I'm an italian player so I've some problems of understanding the real meaning of the counterstrike mechanics (and I'm sorry but my english could be terrible...):

Tha damage dealed by the counterstrike is uncancallable and resolved before any other combat damage, right?

This means that the counterstrike damage could destroy the attacking unit before the combat starts?

Example: the attacking unit has 2 hp. The defending unit has counterstrike2. The damage of the counterstrike dealed in this way (2) destroy the attacker unit istantly, so the attacker doesn't have no more unit in the combat?

I hope my question is clear enought...

Thanks...

Yes to your first question and yes to your second question.

Don't forget that counter strike damage cannot be split.

I might as well piggy-bag a CS-related question of my own here. Namely Ulric's Fury:

"Action: Each of your defending units gains Counterstrike 1 until the end of the turn."

Do you need to use UF before defenders are declared? There is no mention of a retroactive CS, declare defenders, play UF in the Action window after, apply CS1, right? Since CS kicks in upon a unit being declared defender, giving said unit CS after it is already a defender does nothing? It does make UF slightly less useful, as opponent could, upon seeing you play UF, corrupt/kill some of the units in the zone before they become defenders, whereas otherwise he might have saved those corrupt/kill effects for future use.

You'll need to send that to James.

According to the rulebook, counter strike "trigger" when a unit is declared. So if you want your Ulric's fury to be effective, you have to play it during the action between attackers and defenders declaration.

"The counterstrike Keyword allow a unit to immediatly damage an attacker whenever it is declared as a defender"

Shindulus is right.

But your units can't be defending if they haven't been declared as defenders.

And if you're playing this tactics before declaring any units defenders.. then there is no effect.

Step 1 : Declare the attacked zone

Step 2 : Declare the attackers

- If you play Ulric's Fury now, every defending units will gain Counterstrike. There is no defending units yet, so no-one gains Counterstrike.

Step 3 : Declare the defenders

- Counterstrike effects trigger immediatly, without a window for response (rb, p.16).

- If you play Ulric's Fury now, every defending units will gain Counterstrike. All the defending units gain Counterstrike. But it's too late to be triggered. They've already been declared as defenders.

You can't pay Ulric's Fury at Step 2 and have its effect affecting Units becoming Defenders at Step 3. Ulric's Fury has been fully resolved at Step 2. If I played "Troll Vomit" at the beginning of a player's Capital phase, it wouldn't destroy any unit he put into play after "Troll Vomit" full resolution.

And Counterstrike can't be triggered twice during the Step 3.

This card needs an errata, as it is utterly uneffective if we strictly follow the rules. I *get* the spirit of the card (even if I don't know if the dev. intented it to be used before or after the declaration of defenders) but it doesn't work.

I suspect they will rule it as the card creates a constant effect so any unit you defend with that turn gains CS rather than having to actively be defending.

This is why I wanted a detailed timing flowchart.

You can play Waagh during capital phase that won't prevent attacking unit to gain 2 powers.

The same way you can play Ulric before defenders are declared that won't prevent defenders to gain Counterstrike 1

Shindulus said:

No, it's the same thing. If you're playing Waaagh! before there is any attacking units, no-one will gain anything. You need at least one attacking unit at the time you play "Waaagh!" to have it gains PP. "Waaagh!" and currently worded "Ulric's Fury" only affect what is in the game when they're played. Like any other tactics I can think of right now.

WAAAGH!

Cost 3 / Loyalty Orc 2

Action: Each attacking unit gains PP until the end of the turn.

I do have a hazy recollection that I've read a thread about cards/effects like Waagh, UF and Grudge Thrower, in that they do create a "hold-up" effect that will kick in if you then fulfill the requirements for the benefits (mainly push forward attackers or defenders). Anybody have a similar recollection?

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=140&efcid=4&efidt=280586&efpag=0

"1. Do I need to have already declared attacking/defending units to get bonuses from cards like Waaagh!/Striking the grudge/Grudge Thrower. For example, if I use those mentioned cards during my Capitol Phase, or Kingdom, do i get the bonuses?

answer from James Hata

1. No, you do not have to have the units already declared attacking or defending to play the card effect. WAAAGH! and other similar card effects do not actually target the units (as they do not say target in the card effect text). They instead create a continuous effect that waits for the appropriate time to provide the bonus. So, you could WAAAGH! during your capitol phase if you choose to, but the effect would not provide a bonus until you declare attackers.

That mean, if I use Waagh! or Grudge Throwe in my (for example) quest or kingdom or "0" phase, during combat this turn, my units still get the bonus. Hmmm "

Thanks Rhelyk for the link!

They should put that kind of things in the rulebook or the FAQ.

So.. we have Tactics [temporary] cards that leave play once they have been resolved and that create a continuous effect for the rest of the phase that only trigger once the [unspoken] conditions are met. How messy is that ? :-/

How can I distinguish that kind of continuous Tactics from the rest of tactics cards ? Is that the lack of [target] word ?

It's that the same thing with "Surrender!" ? Can I play it before there is any defenders ?

Radiant Gaze should work on units put in play after RG has been resolved ?

How can I, from a strict rules point of view , distinguish that kind of continuous tactic effect from an instantaneous Troll Vomit effect ? Why the "destroy all units in play" doesn't carry on for all the turn for units not yet in play and destroy every unit I try to put in play ? How's that different from a tactic effect affecting "attacking units" not yet declared ?

I have no problem with the concept of Ulric's Fury or Waaagh! affecting units later in the game.. But it should be worded differently from other effects so, from the start, we can read they work that way and they're not instantaneous. Right now, It's fine for casual game, but it's becoming a headache for tournament environement. For simplicity sake, it's not a ruling we need but a new wording for these cards (and futur similar ones), so we can separate an instantaneous tactic effect from a continuous when we read the card and not the forum rulings.

Supa said:

I think the combination of a lack of the key word " target ", and the fact that these cards include the phrase " until end of turn ", create a condition where the card has an effect that can be used, (should the right conditions be met), until the end of the turn.

Cheers for the link Rhelyk ! Good to know my brain hasn't yet melted trying to keep up with the rules questions for the games I regularly play.

JonHook said:

I was just getting ready to point out that they do seem to be worded differently. Until the end of the turn seems to be an automatic indicator that it creates a continuous effect, and when it does not specify a target it seems to be a blanket continuous effect... do we have any cards phrased like this which don't operate like this? (honest question, none come to mind but that doesn't mean much)

Mordechai said:

HI!!!

A little OT: if you don't know it yet (I don't know if you're a user), we have the official italian community forum here: warhammerlcg.forumfree.it/

You can find players and lots of useful stuff...

I'm the National Organized Play coordinator and you can contact me there (I'm NEPHANDUS).

Sorry for the little OT.

If a unit with CS was taken over by Take Captive! does it deal it's CS damage?

I think the answer is yes but it's just to make sure.

Yes. It gets stolen and is then moved and declared as a defender which initiates its counterstrike.

Take Captive! reads, "Take control of target attacking unit until the end of the turn. Move it to the attacked zone, declared as a defender."

This is a bit different from "Take control of target unit... and declare it as a defender." In the card's language, "declared" is one of them-thar participial adjectives, meaning it's describing the unit as being in the state of having been declared. In normal gameplay, anything that is declared (adjective) also was , at some point, declared (verb), and that would be the point at which CS triggers. But, this card seems to be magically jumping over the actual declaration and just granting a 'declared defender' status to the unit. What I'm not sure about is whether the process of 'becoming a declared defender' (without any declaring going on) is enough to trigger CS. It's hard to tell based on the wording of the CS section in the rulebook/FAQ; it doesn't seem like they had that possibility in mind.

Everybody together, now... "send it to James."

From the FAQ/Errata:

Counterstrike

Counterstrike is a keyword that allows a defending unit to immediately damage an attacker whenever it is declared as a defender.

-

As such, the unit is "declared as a defender" as part of the effect of Take Captive! and should immediately assign and apply the counterstrike damage when Take Captive! comes off the stack.

The question I have is, what if the captive unit (or units if multiple are used in the same turn) kills all the remaining attackers? Does combat still continue to the declare defenders step, allowing the defender to utilize scout units, for instance?

RM

It's kind of difficult to see how "is declared" in the CS ruling and "declared" in the Take Captive! gametext are (almost certainly) operating in different ways, grammatically. A similar case would be:

=Whenever the speaker is announced, he will take the podium.

=The announced speaker is at the podium.

Even though the same word is being used, in the first sentence it implies a definite event (an announcement); in the second it is talking about a status.

Also notice that there is no restriction on when you can play Take Captive!, so if it generates CS whenever it is played on a unit with CS, you could be applying CS after the assign damage phase, for example. This would rarely be a good idea, obviously, but it could occasionally make sense and seems kind of wonky.

I think you're mis-stating the term "declared as a defender." This is not a state of being; it is an event. A unit is "declared as a defender" and then, from that point forward, is a "defending unit." The word "declared" may be used as an adjective, but in this instance the unit would be a "declared defender." If we look at this from a purely grammatical standpoint, the target unit is "declared as a defender" as part of the Take Captive! effect and would then issue counterstrike damage. I think this is probably the intent; otherwise, the designers have made at least one grammatical error.

That said, you're right about using this card after the assign damage or possibly even apply damage steps. I think some errata is in line to determine that.

RM

If TC! read "... and it is declared as a defender," then we could read it as a passive construction of a verb (it would still be ambiguous, but this would be the natural reading). Without that "is," though, we must read "declared as a defender" as an adjective phrase, the same way we read "corrupted" in many contexts as an adjective. These adjectives are highly suggestive of actions (corruption and declaration), but don't necessarily entail those actions. For example, Gutter Runners and Warpstone Excavations give you "corrupted" (adjective) units that were not "corrupted" (verb) at any point.

Say we had a card that read, "Forced: Each time a unit is corrupted, heal one damage from your capital." If you played a unit to a zone with a Warpstone Excavation, would you argue that this theoretical effect would trigger? After all, if a unit enters play corrupted, it "is corrupted." But it didn't go through the process of corruption, it is merely in a "corrupted" state to begin with. Same deal with the Captive units: we can't say for sure that they went through a process of being declared, they are just in a "declared" state. Doesn't make a lot of semantic sense, but it does make rules-sense.

All that said, in this case we do have a change in status (non-declared to declared), which certainly creates the impression that somebody was declared. I honestly don't know if the designers wanted TC! to work as a normal defender declaration and just couldn't think of a simpler wording (e.g. "...Move it to the attacked zone and declare it as a defender.") or they were specifically trying to "skip" the CS trigger and couldn't think of a way to be explicit about that (perhaps simply "...as a defender").

Until otherwise clarified I am going by this line of reasoning, the card is being declared as a defender explicitly by TC's text. "Action: Take control of target attacking unit until the end of the turn. Move it to the attacked zone, declared as a defender ."

And Page 16 of the Rulebook reads, "The Counterstrike keyword allows a defending unit to immediately damage an attacker whenever it is declared as a defender ."

If Counterstrike were worded differently I would have a different interpretation, but they both use the precise wording "declared as a defender" and CS says whenever this happens its effect kicks in. There is not enough discrepancy for me to think there is something at odds here.