1. What happens if the closest cultist is engaged? The card does not say that it disenganges, so does he attack the person he's engaged with?

2. If there's another player on a location on the way to the one who drew this card, does the cultist engage that person instead and attack?

3. If the closest cultist is handcuffed, nothing happens as the word "cannot" is absolute?

This encounter card reads:

Revelation - If there are no Cultist enemies in play, Expulsion gains surge. Otherwise, the nearest Cultist enemy readies, moves (one location at a time) until it reaches your location, engages you, and makes an immediate attack. Then, place each key you control on that enemy.

So it's a bit complicated, but I believe it goes like this:

1: if the enemy in question is engaged with another player, it will disengage as it moves away and the effect will resolve as normal. Being engaged with an investigator doesn't prevent an enemy moving (via card effect etc.) in any way. You don't need to evade or otherwise "disengage" from enemies in order to shunt them away with Warning Shot, for instance.

2: No, the cultist will move until it reaches the relevant target of the card. It will momentarily engage any investigators along its path (assuming that it is ready and not aloof) and then disengage from them as it moves to reach the target of the effect, which may be relevant for game effects.

3: This is the complex one. So the Handcuffs prevent the enemy readying, but they don't prevent movement, engagement or attacks. Those parts of the effect are not contingent on the enemy readying (there's no "then..."), so you must resolve the effect as much as possible: The targeted enemy will fail to ready, but will still move to you, engage you and attack you. However, since the first part of the effect failed to resolve in full, the "Then" portion will fail to trigger and the enemy won't steal your keys.

Expulsion uses several terms that aren't defined in rules in regards to enemies, so your interpretations seems to be correct. However we've house ruled it like my frist question implied, that engaged cultist attack the person they're engaged with. It doesn't make sense to us that players provoke OAs when moving, while enemies can move about as they wish.

We also house ruled that handcuffed enemys can't attack because they can't pay the "cost" to attack, which is be in "ready" state. Handcuffs are already very situational and this would weaken them even further (altough they are pretty helpful in TCU again witches and cultists).

The third part, about Handcuffs not preventing an enemy from moving, engaging, and attacking, is from a direct reply from FFG about a question regarding that very thing due to other Encounter Cards.

SamWeiss, do you have a link to that ansewr? I'm not trying to question you, but I'd like to know the original question and FFGs reasoning, if they gave any.

Over at ArkhamDB.

https://arkhamdb.com/find?q=handcuffs&decks=player

And in my email storage - I submitted the question. :P

The reasoning is given - there is no "then" after "readies" and before "moves". Therefore, the moving, and by extension engaging and/or attacking, is not dependent on successfully readying.

Matts message von ArkhamDB is pretty clear. Thanks for your help!

I know I've said it before here, but just because it's a good thing to note:

I'm the one responsible for adding FAQ entries to arkhamdb, and I endeavour not to add anything unless it's a ruling from Matt himself. The best way to get your rulings added is simply to email them to me at [email protected] - @SamWeiss if you'd be up for forwarding that email, that would be great!

On 10/24/2019 at 6:39 AM, zooeyglass said:

I know I've said it before here, but just because it's a good thing to note:

I'm the one responsible for adding FAQ entries to arkhamdb, and I endeavour not to add anything unless it's a ruling from Matt himself. The best way to get your rulings added is simply to email them to me at [email protected] - @SamWeiss if you'd be up for forwarding that email, that would be great!

I wondered how that was done.
Sending that, and another one just in case, now.