I posted this on the BGG forums, but did not receive any satisfactory answers, and therefore I will try posting it here, in hopes of some input:

Greetings,

I have been playing a fair amount of W:I over the last month, even hosting a tournament at my FLGS, but now two questions arose that I cannot seem to find the answers to, neither here nor on ffg.com:

1) Toughness is worded as such: "Whenever this unit is assigned damage, cancel 1 of that damage" and we have played it that way - however in the rules it states that (p. 16): "the toughness keyword cancels its numeric value of that [assigned] damage before the damage is applied" and in the example they show it happening after the action window between assigning and applying damage.

Therefore, Toughness actually cancels 1 damage whenever a unit it applied damage, and here comes the question:

Do other "when assigned damage" effects also occur at the apply-damage step, such as Warrior Priest's "The first point of damage assigned to this unit each turn is redirected (...)"?

2) During the "Apply Damage" step, who chooses in which order the units having received damage equal to their HP are removed? For instance, if three of my dwarves receive lethal damage, and among them is a Dwarf Ranger (Quest. Forced: After one of your other Dwarf units leave play, deal 1 damage (...)), do I get to choose the order they die in, hereby optimizing and dealing two damage?

Or is the answer simply that not even Forced effects can take place during the Apply Damage step, and as such the effect is never triggered?

2) You do not pick the order they die in because all damage is applied simultaneously.

Don't defend with your Dwarf Rangers if they're going to be killed along with the rest of your units.

Okay, it seems to be the conclusion that you cannot choose the order of units killed, however there is a counter-argument:

The Dark Elf support "Altar of Khaine" reads:

Kingdom. Action: If one of your units would be destroyed, you may pay 1 resource to instead return it to your hand.

This seems to imply that you can use actions (and hereby forced effects) during the apply-damage step, if their trigger is met.

One could argue that the Dwarf Ranger ability, in its wording, can meet its trigger during this step.

And I still have not found a usable answer to the Warrior Priest question. However, it is nice with the above input.

But during the apply damage step nothing has left play to trigger it.

you assign damage and then all uunits that are destroyed leave play at the same time,?

Re: Toughness - I read your question on the BGG forums, and I think the last answer there was correct.

I'll take a stab at an explanation though. The rule book says, these things about Toughness:

Under the Apply Damage step: Both players now apply the assigned damage to the cards to which it has been assigned. At this point, effects like Toughness kick in and cancel damage before it reaches the target.

After all damage has been assigned, it is applied simultaneously to all units and capitals. At this point, the Toughness keyword takes effect.

Whenever a unit with the Toughness keyword is assigned damage, the Toughness keyword cancels its numeric value of that damage before the damage is applied. Cancelled damage is not applied to the unit.

The first section says you don't apply Toughness effects until the damage has already been assigned. So the Warrior Priests ( Forced: The first point of damage assigned to this unit each turn is redirected to one target unit in any battlefield. ) effect triggers as soon as damage is assigned, and before damage (or Toughness) is applied.

Say your Warrior Priests have toughness somehow and they are defending against a 3 power unit. The attacker assigns 3 damage to the Priests. So 3 damage tokens are put on it. This triggers the ability, and you must redirect the damage if able. So now there is 2 damage remaining. The "Apply Damage" step begins, and 1 of the damage is simply removed. The remaining 1 damage is applied and the Priests are destroyed.

Another note, the attacker could have chosen to just assign 1 damage to the Priests and 2 to the capital ( the attacking player must assign damage equal to the number of hit points each defending unit possesses to that unit before any damage can be assigned to the attacked section on the defending player’s capital. )

As for your second question about units all being destroyed, I would say that all damage is applied at once, and all units die at once, so the effect you mentioned wouldn't trigger. However, I really don't know when the appropriate window would be to use Alter of Khaine then. Maybe you trigger that action after the "Assign Damage" step?

Entropy42 said:

If the Toughness was in play when damage was being assigned (say Gromril Armor), then attacker must assign at least 2 dmg to the Warrior Priests (1HP and 1 Toughness), since you need to assign enough dmg to destroy the defender, taking into account cancelling effects (as per the FAQ). Redirection isn't counted as cancelling effects (not negated by Bloodthirster, etc.). So if the attacker has 3P, at least 2 go to WP, 1 goes to capital.

Dam said:

Yes, my apologies, I have since read other places on the forum that cite that section of the FAQ, whereas my explanation only cited the current rulebook.

However, I don't understand why you say only 2 dmg must be applied. The FAQ does not specify that only cancellation effects are considered. It says In other words, the attacking player must assign enough damage to destroy each defending unit before any damage can be assigned to the defending player’s capital. It says that more MAY be assigned to destroy the unit in anticipation of dmg cancelling effects. 2 dmg to the priests is not going to be enough to destroy them (unless they are unable to redirect the dmg because no valid targets are available).

In general though, I disagree with that overall interpretation of the FAQ. It says you must assign "enough damage to destroy" them, but later says "more can be assigned in anticipation of cancellation effects." This, to me, implies that cancellation effects do not have to be considered when assigning the initial damage. For example, Sword Masters of Hoeth ( Battlefield. Cancel all combat damage assigned to this unit. ) operate off a cancellation effect, so I would argue only 3 damage needs to be placed on them before the rest can trample over to the capital. But there are other posts on these forums that state that they are effectively an infinite blocker, so it seems I am in the minority here. Is there any other official precedent to reinforce your interpretation of the FAQ?

I would argue that section of the rulebook could have been re-worded to clarify a different situation altogether. The original wording was must assign damage equal to the number of hit points each defending unit possesses . That could be interpreted as "if I have a plain 4 HP unit with 3 damage already on it, you still have to assign 4 damage to this unit before you can assign damage to my capital.

I found a post on BGG that seems to quote an official ruling that says I'm wrong, though I can't find the source of the quote anywhere on FFGs forums. I still am not clear on whether you have to apply 2 or 3 dmg to the Warrior Priests with "Toughness 1" though.

"Hi,

Yes, in your example you must assign all 20 damage to the Swordmasters
of Hoeth.

James

> Message from:
> Tobogan
>
> Rule Question:
> Hi there.
>
> Since the release of the FAQ, there have been a little controversial
> about Combat Damage, arguing that you have to apply damage equal to
> defending units remaining hit points plus active damage cancellation
> on those units, which seem weird because removes optional decisions
> to players. So the question is this:
>
> If i attack with a total power of, lets see, 20, and my opponent
> only defends with the brand new Swordmasters of Hoeth, do I have to
> assign ALL of those 20 damage to the Swordmasters, or just 3, which
> would be neccesary to kill them in a normal situation and the
> remaining 17 damage to the capital?
>
> Thanks."