I would like to hear a oficial version how can I assign damage to the battlefield zone on capitol when there are Swordmasters of Hoeth in play in Battlefield? Swordmasters of Hoeth are having a special action in that zone - they cancel all combat damage. So what can I do? In the rulebook is said that I must assign damage equal to the HP of all defending units in a zone before I can apply damage to the capitol. And in the FAQ is said that

Q: How exactly does assigning combat damage to defending units work?
A: When assigning damage to defending units, the attacking player must assign enough damage to destroy the defending units before being able to deal damage on the opponent’s capital. This means that the attacker must take into account the unit’s hit points and any damage cancellation effects that are already active before damage is assigned. The attacker is allowed to assign more damage than is necessary to destroy a unit in anticipation of more damage cancellation effects if he so chooses.

Ok, and now my interpretation - Swordmaster have only 3 HP as I remember, so when I'm dealing 7 damage I must assign 3 of them on the Swordmasters and 4 go to the capitol, am I right? Or the Swordmasters are a prefect defence shield and when they are in the Battlefield - this zone can't be damaged by attacking units?

If the attackers don't somehow do uncancellable damage, Swordmasters are impenetrable, you can attack with 50 dmg, 1 Swordmasters of Hoeth unit will suck them all up, 0 will go to capital.

Mob Up or Bloodthirster pretty much cancels the swordmasters abilities.

Ok, thanks for anwsering. now I know I just have to get rid of them with some Tactic, Support or Indirect Damage to get to the capitol.

I even have some cool idea how to do this.

Don't forget, it's only combat damage that they absorb. Direct damage cards like flames of tzeentch among others can still hit them. Along with counterstrike!

Isn't counterstike damage combat damage?

Sercoach said:

Yes, but it is also uncancellable.

These guys have caused untold discussion at our club, I always thought they would absorb all the CC damage

a litlle question add :

I defend my quest zone with an unit and use an action to redirect the 2 first damage on an other unit i controle. If i use it on the swordmaster (in battlezone of course), their ability will be use or not (to cancel the damage) ?

thanks for your answer...

If it will be efficient, The Lizardmens will have a good ally in the HE

Gourry

So, if I have a Dragonmage on the Defend Tor Aendris quest, I can get a similar effect for all my zones not just the Battlefield? Of course, Dragonmage does take 1 damage whenever it is assigned damage, so it can do this a limited number of times, but High Elves have healing abilities. This also makes Dragonmage more susceptable to Spawn of Itzl than Swordmasters of Hoeth.

I actually built a deck with that idea and it frustrated the crap out of my opponents. Letting one unit defend the whole table. And don't just think healing. Order now has nine cards capable of sending a unit back to the hand. When the dragonmage is about to die, put him into hand and him right back down with full health! Dragonmage wakening will also let him hang around a few more turns before he dies.

No, redirecting damage to the Swordmaster doesn't count as combat damage.

And yes, dragon mage + defend tor aendris = awesome. It just takes a while to set up. But Dragonmage + Gromril armour + defend tor aendris = win.

Sining said:

Not even if you redirect combat damage? Does the damage type change somewhere in between? I mean, if I attack and opponent defends with Warrior Priests, redirecting damage to my Swordmasters, why would it become non-combat damage?

Well, in the rules, under Non-Combat damage, it states that 'outside of combat, some card effects also deal damage to units or to a players capital.' So it depends on how loosely you want to define combat because it seems to read that other than fighting each other, all other damage is considered non-combat damage

Sining said:

I'm with Dam on this one. I think redirected combat damage is still combat damage. For the rules you quoted, if you are resolving combat damage, I would say you are definitely still "in combat". I've made this same argument before, but the word redirect typically means "changing target" rather than "changing source." i.e. if I redirect a bullet, and it hits you, its still a bullet. I asked for clarification on this in the FAQ, but nothing yet. With the release of March of the Damned, its going to be a much more common question.

Bear in mind the errata to Shrine to Nurgle. "Combat Damage" is obviously different to "damage during combat". Combat damage is damage assigned directly as a result of combat, redirected damage is caused by the card effect that redirected it rather than the combat results.

The Swordmasters' ability does not affect redirected damage.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply at all that any damage dealt during combat is "combat damage". Looking at the FAQ for Redirecting Damage, I think you are right. It explicitly says, "Some card effects allow for damage to be redirected from one source to another." If the source is now Warrior Priests, then it makes sense that the damage isn't combat damage anymore.

I had assumed that source was a typo when I first read the FAQ, since that sentence doesn't really make sense otherwise. They are basically using the word "redirected" in a way that its definition doesn't support. But, until they change it, I think you're right.

Do you have the old FAQ or did I miss on an update (I have v1.2)? Mine reads:

"Some card effects allow for damage
to be redirected from one target to
another." (p. 10)

With "target" in red, so a change from 1.1 I think.

Dam said:

Oh, cool. I retract my entire previous post then. I had "target" in mine ever since 1.1, because I was so sure that was a typo that I just changed it in my local copy. In hindsight, this was a bad idea and caused untold confusion for me going forward.

ffgfan said:

I will use the golden rule and the rule for assigning damage to answer this. The golden rule states that "If the rules of the text of the card contradicts the text of the rule book, the rules on the card take precedence. The Sword Masters of Hoeth "Cancel all combat damage assigned to this unit." (in the battlefield) Assigning damage (out of the rule book itself): "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."

In this case there is no contradiction and the number of damage that is assigned to an undamaged SMoH is 3 damage and 4 would go through as you had in your example. SMoH cancels all combat damage assigned to it but only 3 damage (max) can be assigned to the SMoH. It is equal to hit points and not to destroy the unit. There was a typo somewhere in the mix. This might not be exactly how the official answer would be worded but I am sure this is how it would be answered.

Brass said:

FAQ changed the combat damage wording, it's now enough to destroy, not equal to remaining HP. There has been an official question asked that if one player attacks with 20 Power and another player defends with just SoH, attacker must assign all 20 dmg to the SoH, who still won't be destroyed.

ChaosChild said:

I asked Dormouse about this, and he said:

"Redirected damage is still of whatever form that generated it if it happens before the damage has been applied to the unit or zone. Once the damage has successfully made it onto to the unit or zone an effect that moves the damage would make it non-combat damage."

So this is pretty definitive confirmation that redirected (not moved) combat damage is still considered combat damage.