why play advance or battle orders?

By KurtFritz, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Question: Why would anybody ever play an “advance” order, which allows the hero to move up to a number of spaces equal to his speed and may make 1 attack during his turn? Instead wouldn’t you always play a “ready” order that allows you to move and then to play an “aim” order, allowing you to re-roll any number of dice after rolling for the attack?

As a matter of fact the same is true for the “battle” order, why not “ready” the hero, make an attack and then play an “aim” order allowing you to do a second attack, but this time with the re-roll option?

Thanks for enlightening me!

KurtFritz said:

Question: Why would anybody ever play an “advance” order, which allows the hero to move up to a number of spaces equal to his speed and may make 1 attack during his turn? Instead wouldn’t you always play a “ready” order that allows you to move and then to play an “aim” order, allowing you to re-roll any number of dice after rolling for the attack?

As a matter of fact the same is true for the “battle” order, why not “ready” the hero, make an attack and then play an “aim” order allowing you to do a second attack, but this time with the re-roll option?

Thanks for enlightening me!

It seems you have understood that when you place an Aim Order, you make an aimed attack. This is not correct.

In the rules it's written that the Aim Order token is discarded "to make an attack an aimed attack" , not "to make an aimed attack". Discarding the order allows you to turn a normal attack into an attack where you can reroll dice.

For this reason you need to have an available attack to spend. Usually, your best bet when you want to Aim is:

- choose a ready action

- place the Aim order in the first half of your action

- attack in the second half, discarding the token to make the attack an aimed attack

Aim won't work in most other situations, since you lose the order when you take wounds or move. Not very wise to place the order and wait until the beginning of your next turn to use it.

Keep in mind that "Advance", "Run", "Battle" and "Ready" are actions that a Hero player must declare at the beginning of his turn, after adjusting/refreshing equipment. "Aim", "Dodge", "Guard" and "Rest" are orders , placed during a Ready action. Attacks are only performed if you choose to either Advance or Battle, you have no other way to make attacks in this game (exception: Special abilities and skills that grant you extra attacks in specific conditions).

Thanks for the help!