I know these cards have been talked about before, and I too jumped on the band wagon of them being poorly worded.

Here's how I played it in my first couple of games:

Beastmaster simply gets dealt 2 shadow cards instead of 1
Chieftan attacks first time with 3, then next with 5, etc.

However, over the weekend, I realised that I'd probably been playing the Chieftan wrong. I now think he gets the resource token as soon as he attacks, since it is the same wording. So he is declared as an attacker, he gets the resource token straight away.

Both these cards need clarifying and possibly rewording. When exactly is "After the attack"? As it is declared as an attacker or after the attack is resolved. If the latter, then adding an extra shadow card to the Beastmaster after the attack has resolved is a bit pointless

I think the main argument for not playing him that way (even though the wording seems that you should) is that it immediately makes him one of the most powerful enemies in the core set.

I think he is pretty powerful anyway if you don't deal with or nulify him immediately, but doing 5 attack strength on the first round just seems too strong.

I'm hoping FFG rule it as poor wording on one of the cards!

...because i'm scared what will happen to my heroes if we do find out he really is that powerful...

Isn't english wording explicit? It says AFTER he attacks - so it assumes that his attack must have finished BEFORE applying those resources.

In Polish edition it could be misleading as it literally says WHEN he attacks.... Could have whipped the translator....

I personally find the wording on Cheiftan Ufthak very clear.

You resolve his attack completely, and once damage is done (if any), you put a resource token on his card. He will then get +2 to his attack NEXT combat phase.

As for the Beastmaster, I deal him a shadow card as normal, resolve his attack, and once damage is done (i.e. AFTER the attack (as stated on the card)), draw a second shadow card - if this card says the attacker gets +1 to its attack (or something along those lines) then this is ignored as the attack is already over and damage dealt (breath a sigh of relief that shadow card is burned with no effect). Unfortuntately, a lot of shadow effects do other nasty things (such as force you to remove attachments, raise your threat, remove quest tokens, etc.) and you will quite often by impacted by this as a result of the beastmaster's second shadow card (at least that happens in my experience - but I could just be unlucky!!!)

Hope this helps to clarify.

Silver Rule suggests that this is omission.

If he BM was to get two cards in the proper combat phase, ir should be written for example like this:

Forced: WHEN Dol Guldur Beastmaster attacks, deal it 1 additional shadow card .

But to make it sound the way You interpret it it should sound like this.

Forced: After Dol Guldur Beastmaster HAVE ATTACKED, deal it AND RESOLVE 1 additional shadow card.

As spoken with the Silver Rule -> first way is much closer to it.

Sky said:

I read all of these effects as "When" rather than "After". If you assume its "After" then the explicit wording means the ability could trigger any time that turn, as long as it's after the effect occurs. FFG used this exact same wording on Warhammer Invasion, and then had to issue errata on it to change all instances of "after" to "when". It seems odd that they would make the same mistake again, especially since Nate French designed both games.

So for Chieftan, I assume he attacks for 5 the first time he attacks.

Entropy42 said:

This is how I'd rule until hearing otherwise. The key is the wording of the card. The card states, "Forced: After Chieftan Ufthak attacks, place 1 resource token on him." and not "Forced: After Chieftan Ufthak's attack resolves, place 1 resource token on him." See the difference?

I think this one is really hard to understand. I think we should less stick to words and more to game mechanics in order to determine how to play this guy.

After is just too vague, so it could mean immediately after the attack is declared and before damage is dealt, or it could simply mean once the attack steps are over (meaning he will attack stronger every new round).

I strongly believe it to be the latter one. So the first attack will be with 3. If you try to imagine what ffg itended it makes most sense to play the card that way. Otherwise it would way too strong (turn 2 an attack with 7!?). After all this card is in the very first introductory scenario.

In general it seems helpful if ffg would further sub-divide the phases and give clear names to all steps. That way card text can be written more precisesly.

faith_star83 said:

It's been confirmed that the polish version has the word "when", and although using After in the the way you describe works for Ufthak, it then causes issue with DGB who has the same text structure on his card (the word After).

I do agree that attacking on the first round with a 5, and second round 7 is really strong for an introductory scenario, but that seems to be the way the card was intended to be used, until we hear otherwise

This is quite an interesting discussion. Actually in the german version the two card effects are worded completely different.

The Beastmaster reads: "Wenn der Bestienmeister angreift..." translated "When the beastmaster attacks"

whereas Ufthack reads: "lege einen Ressourcenmarker auf Ufthack nachdem er angegriffen hat" - translated "after he has attacked"

so we played that the beastmaster gets two shadow cards and Ufthack gets his first token after his first attack with a strength of 3

of course it could be that the translation into german is wrong but for me these effects make sense that way

Candacis said:

Right, that's it. I quit!

Seems this one will run and run until the official FAQ is released. I'll leave the answer as it is in the unofficial FAQ, because currently in English, both cards say After, and so both effects should occur at the same time, in theory.

I bet at some point in the future we'll end up playing with the German version of the cards, though....

pumpkin said:

On the other hand, Spanish version says exactly the same as English one. Both cards use the same wording, so we have exactly the same confusion.

Candacis said:

Well for me the problem is solved: As I am native German I'll just stick with that!

As Candacis says there is no room for mistakes in the German version, since it clearly states after for Ufthak and when for Beastmaster. Besides, putting away words / language and considering mechanics / gameplay, this is the single most reasonable way to play those cards. They guys at ffg probably laugh their hats off at the creative ways we try to interprete the cards But I think especially for card games it is essential to clear up especially timing question with a good keyword concept right from the beginning. I did expect ffg to do this better considering their experience in producing card games.