I was just reading recently a post over at BoardGameGeek regarding the use of Stand and Fight to bring Gandalf back into play when something rather interesting came up. Apparently one of the members there asked FFG for clarification regarding the use of the card and in particular the part of the text that's in parenthesis, and received this rather definite response from the designer:

Q: Can "Stand and fight" be used to return a neutral ally to play? the text (the chosen ally can be from any sphere) causes confusion.
A: No, a neutral card does not qualify as belonging to a sphere; therefore Stand and Fight cannot target neutral allies.

Nate French
Senior Game Designer
Fantasy Flight Games.

I believe this will change both a lot of peoples current use of this card as well as their deckbuilding ideas, and so I thought I would pass this info on over to this site for discussion.

Wow!!!! This will change a lot of things.......... Stand and fight cannot put back Gandalf....... Actually i think is better. Sometimes is so much Gandalf around with all this cards like Sneak attack and Stand and fight. This make game more difficult for me is fine.

Wow! That is a devastating blow. I have to admit that I missed that interpretation. Strictly speaking it is correct as Gandalf doesn't belong to any sphere. However, you could argue that 'neutral' belongs to all spheres. As this has been cleared up by Nate himself, we must abide by that ruling. This will mean that there is now one less way of getting repeated Gandalfs. I wonder if it originally was meant to include neutrals, but they saw a chance to get back at all the people who complained the game was too easy now. Well spotted anyway. Cheers!

Awesome. I mean, it sucks, as the best decks out there abuse Gandalf, but as that gets very boring I like this ruling. Makes things more difficult

This sounds more like an errata , not a ruling, but I'm fine with that. People will be more open to check new strategies.

I'm not arguing with the ruling, it is what it is. But I don't see anything in the card that strictly forbids the return of a neutral card. The part about an ally belonging to any sphere is only a clarification to show that the card can be used to bring back a tactics ally, for example. The wording is that an ally can be from any sphere, not that is has to be from a sphere. It should not preclude the return of a neutral ally as neutral allies can be played by any sphere. Fortunately, I have not used this card too much to return Gandalf, so it won't be that much of a blow.

The one part that really annoys me is that this is a well known combo that players have been using from the beginning. Yet, FFG has not bothered to put out the clarification to stop this error. In fact, if the person who started this thread would not have been kind enough to share it here, those of us who don't go on that site, would never know. FFG should first and foremost, be a little more proactive and communicate to players when a well known combo is invalid. Second, they should do it here, in the official site, rather than an outside site.

Titan said:

I think so too. FFG must see this forum more often to clarify and correct.

guciomir said:

If it were an errata then the text on the card would have changed. This is a clarification in the rules that the keyword "Neutral" doesn't belong to any sphere of influence.

I know this has been brought up before...but it sure would be nice if we had sub forums around here to help keep things like important rulings organizied.

Interesting. I certainly didn't interpret the card that way but I can see it from that angle I guess.

Poor Gandalf. We're like a bunch of young hobbits begging him for fireworks.

Nate reads this forum, I'm sure. It's just FFG's policy that staff doesn't generally comment on these forums. Nate's earlier comment was posted on BGG by the person who submitted a rules question.

When the next FAQ comes out (expecting this any day now), expect this ruling to be in it.

dbeman said:

In the EDGE forums (Spanish distributor of this game) it have two subforums, one for deckbuilding and other for rules questions. I hope FFG do the same.

This makes sense to me and I was always curious as to if that was the case or not, considering Gandalf does not have a sphere symbol on his card. This makes spirit strategy and threat reduction slightly more difficult but it suits the flavor of Gandalf in my opinion, he is rather unpredictable.

This is not the only unclear ruling in my opinion, Some say that Actions can be played between enemy attacks and player attacks however according to the phase chart in the rule book this is not the case. At least not as far as I interpret the phase structure. This makes Aragorn slightly less powerful as he cannot be used in combo with unexpected courage to effectively take part in all the main phases of the game. I thought that this combo really suited him but the phases flow chart expressly states that actions are played after shadow cards are dealt to enemies, then all of combat is resolved, then actions can be played again after combat has fully been resolved.

A bit off topic but I have to say that for this game to find a viable organized play niche FFG and the designers need to clarify alot of glaring rules inconsistencies.

The Strolling Bones said:

I agree with a lot of your main points. However, the rulebook explicitly states that actions may be played between combat phases, so by not allowing this you are restricting yourself needlessly.

dbeman said:

Actually, this is an errata. No matter what Nate says. The card text reads "Action: Choose an ally with a printed cost of X in any player's discard pile. Put that ally into play under your control. (The chosen ally can belong to any sphere of influence.)" As the text outside of the Brackets does not forbid to use allies of other spheres or neutral allies it has to be text in the brackets that does so. However, the text in the brackets is merely an allowance as the words "can belong to" do not imply "must belong to". It is logically not correct to assume that it does or even to say that I could be read as such.

Agree that this is pretty close to an erratum rather than a simple clarification.

This ruling doesn't make too much difference, it would have been devastating but now we have Born Aloft...

ClydeCloggie said:

Seconded.

/wolf

I just can join the main argumentation here: for me it is an errata

The braccets gave an explanation on how to read the main text. But in the end it is good that only sphere characters can be the valid target of the card. I like the change. This will ad more challenge. And please FFG put it in the next clarification/errata release.

Well, at least the ruling is consistent with other LCGs, e.g. how neutral cards are treated in CoC. Still, it wouldn't have occured to me that it had any effect on 'Stand and Fight'. If that's really how the card was supposed to work, it's an extremely poor wording.

As there are only 4 spheres of influence in the game and Gandalf does not belong to any sphere Stand and Fight is worded perfectly. It is less an errata and more clearfication.

I would say that, at the moment, it is a clarification, as the text on the card itself has not changed. All we got was the intended interpretation from the Lead Designer. However, it should become an official errata, because the card is indeed poorly worded and it does not readily forbid it's use to return neutral allies. The fact that, for months, the consensus on these forums was that it could, should prove that it is misleading. It simply asks for quite a leap of deduction to figure out that "can belong to any sphere" should also be interpreted as "must belong to a sphere".

Dwnhmcntryboy said:

In the English language, parentheses are used to add supplementary information. When used correctly, a reader should be able to ignore material enclosed in parentheses without changing the logical meaning of the content. So, if there were somewhere in the rulebook that said you can only target ally cards in the discard pile if they belonged to a sphere of influence, then we would agree with you, but it does not say that.

Further, the word "may" is permissive, not preventative, so even without the parentheses, the language does not match the ruling.

Finally, if the card had been printed with the anti-Gandalf intention in mind, the author would not have even needed to add the last sentence. Instead, it would read:

Action: Choose a non-neutral ally with a printed cost of X in any player's discard pile. Put that ally into play under your control.

So regardless of whether you try to read it through strict interpretation of English or by the writer's intentions, you would reach the conclusion that neutral cards are permitted. Therefore, this ruling is in fact errata, not clarification.

Incidentally, I'm very disappointed Fantasy Flight has not shown any willingness to offer corrections for their errors. This is not a CCG, so I see no excuse not to offer reprints. I have contacted them twice, using two different methods, a month apart, politely inquiring if they would print a correction for the Nazgul of Dol Guldur, and they have not even been polite enough to respond.

To contrast, Czech Games Edition, a much smaller company, mailed me a corrected card, with a less significant error, all the way from the Czech Republic.

So I am now boycotting all Fantasy Flight products, which has at least cost them a few hundred dollars in sales so far.

Meh I still play stand and fight with Gandalf until the FAQ comes out. I have all but blown my nose in the unofficial FAQ as a few too many things come from people who heard that someone related loosely to Nate French asked him and he said....... Yeah wait for the FAQ.

kecr said:

So I am now boycotting all Fantasy Flight products, which has at least cost them a few hundred dollars in sales so far.

I'm sure this will (not) greatly impress FFG.

Official FAQ update: Stand and Fight cannot be played on neutral allies.

Fair enough, no more Stand and Fight on Gandalf then