Ventala add a blue die at range 3, question is, if they have a blight and my opponent spends it, which happens first.

Remove a die and now have no dice pool to take the shot, so no dice is added

Or

Add the dice, remove a die?

I'm pretty sure the attack goes off. The attack cancellation occurs during the roll dice step, so you would have to get to where you're picking dice up off the table, getting ready to roll them, and realize that you're picking up nothing.

What is order of operations though? That dictates which die can be removed as well

My gut interpretation is declare target, check range, gather dice pool, spend blight, so it should go off, but I'm not 100% on my timings.

I don't like it, but...

"83.1 An effect that changes the number of dice in the attack pool is resolved during the “Roll Dice” step of an attack."

"83.10 If both players have effects with the same timing, the first player resolves all of his effects with that timing first."

So if the blighted Ventala is first player, he gets to add the blue die, and then his opponent is free to spend the blight token.

If the Ventala is second player, the opponent spends the blight, and the attack is canceled...maybe?

Then again, it could very well be that the die is removed and then added before the attack is actually canceled. For example, when my opponent's Spearmen unit is flanking one of my units, but has two blight tokens, we've always played it that he has a dice pool of three: 2 for the melee attack, and 1 for flanking, and I spend two blight to force my opponent to remove two of those dice. If we play it the way I have outlined above from the rules reference, it would be really confusing, and we've never done that before.

I don't see any reason why the "Roll Dice" step wouldn't continue until the end of the step, thus giving the second player an opportunity to add dice even though all of their dice have already been removed by blight. So I think the attack would not be canceled. The order part is interesting though, because it means if the opposing player has initiative they get to remove the red die which is likely better than removing the blue.

Interesting scenario though: Does this mean that a Ventala unit with two blight on it can still attack when the opponent has initiative?

Player two activates his Ventala with [Range Attack] and is within Range 1-3.
Player one spends one blight to remove the red die.
Player two takes an extra blue die for being within Range 1-3.
Can player one now spend the remaining blight to remove the newly added die?

Pretty sure the answer is supposed to be yes, but it gets a little wonky when you start counting the order of operations inside these steps.

There's also section 51.1: "Players resolve abilities that add or remove dice before the Roll Dice step of the attack.". And section 51.2: "Abilities that add dice are resolved before abilities that remove dice".

Blight is not an ability, but then 83.1 comes into play: "An effect that changes the number of dice in the attack pool is resolved during the “Roll Dice” step of an attack.".

So, as per 51.1, the Ventala ability to add dice occurs before the Roll Dice step while, as per 83.1, the Blight effect to remove dice occurs during the Roll Dice step (but still "before the dice as rolled" as per the description of blight).

Prince Faolan's modifier dial adds a dice but is not an ability - and the description doesn't mention the timing of when the dice is added to the pool. But I'd go with adding it before inviting the other player to activate blights - following the intention outlined above.

I can't think of any other mechanics that add dice that aren't abilities (preceded by either a melee or ranged icon).

That seems pretty solid. I’m good with that

He’s got it. That was my sense of how it should be played, but couldn’t track it down yesterday before bed time.