The following situation came up in a game last night:

In the final challenge of the game Eddard, with Ice attached, was attacking, along with a horde of other characters.

The opponent kneels several defenders, among them a Maester with the Tin Link.

The question is: does the response of the Tin Link get resolved first, or can I use Ice before it goes off?

My reading of the timing indicates that save/cancel responses have a preferred (and faster) timing window, but regular responses get played in the window following the declaration of defenders, in any order. The only special thing about responses is that they can only be played at this point, and not any other time. So I should be able to use Ice before it goes away, since I was first player and get to play the first effect in the window.

MikeS said:

You are correct that as First Player, you would get the First Response during the step for Responses in the "declare defenders" window - but you would be limited to Response effects. Ice is NOT a Response. It is a standard "Challenges" player action. So, since you cannot trigger any other standard actions until after all the Responses to the last action have been triggered, Tin Link, in your example, will always come before Ice, regardless of who is First Player.

Again, all actions must resolve completely before a new actions can be triggered. Responses are NOT actions in their own right, but rather considered to be part of the action that they are Responding to. So using "Tin Link" is considered to be part of kneeling the Maester character as a defender, and thus will always come before the opportunity to use Ice after defenders are declared.