Phase 0: Forced vs Action vs Triggerable Constant

By Dam the Man, in Warhammer Invasion Rules Questions

As in, which comes first? Active player's choice? To me, Forced should happen first, before anything, but can't find any backing for this.

Say you have Bule, Lord of Pus (Forced), Rat Ogres (Action) and Cloud of Flies (Triggerable Constant). All are "at the beginning of your turn", which these days is Phase 0.

forced effects automatically stack and you cannot respond or cancel them, so they happen first at the beginning of the turn, and you have to wait for them to resolve to activate the other actions.

Infiltrate!

Quest. Forced: At the beginning of your turn, discard the top X cards from each opponent's deck. X is the number of resource tokens on this quest.

Quest. Forced: At the beginning of your turn, place 1 resource token on this quest if a unit is questing here.

So? Which goes first?

Personal thought, while you resolve all Forced effects during the At the beginning of your turn phase, you can resolve at any order.

Mister Mask said:

forced effects automatically stack and you cannot respond or cancel them, so they happen first at the beginning of the turn, and you have to wait for them to resolve to activate the other actions.

The way that non-forced "at the beginning of turn" effects work (see the Rat Ogres thread) is that "at the beginning of turn" essentially means "during the action window at the beginning of your turn" (only more concise), with the additional restriction that it only works once per copy of the card. So a more verbose but clearer way of wording Rat Ogres would be "ACTION: During the action window at the beginning of your turn, you may uncorrupt all Skaven units. Play only once per turn."

Given that, why do you think that forced effects work differently?

Clamatius said:

Mister Mask said:

forced effects automatically stack and you cannot respond or cancel them, so they happen first at the beginning of the turn, and you have to wait for them to resolve to activate the other actions.

I'm going to say the same thing I've said before on this: why?

The way that non-forced "at the beginning of turn" effects work (see the Rat Ogres thread) is that "at the beginning of turn" essentially means "during the action window at the beginning of your turn" (only more concise), with the additional restriction that it only works once per copy of the card. So a more verbose but clearer way of wording Rat Ogres would be "ACTION: During the action window at the beginning of your turn, you may uncorrupt all Skaven units. Play only once per turn."

Given that, why do you think that forced effects work differently?

I think the problem arises in the definition of forced effects which says:

Forced effects are denoted by a bold “ Forced :” trigger

on a card. Forced effects are triggered by specific

occurrences throughout a game, and they occur automatically,

whether the card’s controller wants them

to resolve or not. Forced effects always occur immediately

whenever their trigger is met, and they cannot

be cancelled or interrupted by other actions.

This language would suggest that you have to resolve the forced effect as soon as possible after the trigger. Obviously with multiple forced effects you will have to sort out an order for them but it would seem counter-intuitive that you could play non-mandatory actions before "immediate" Forced effects.

Best argument I've heard yet. I shall await James's ruling with interest. :)

i too am in the boat that Forced effects trigger & resolve completely and before actions for the reasoning they are mandatory vs optional. But Constant effects are mandatory as well, just always in an on or off state, being triggered continuously. With this perspective, i see Forced effects as interrupting Constant effects since Forced effects trigger while the Constant effect is already going on; therefore the Constant effect must have occured first. And since Actions cannot interrupt Forced, they are secondary to a Constant effect as well. That's the best logic i've made out of them lol ...

The example in the rulebook for Forced effects is with Thyrus and is unfortunately a Red Herring. It says that its controller must "...immediately deal 1 hit point of damage to Thyrus Gorman". This tends to give the impression that Forced effects trigger & resolve independantly of one another, BUT non-combat damage is ALWAYS applied & dealt immediately whether from an Action or Forced effect preocupado.gif Really an example of non-combat damage. A better example would be saying an Action can be played in response to Nurgle's Pestilence's Action, but not Thyrus Gorman's Forced effect (if that's the case, which i think it is)

Mister Mask said:

forced effects automatically stack and you cannot respond or cancel them, so they happen first at the beginning of the turn, and you have to wait for them to resolve to activate the other actions.

Can you cite your proof behind this from the rules or FAQ, please? Thanks!

Specifically about the "automatically stack" part - as I'm not really seeing that anywhere.

I think that Forced Effects should go first (but you'll get to choose which ones go in which order, if their triggers are all relatively equal), then normal Actions can be chosen by the player in whatever order they would like. Easy rulings make games, well, easier for players to learn and enjoy. You shouldn't need a degree to figure out the rules and timing issues. Keep Is Simple Stupid is a GREAT motto here. :)

After thinking about this, specifically the "immediately" part of the rules RexGator quoted, I am pretty convinced that he is right and I was wrong.

But when there is more than one forced effect that triggers, I don't think there's any stacking, they just happen individually and the active player picks the order. This makes a difference for cards like Infiltrate! where it starts milling the turn after you start questing, instead of 2 turns later.

Yeah, we've been playing (and I believe correctly so) that you can pick which Forced effect happens - thus Infiltrate is at least (thankfully) a bit more useful. :D

Clamatius said:

But when there is more than one forced effect that triggers, I don't think there's any stacking, they just happen individually and the active player picks the order. This makes a difference for cards like Infiltrate! where it starts milling the turn after you start questing, instead of 2 turns later.

Talked with some other players last night and we are all in agreement that the way you describe it is correct. Just waiting for James to confirm now.

Any updates or rulings on this? I may of overlooked such info.

I don't know if we have anything from James, but Nate answered this ages ago, Constant Effects are always resolved first as they equate to changes or additions to the basic rules of the game (Note: they do not trigger, they initiate and resolve. Only effects that have a bold trigger word are considered triggered effects). Next come Forced Effects which trigger immediately on their trigger event resolving. They do not stack, each resolves completely on its own with the active player deciding the order of the first effect (and I believe the next player choosing which of their Forced Effects triggers next and going back and forth to all Forced Effects have resolved). Finally come player actions.

It is possible that with the release of new cards, new lead developer, and the new FAQ that this may have been revisited and changed, but this was what Nate had told me back in October.

Where do actions such as drawing cards and resources factor in to this hierarchy?

For instance, I have Temple of Shallya ( Kingdom . At the beginning of your kingdom phase, you may move one of your units from its current zone to one of your other zones.) in play; at the beginning of my kingdom phase can I choose to move a unit into my Kingdom zone and thereby increase my resource draw for that turn by that unit's power?

RM

Drawing a card during your Quest phase and counting resources during your Kingdom phase are not actions but game requirements that happen at a specific spot in their respective phases... this would happen after all Constant and Forced Effects that happen at the beginning of the phrase... which logically takes place before anything within the phrase, including drawing or gathering resources.