is still there on the stack, when the originator is dead.
So:
decleare as attacker->add counterstrike->get killed->resolve counterstrike

I see what you're saying, but i really don't think there is a single action stack here.

Horrific Mutation's effect is continuous, and the second its condition is met, its effect takes place instantaneously without interruption (like it has always been in effect; continuously). That is how i see continuous effects anyway, and may be wrong. But may explain its precedence over counterstrike...

Counterstike is applied & assigned immediately too without interruption.

so i'm pretty sure it's

declare attacker -> declare deffender. Defender immediately loses 1 HP. cannot respond to this. Counterstrike Damage is assigned & applied to attacker. cannot respond to this.

If unit with counterstrike dies from the -1 HP, it can't deal CS dmg as it didnt get to do that before it died.

How i assumed it worked at least

Just curious, what happens when two "happens immediately" effects take place? These both become "happens immediately" effects. I thought in this case, it becomes a tie, which goes to the player whose turn it is. Which would still mean that the mutation player would win.

The ruling was clear, the change in wording may change the ruling, but if it does I'd bet it gets changed to conflicting/simultaneous Constant Effects have their order decided by the active player, or a statement that keywords are considered separate from Constant effects and have their own resolution window immediately following the game state change they need to initiate.

Hi a have a question, damage from Horrific Muatation is added like a damage tokens or just all units have one hitt point less?? Becouse there is difference, If it will be as damage token It will be for next battle to, Or If it is just one less in hit point it will be off after battle phase. I am little bit confused abouth this...

Reducing HPs isn't damage (it's in the FAQ).

Does somebody have a link to the explanation for this ruling? I have to agree with jogo that this one doesn't make much sense to me. The language in the rulebook's explanation of CS is actually "when," not "after," so I don't think there will be a change based on that. The rulebook reads:

Whenever the unit with the
Counterstrike keyword is declared as a defender, it
immediately deals uncancellable damage equal to this
numeric value.

It's being declared as a defender that generates the CS effect, not remaining alive after becoming a defender. Even if Horrific Mutation kicks in at the exact same time that a unit is declared, they've still been declared, no? And it can't be an issue of checking numerical values on cards not in play, because there are cards that do that explicitly (Brutal Offering). It's FFG's game and they can do what they want, but they need to change the CS section of the rulebook if this is how they want it work.

It is a case of understanding what is happening, how, and when. The way it was explained to me (not a direct quote but paraphrasing) is that Horrific Mutation is a Constant Effect and all Constant Effects have precedence over every other kind of effect. They are a change in the game state. Keywords are effects that initiate after a certain condition is met because of a change in the game state. Because of this when a unit with Counterstrike is declared as an defender when an attacker has Horrific Mutation it gets a minus to its HP before the check for keywords even happens.

Order of Condition Checks an action is taken (a card played, effect triggered, attack/defense declared, etc.) and then...

1. Check board for any relevant Constant Effects. Resolve any found.
2. Check board for any relevant keywords. Resolve any found.
3. Check board for any relevant Forced Effects. Resolve any found.
4. Players may take actions in response. Resolve them in LIFO.
5. Players may now take new actions.

They're obviously working on those technical rules, at least. Still think this one is a little counterintutive, since "declaration" is clearly happening at the exact point a unit is 'becoming' a defender. It seems like the declaration should have to 'resolve' before a unit is fully a defender. I can live with this timing sequence, though; still think CS section should maybe be tweaked, but I guess it won't come up all that often.

Card Effects (v1.1)
Some cards reference card effects. Card
effects is a game term that includes
Actions, Forced Effects, and Constant
Effects.
After card effects are triggered
(usually by paying a cost or meeting a
timing requirement and declaring its
use), they exist independently of the
source. Destruction or removal of the
source at that time will not affect the
resolution on the card effect.

pasted from the faq 1.2

"card effects are triggered independently of the source even after removal"..... doesn't that mean that horrific mutation will deal the -1 hit points but at the same time, even if the defending unit with counterstrike is removed, the counterstrike damage still gets to be immediately assigned and applied as well?

meaning they both get to apply and damage each other, rather than the counterstrike damage gets cancelled because the unit is removed as suggested by earlier messages...

what do you guys think? agree?

This really isn't open for debate anymore, as we have an official answer from FFG on how this works. I agree its not very easy to see why it works the way it does, but its basically the difference between the "speed" of constant effects and keywords. Your points would be correct if the -1 and the Counstrike triggered simultaneously, but the ruling is that they don't. Dormouse's post in this thread explains it best. If you go to the link in my sig and go down to Horrific Mutation, there is a link to the official answer from FFG.

Ok, thanks =)

I realise that Counterstrike are in the KEYWORDS section, and not categorized as Actions, Forced Effects, or Constant
Effects. Thus the 'counterstrike damage even after removal of unit' isn't applicable here.

Whatever =) since it's been decided anyway, would be nice to include this in the next FAQ in case other newbies like me face the same problem =P

Taking into account FAQ 1.4 does the ruling that counterstrike damage will not happen still stand? Here's a quote from page 8 of the FAQ pdf:

After card effects are triggered
(usually by paying a cost or meeting a
timing requirement and declaring its
use), they exist independently of the
source. Destruction or removal of
the source at that time will not affect
the resolution on the card effect. This
also applies to Constant Effects and
Keywords that have a trigger condition,
as well as Forced Effects and Actions.

For example: A unit with Horrific Mutation
attacks a zone with a unit that has the
Counterstrike keyword and 1 remaining hit
point. The unit with Counterstrike defends,
which gives it -1 hit point and leads to it being
destroyed. However, the Counterstrike effect
existed independently of the source when the
unit was declared as a defender, and so the
unit will steal deal its Counterstrike damage.

This seems to make sense, as per FAQ 1.4:

• Keyword timing is defined as being the same of Constant Effects timing
• Effects are allowed to trigger at the same time and exists independently of the source afterwards
• Effects of the same type are required to resolve in a particular order, but since triggered effects exist independently, the order in which mutation and counterstrike effects resolve does not influence whether or not counterstrike damage will be assigned

Yeah, Lukas put that specific example in the FAQ to show that it was changing this old ruling. No one ever really could make good sense out of the original ruling, so I was glad to see the change. I think the new way makes a lot more sense, and makes effects in Warhammer much more consistent, since they all exist independently of the source now.