If you have anybody with the Guard ready action, can you try to kill the mimic?

Isn't it still the hero's turn? Can the Guard interrupt really be used? I think that guard can only be used in the ss turn, so I'm pretty sure that you cannot attack, but I would like to hear other opinions.

I asked this very same question a couple weeks ago in another thread:

mahkra said:

but I don't recall anyone ever actually responding to it. I agree that the heroes cannot use their guard interrupt as it's still a hero's turn.

From the core rulebook:

Guard

A hero that has placed a guard order may make an interrupt attack. At any point during the overlord player's turn (not during a hero's turn), a hero may use his guard order to immediately "interrupt" the overlord player's turn and make one attack (following all the normal rules for line of sight and attacking).

So no, you can't use a guard order to attack a mimic immediately after the OL has played the card on a chest.

I concur with Kerrigan. The OL is given an opportunity to activate a monster in the hero's turn in much the same way guard lets a hero activate (limitedly) in the OL's turn, but the important point here is that it's still the hero's turn so Guard cannot be used. Honestly, in practice I don't find that mimics last that long anyway. I would be surprised if a hero was willing to blow his Guard order killing that thing when there are probably half a dozen better targets waiting in the wings on the OL's real turn. Unless the hero who opens the chest is the last to act, someone else can geek the mimic before the turn ends.

Steve-O said:

Given the Situation, I have a Guard order and open a chest, or I'm standig with a guard order next to another hero who opens the chest, I think I would try it, because if it attacks and wounds me I would lose my Guard order anyway

Qion said:

Speaking as someone who usually plays the OL, that's exactly the kind of thinking I like to hear from my heroes. Burn your guard order on this stupid mimic who could've as easily been killed by a regular attack from the next hero, please, do it. That way the Beastman Warparty I'm about to spawn on my turn is free and clear to tear your squishy mages to pieces.

Sadly, the rules do not allow it, as mentioned above.

Rule Changes Guard orders:

F.A.Q., Page 7: Guard orders can interrupt the overlord at any time. However, each action should be resolved in its entirety once it’s been begun. (For example, although you can interrupt the overlord if he declares an attack, if you choose not to the attack is resolved in its entirety before you have another chance to use your Guard order. You can’t wait to see if the attack missed or not before deciding to Guard.)

F.A.Q., Page 8: Can guard interrupts be taken before the Overlord draws cards/collects threat, before the playing of Spawn/ Event/Power cards, before the first activation of a monster , and/or before any of the Overlord's "start of turn" actions? Yes.

Mimic
Pay this card when a hero opens a chest. The chest is alive, and its contents cannot be distributed until it is killed. Move the chest marker to an adjacent space. Treat it as a Beastman and activate it immediately . After its activation, the hero's turn resumes. If the chest is killed, the contents of the chest are immediately distributed.

Heroes' Tactic: Kill it! If you had anybody with the Guard ready action, try to kill the mimic to get the treasure now.
http://www.descentinthedark.com/_m_/mimic.php (fan built website for Descent )

The FAQ page 7 quote is discussing the timing of Guard attacks relative to cards played on the overlord's turn; whether you can use a Guard when it is not the overlord's turn is not mentioned anywhere in the question or answer, so assuming that overrides clear rules in the actual rulebook is highly questionable. You're ignoring the context of the quote.

The FAQ page 8 quote requires even more context-ignoring to appear even slightly relevant. It lists a bunch of things that happen at the start of the overlord's turn and asks if you can use a Guard before those. The only way it's remotely relevant here is if you assume that you automatically get an opportunity to Guard before any of those things happens even if they happen outside of the normal play sequence due to a special effect, even during a time when Guard orders explicitly don't work.

The last quote is a fan site, not official in any respect, and errors are discovered in it fairly frequently. I'll email them and point out their suggested tactic is illegal (or at least misleading).

The rulebook explicitly forbids the use of a Guard order during a hero's turn, and none of the questions in the FAQ are asking about that (probably because it's a clear and well-known rule and requires no clarification).

"At any point during the overlord player’s turn (not during a hero’s turn) , a hero may use his guard order to immediately “interrupt” the overlord player’s turn and make one attack (following all the normal rules for line of sight and attacking)." (p. 15)

Furthermore, the fact that you can't use a Guard order during your own turn is the only reason that any hero would ever remotely consider declaring either an Advance or Battle action (other than cards that specifically trigger on those actions). Your interpretation would make 50% of the actions in the game strictly inferior to another.

Antistone said:

I do not think the same friend. It is explaining that Guard orders can interrupt the overlord at any time no only relative to cards played on the overlord's turn. Later it explains how to use Guard orders with Dark Charm.

Mimic is a different Trap card, because it does not damage directly the heroes (page 11 rulebook). Mimic Spawns a monster, Beastman-chest, it´s only played on the overlord's turn (page 9 rulebook) and Activate monster also it´s only played on the overlord's turn (page 9 rulebook). This is like that because hero player’s turn is interrupts while on the overlord's turn it´s Spawn and Activate a Beastman-chest, after its activation, the hero's turn resumes.

F.A.Q., Page 8: Can guard interrupts before the first activation of a monster? Yes. -> Beastman-chest is activate immediately, therefore my Guard orders can interrupt the overlord.

Lordshinjo said:

I'm with Antistone. Context matters. You can't isolate an answer without taking into account the context in which it was offered.

The mimic-chest is also not a spawn.

The fact that the overlord plays a card and (following instructions on the card) activates a monster does NOT make it his turn. The overlord activates each monster he controls each turn, but that does NOT imply that he is forbidden from activating a monster at any other time, and it certainly doesn't mean that it somehow automatically becomes his turn any time anything allows him to activate a monster.

Similarly, using a Guard order to make an interrupt attack does NOT make it the hero's turn. It allows the hero to take an action during the overlord's turn, but it's still the overlord's turn.

Mimic is a Trap (Chest) card. Trap (Chest) cards are played when a hero opens a chest, which (normally) can only happen during a hero's turn.

Dark Charm, in contrast, is always played during the overlord's turn, because its trigger is "at the start of your turn".

We think differently. Mimic is a Trap (chest) card that it allows interrupts hero player’s turn for spawn and activate a Beastman-chest. Only spawn and activate is possible during the overlord’s turn (p. 8, 9 & 12 rulebook). The function of the Trap card is to interrupt the hero player’s turn, for the overlord player may play a single spawn and activate it immediately, only it is possible during the overlord´s turn, in none another moment is possible according to the rulebook. The text of the same Trap card says that "After its activation, the hero's turn resumes", it is like that because hero player’s turn is interrupts for the overlord player may play a single spawn and activate monster (only it is possible during the overlord´s turn) and later the hero's turn resumes because it returns to be the hero's turn after overlord player may play the overlord´s turn.

Pg. 11 & 12 Journeys in the Dark

Trap Cards
The overlord uses trap cards to deal damage directly to the heroes. The overlord player may play trap cards at any time as long as the triggering conditions on the card have been met . After playing a trap card and paying its threat cost, the overlord simply follows the instructions printed on the card, resolves its effects, and discards the card .

Neither the card nor the description for trap cards says that the turn changes. The card does not spawn anything. In order to spawn, you would need to use the spawn rules which state that you can't spawn within line of sight of heroes. You are simply placing the monster and activating it, both of which are instructions on the card. The activation of monsters is not limited to the Overlord's turn. Only playing spawn cards. Mimic is not a spawn card .

On a side question Lordshinjo, when a hero uses a guard order, do you suddenly consider it that hero's turn? If you do, that means he/she can use fatigue to gain MP and perform movement actions, like using a glyph. This could mean that a hero could pop out onto a glyph while in town using fatigue, shoot a monster, place a guard order. Then, on the Overlord's turn, use guard order, shoot monster or spend fatigue to go to town if attack would be futile. This would make it near impossible for the overlord to kill most heroes and make things infinitely harder for the Overlord. It would also make it so that all heroes essentially have Thalia's ability, which is already considered one of the most powerful abilities in the game.

Solarflaire makes some excellent points. If you turn this ruling around (because fair is fair) then every hero gains the special ability of two other heroes (using the glyph trick is functionally equivalent to Tatiana's Descent ability to return to town at the start of the OL's turn.) If every hero has those abilities then those two heroes functionally have none. It's the same reason why you have to be strict about not letting the hero change his declared action mid-turn (even if everything he did is still legal) - because if every hero can do that then Grey Ker no longer has a special ability.

I completely agree with Antistone and the rest. On top of all that, I still maintain that using a guard order to kill a mimic is pointless unless the hero who opened the chest was the last to act and he doesn't have an attack left. If there's any potential for this or another hero to attack the mimic using a regular action, then the guard order is better saved for spawns or other monsters the OL might move in on the party during his real turn. I don't know how other groups play, but our group almost always opens a chest with the first or second hero to act whenever possible. Not only does it allow the rest of the heroes to react to any traps that get played, but it also allows them to use the shiny new treasures they get out of it on this turn.

Not only are you misinterpreting the rules, Lordshinjo, but you're misinterpreting them in a way that no tactically sound hero party would need to employ (except perhaps in one or two corner cases.) Are you always the OL in your group? Are you arguing for a position that helps you kill the heroes more easily? =P

Solairflaire said:

The overlord uses trap cards to deal damage directly to the heroes . -> Mimic isn´t damage directly to the heroes. Mimic Spawns a monster, Beastman-chest, which can only happen during a overlord's turn (p. 8, 9 & 12 rulebook).

A hero that has placed a guard order may make an interrupt attack, a hero can not use fatigue to gain MP and perform movement actions, like using a glyph, becouse only he may make an interrupt attack, nothing more. (p. 14-15 rulebook).

Mimic doesn't spawn anything. The monster is already on the board. The card doesn't replace the chest with a monster - the chest *is* the monster.

mahkra said:

Mimic Spawn and Activate a monster, Beastman-chest, which can only happen during a overlord's turn (p. 8, 9 & 12 rulebook).

Mimic
Pay this card when a hero opens a chest. The chest is alive (this is spwan ), and its contents cannot be distributed until it is killed. Move the chest marker to an adjacent space. Treat it as a Beastman and activate it immediately. After its activation, the hero's turn resumes. If the chest is killed, the contents of the chest are immediately distributed.

Saying "this is spawn" does not in any way change the reality that Mimic has nothing to do with spawning monsters. Spawn is a term defined by the rules as bring monsters into play via spawn cards. You seem to want to confuse it with the English definition of bringing something to life. Since it appears that English is not your first language, that is an understandable mistake. However, it's not a valid rules interpretation.

Lordshinjo said:

Where does this " can only happen during a overlord's turn " idea come from? The rules I think you're referring to describe things that the overlord can do on his turn, but most of them don't say they can only happen on his turn.

Here's an example:
"The overlord player may activate each monster on the board once during his turn."
This says that activating monsters is allowed during the overlord's turn, but this does not say that activating monsters is only allowed during the overlord's turn. So there's no reason to assume that a card played during a hero turn would implicitly make it become the overlord's turn just because he's activating a monster.

I guess you could be referencing the following:
"Spawn cards are only played during step 2 of the overlord’s turn."
But note that this is talking about Spawn cards , so if a monster appeared on the board via some other means (such as a Trap card ), this rule is not relevant.***

*** Note that the Mimic card does not make a monster appear, so this is not even remotely relevant to the Mimic card.

Lordshinjo said:

Um, the card's type is written right there on the card . You can't argue that a card is one type or another based on what it does, because the type of the card cannot be called into question. Cards do whatever they do, but Mimic is explicitly labeled as a Trap (Chest) card, not a Spawn card. Therefore, it's a Trap (Chest) card, not a Spawn card. That's pretty straightforward.

Also, in mechanical terms, as numerous people have already pointed out, Mimic does not "spawn" anything . It doesn't add new figures to the board, it doesn't follow the line-of-sight rules for spawning, and it doesn't use the word "spawn." You don't have a leg to stand on, there.

Also, there is no absolute rule that spawning can only happen on the overlord's turn. That's the triggering condition for playing a spawn card, so that's normally the only time that it happens, but that in no way prevents a card or a special rule from spawning monsters at another time.

Thank you for everything. As we think differently, I have written to FFG in order that they clarify it.

Lordshinjo said:

Don't hold your breath for a response.

This could be a question for the next faq. I have sent 3 emails to FFG, and they never replied me.

I think the majority of the forum was in agreement that Guard orders can only be used during the OL's turn.

This should've sealed the topic, really, but people like to debate.