Its been clarified many a time over that you cant use things like BCS to get an extra challenge off in the epic phase, since there is no mechanic arrow to cycle around in the flowchart. If you want to read it there is a giant thread on it, its why War of Five Kings no longer says what it has printed.

Fully aware of this, what I am wondering is if there is a player action window before you declare your attackers and start a challenge? To play things like Nightmare, or say... use my Shadow Politics to get an intrigue in before the actual epic phase framework challenge as outlined by the epic event takes place. Its slightly different than the BCS situation because its not granting you another challenge (ie, one in addition to) but actually giving you the framework to make an intrigue challenge, or another player to do it, as a player action that normally wouldn't be capable of doing thing. Its usable in any phase (except not in the middle of challenge already happening) so if there is a player action window there, can I use Shadow Politics to get off another intrigue challenge in this phase?

I expect a no, but a man can dream. I think it would be a nice way to catch my casual players off guard, for the luls.

Mathias Fricot said:

However, if you do use Shadow Politics, you will not be able to initiate the challenge granted for the Epic phase because it is no longer a "single" challenge, even if it is of a different type.

The whole timing thing is a longer, detailed, technical explanation for those people who cannot get past the basic fact that "single" in the wording of all the Epic Battle cards means "one challenge, and one challenge only, by any means."

I had figured as much as the best case scenario. The cap of one still applies. But this does give me a way of getting in an extra intrigue instead of a power or military if my opponent hits me with Battle of Astapor or some such nonsense. Because the epic events specify "this [epic] challenge" as the one you have to get the extra reward for, I wouldn't be drawing three cards off of the shadow-politics-intrigue challenge.

This might be interesting.

Well, and it wouldn't be outside of a TO's purview to say that "a single military challenge" means the Epic Battle card trumps the effect of Shadow Politics, not letting you declare a non-military challenge, or more than one challenge total.

Its a mucky area, but I doubt this situation would arise in any serious play

ktom said:

Hi,

I'm jumping in the discussion because I'm surprised by this sentence.

I remember a discussion that occurred on old tzumainn's site about Epic phase and at this time a response from Nate has been quoted, in which Nate specifically said "there are no "player action windows" during the epic phase outside of those that occur in the normal resolution of the challenge."

For information the whole message from Nate was (this was posted before November 16, 2009):

Hi Ulrich,

The phrase "during which each player may initiate a
single INTRIGUE challenge" defines the entire phase.
Essentially, there are no player action windows
before or after these challenges, and the only
actions players would be permitted to take are
those that would be taken during the resolution of
the challenge. Thus you would be prevented from
playing making use of the additional challenge from
Shadow Politics, because:

1) A challenge cannot be initiated during the
resolution of another challenge.

(3.36) Additional Challenges through Card
Effects
A player can never initiate an additional challenge
during the resolution of a prior challenge.
For example: Shadow Politics (KLE F18)
allows a player to initiate an additional #
challenge as a standard player action. This
action cannot be taken during the resolution of
another challenge.

2) There are no "player action windows" during the
epic phase outside of those that occur in the
normal resolution of the challenge.

Nate French
Game Design and Development
Fantasy Flight Games

(Sorry, I don't remember who Ulrich was)

Is Nate's statement still valid? Or is there something that has changed since this time?

Comm said:

So can you or can you not take player actions prior to declaring challenges in the epic phase?

Apparently you cannot.

FATMOUSE said:

I really need to put together an unofficial "official and complete" timing chart....

Wouldn't that mean you can't bring cards out of Shadows at the beginning of an epic phase? I've alway considered them to be player actions due the to behavior of responses to cards coming out of Shadows. The only difference is the rules limit how (one opportunity per player) and when (before any other player actions or framework actions - except "X phase begins" - initiate) you can take them.

FATMOUSE said:

At the beginning of each phase, the game rules give you the opportunity to bring a card out of Shadows. You can choose to do so or not, and you can choose which one to bring out of Shadows, but the game effectively forces you to make that choice. So having to make a choice one way or the other happens whether you want it to or not - although that choice can be "nothing," which has the same result as never having the choice in the first place.

It's like Stealth. You have to choose a character to bypass with Stealth every time you attack - but one of the legal choices open to you is "no one." Functionally, it's the same as choosing whether or not to resolve Stealth, but in game terms, the technical difference is important.

FATMOUSE said:

ktom said:

How can you know that it's not "rare occasion where he has told 9 people that X is the particular outcome, and the 10th that Y is the particular outcome"? Did you contact him?

Epic phases entered game in 2007 and after all those years it's not in FAQ. It was obvious for everyone that players can take actions during each phase - Nate should be aware of this. It is very important in case of Siege Epic decks. If my Syrio is "immune" to You've Killed the Wrong Dwarf! and Orphan, then it's huge difference. Not to mention Narrow Escape tricks.