The Rules said :

"Start of Battle Abilities: If the attacker has any Tactics cards
or other abilities that may be used at the “start of battle” or
during his turn, he must use them at this point if he is going
to do so. The defender then has the opportunity to use any
number of “start of battle” abilities and cards."

Is this rule also valid during the rounds of combat and at the "Tally Strenght" phase?

If the defender and the attacker both have a "Rally Cry" or a "Battle Cry", who should announce first? What is the best way to manage this?

daniel78 said:

daniel78 said:

For end-of-battle stuff, I think it would make sense for whoever is LOSING to announce first. The player who is winning would have no reason to play those cards to win the battle. If the loser plays one, then the winner would probably want to play one also.

I think that's how I would play it, barring any ruling to the contrary from Corey.

Any chance to have an official answer from Corey? Can you please ask him Sigma?

Thanks in advance.

I've submitted the question. We'll see how he responds. My guess is he'll say the same thing as I did, but I could be wrong (I certainly have been before).

Thanks Sigma, let's wait...

Here's the response I got from Corey:

Q: In the rulebook for Battles, it says prior the battle the Attacker does any abilities or Tactics cards first, then the defender.

Is this true AFTER the battle as well? For instance, if both sides have Rally Cry or Battle Cry cards, they could both feasibly wish to use them. However, the rules for post-battle card play is not specified.

I think this may have been intentional, that any player can play a Tactics Card in whatever order. This makes sense to me because generally, the player LOSING the battle will be more likely to want to play such a card. Thus, the way I see it, whoever is losing would play a card so that he is not losing, and then the other player could react, etc, until neither side plays a card.

Is this the correct way to handle it? Or should it still go in Attacker first, Defender sec ond order like pre-combat card play? (I think this would give the defender more of an advantage, since the Attacker may have to try and guess if he needs to play those power-boosting cards).

A: Cards such as "Rally Cry" may be played at any time during the battle. Therefore, if my opponent played a "Rally Cry", I could respond by playing "Battle Cry".

So it looks like there's no real set order that must be followed. Realistically, the player who is losing is going to be the one to want to play them at the time; the winner won't usually want to unless the loser plays a card to change the results, thus introducing the need the play the card to win (or unless they really want to burn a card for some reason).