Hidden Vale Pass Questions

By macdaddy123d4, in 2. AGoT Rules Discussion

Posted at

Two Questions...

1. When you initiate a Challenge, do you have to first declare attacker(s) that are in play first and then use Hidden Vale Pass to add Clansman attacker(s) to the challenge OR Can you initiate a challenge and then use Hidden Vale Pass to add your attacker(s) to the challenge?

2. And when you initiate a Challenge..lets say an Intrigue challenge, can you use Hidden Vale Pass to add Clansman attacker(s) that don't share the same Challenge Icon or do they have to share the same Challenge Icon?

Posted at

Hidden Vale Pass
Any Phase: Kneel Hidden Vale pass to put a Clansman character into play from your hand, knelt as an attacker during any challenge you have initiated. At the end of the challenge, discard that character from play if it is still in play.

macdaddy123d4 said:

1. When you initiate a Challenge, do you have to first declare attacker(s) that are in play first and then use Hidden Vale Pass to add Clansman attacker(s) to the challenge OR Can you initiate a challenge and then use Hidden Vale Pass to add your attacker(s) to the challenge?

So, in order to use Hidden Vale Pass, a challenge must already have started. Both announcing the type and declaring at least one attacker must happen in order to start a challenge. Therefore, you cannot initiate a challenge by using Hidden Vale Pass to put a character into play from your hand as the only attacker. You must have at least one attacker already on the table before you can use Hidden Vale Pass.

macdaddy123d4 said:

2. And when you initiate a Challenge..lets say an Intrigue challenge, can you use Hidden Vale Pass to add Clansman attacker(s) that don't share the same Challenge Icon or do they have to share the same Challenge Icon?
declared
Posted at

ktom said:


This one seems unintuitive to a lot of people, but the challenge icon is only checked when the character is declared as an attacker or defender. Hidden Vale Pass jumps the character into play as an attacker without actually going through the mechanics of declaring the character as an attacker. As such, the challenge icon is never checked, so it doesn't matter what the challenge type is or what icons the character you use Hidden Vale Pass on has; it only matters that there is a challenge going on that you initiated and the "jumping" character has the Clansman trait.

Interesting. I'd never realized that. So I could use Hidden Vale Pass to jump in the Burned Men during an Intrigue challenge and have both their strength and their deadly count (as well as the claim bump, if applicable)? And I can do this after my opponent has declared defenders, right?

Posted at

Yes and Yes. "Jumping" in the Deadly character will likely mean you get off a kill effect during the challenge, and make your opponent wary of defending future challenges while the HVP is standing.

Posted at

ktom said:

This one seems unintuitive to a lot of people, but the challenge icon is only checked when the character is declared as an attacker or defender. Hidden Vale Pass jumps the character into play as an attacker without actually going through the mechanics of declaring the character as an attacker. As such, the challenge icon is never checked, so it doesn't matter what the challenge type is or what icons the character you use Hidden Vale Pass on has; it only matters that there is a challenge going on that you initiated and the "jumping" character has the Clansman trait.

This did indeed seem counterintuitive to me at first, but it becomes pretty clear if you compare the wording on HVP ("knelt as an attacker during any challenge you have initiated") to the wording on LoW-Catelyn ("knelt as a defender during an Intrigue or Power challenge initiated against you") (emphases mine).

P.S. I just noted that, if you copy the Intrigue and Power icons from the Dabbler onto this board, they get changed to the words "Intrigue" and "Power". Nifty!