Hi There,

when a stronghold is left without units - what happens when enemy units move into the hex with the stronghold. Is it automatically turned or does it fight for itself?

bests,

zed

zolledine said:

The combat still occurs. The attacker must beat a static strength of 5 to take the hex. Your figures represent army units, but the stronghold still has a standing force inside even when all your plastic is elsewhere. Note that both players can still use Tactics cards in this fight, so the outcome might not be as clear-cut as it seems.

The same is true of an opponent entering one of your home realm hexes even if it's completely empty. Home realm hexes are always controlled by you unless an enemy force has taken it. The defending strength is zero, but you may be able to fend off a small enemy incursion with Tactics cards.

In both cases, fate cards will be drawn for any standing units the attacker brings in. This means necromancers have a chance to raise reanimates even when there's no enemy units present. Some players also insist on drawing the cards just to burn them off the fate deck, since that's how the rules technically work.

You always want to be careful bringing in too few units into an "empty" stronghold or home realm; while it may seem that only a few units are needed, if the defender has something like Summon Lightning, it can really hurt; if you only brought in a single unit, then you'd lose the battle.

great! thanks for the replies!