I know we've discussed Forced Actions vs. Actions but how would that affect me in this situation:

My opponent has a Rock Lobber in play in his KZ, ready to use. I have no Units in play yet but I want to play a Loremaster of Hoeth (basically the HE version of Followers of Mork, dealing out 2 Indirect Damage upon entering play).

My question is: Would my Loremasters dish out their Indirect Damage FIRST (since they use a FORCED action) before dying to the Lobbers (assuming he uses his Lobbers)??

In regard to the "last in, first out" rule, I would say that sacrificing the lobbers could not prevent the indirect damage. First you would play your Loremaster, then your opponent could try to sacrifice the lobbers, but since that effect happens first the Loremaster isn't in play yet and can't be sacrificed.

Have we met?........

Here's the thing. 'Forced:' things technically aren't actions at all; they're effects. Not only does a 'Forced:' effect fire off immediately, without interruption, but the removal of an effect's source does not nullify the effect itself. So even if the Elf's effect WAS an Action:, and your opponent made you sac (sacrifice...more Magic vernacular) them, you could still put their Action: effect on the chain in response to his Lobber's action. LIFO: everyone takes 2 indirect, then the Elves and Orcs hit the showers.

Loremasters read:

Forced: After this unit enters play, each player takes 2 indirect damage. (Players assign their own indirect damage.)

Lobber Crew reads:

Kingdom. Action: Sacrifice this unit to force an opponent to sacrifice a unit he controls, if able.

There are two action windows that he could sac the Lobber Crew: Stacked when you play Loremasters and after you play them. If he stacks the action the LIFO will resolve the Lobber Crew first, making you sacrafice a unit when you don't actually have one in play (since you playing Loremasters has not resolved yet). So in this situation, he sacrafices his Lobber Crew for nothing.

If he plays Lobber Crew right after, then you both have to take the 2 indirect damage. He cannot assign one of those damage to Lobber Crew and then use the Lobber Crew's action since this is still part of resolving a stack.

In short, he has to take the 2 damage and there is no sneaky way around it using Lobber Crew.

Excellent, helpful replies - this is how I figured it worked but couldn't find any specific Rules questions that answered this!

How I would play this: Assign one damage to the Lobber Crew, then sacrifice it. You're still keeping one indirect damage, but at least you're tossing one of your opponent's units.

deashira said:

You have to resolve the Forced effect fully before any new card effects come into play. In this case, before you can use the Lobber Crew "Action:"

Yes, but what deashira is saying I believe is split up the indirect damage, one on Lobber crew, one somewhere else, sac Lobber crew after resolution of the ID effect, to force a sacrifice by the other opponent.

dormouse said:

Lobber Crew has 1HP so they would be dead if you assign 1 damage to them from the Forced.

Good catch, yes they must survive the resolution of the damage in order to use their ability, some how I was thinking they were a 2HP unit.

dormouse said:

You placed Scrap Heap to your KZ, didn't you ?

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought that assigning damage and applying damage were two seperate steps. That being the case, you must assign the indirect damage immediately but, in response to assigning the damage, you could sacrifice your Lobber before damage is actually applied.

RM

deashira said:

There is no Action window between assign and apply damage for non-combat damage. Only combat has an Action window between those two steps.

Which means that Lobber would have to be used as a response to the playing of the Loremaster which means it resolves before the Indirect damage on the stack meaning there is no damage placed anywhere yet.

Oh, okay. Thanks for clearing that up!

dormouse said:

What's the timing/sequence of events in this case?

Declare and pay for Loremaster. Opponent uses Lobber Crew in Response. From LIFO, LC goes off first, so does he go off before Loremaster hits the table, in which case if the HElf player has no other Units in play, just goes poof? Since the Loremaster is a Forced, LC Action, even as response can't come in between Loremaster hitting the table and kicking in his Forced, can it (so Loremaster-LC Action-Forced)?

So is it Loremaster-Forced-LC Action or LC Action-Loremaster-Forced? Or something else?

Great question. Deep.

Using Asuryan's Cleansing (cancel target unit or support card being played...) as a precedent, there is response time in between the paying of a card and the playing of a card. Otherwise, unit cancellation could not be possible. So, the player can either trigger the Lobbers' action before the Elves hit the board (Elf player must sac something else, if able) or after (Loremasters' Forced: fires off).

Yes, that is precisely how I interpreted it.