I have been thinking and reading some rules based on the current campaign I am playing with some friends.

I am a the Beastman Lord and was thinking far ahead to the final battle between my avatar and the heroes. I have read the FAQ stating that the clones are considered to have the same order placed as the Beastman Lord himself.

However, I found some things to be a little vague. First, rules text:

Shadow Clones
When your Avatar is put into play, place two normal Beastman figures adjacent to it to represent your shadow clones. These shadow clones may activate as normal, and have the same wounds, armor, and abilities as your Avatar, except that they do not have Command. Your Avatar cannot be affected by any attack until both clones have been killed.

FAQ
When placing an order, all of the Beastman Lord's clones
are assumed to have the same order. In the instance of
Guard, once one of the models, Beastman Lord or Clone,
makes an attack, the Guard order is used up.

So my questions are:

1, It says that the clones activate as normal. Normal what? Normal for a regular monster or normal as in the Avatar itself? This may not be that simple because it also states that they gain all the abilities of the Avatar itself.

2, If the Beastman Lord Places an AIM order on himself, according to the FAQ the clones will also have the AIM order. Does the Aim order go away if they move? Or - in other words, will they no longer be considered to be aimed if they move?

Jonny WS said:

1. A normal avatar, since that is what they are, effectively. They are clones, with all the abilities, so they are Avatars more than monsters.

2. Trickier. I think there is no clear direction in the rules or FAQ. I would recommend, I think, that they individually keep the Aim orders, and can individually lose them due to movement etc, but they all lose them the moment any one of them uses it.

Is there some reason why you would ever use an Aim order? A Battle or Ready-Guard (not to mention Ready-Dodge) is almost always better, usually much better. It isn't like a hero where attacks can have greatly differing values by spending resources on them, so a heavily resourced Aim action can be better than a Battle action.

Normally, I would agree with you that the Aim order is weak for an avatar. However, if the clones can benefit from it and do not lose it when they move or make an attack, then they can effectively do a battle action and have both attacks aimed. Which, could be very strong.

I will bring this up with my group and see what they say.

Always interesting to see how so many things can come up when a simple little rule is changed or added.

Jonny WS said:

I don't see how you get that?

Why would they no use lose it (all, the same as the Guard order) when used to make an Aimed attack, or lose their own (not others) when they move?

It is the way I am reading it.

The clones are assumed to have the same order as the avatar.

They do not get to place any orders on themselves, but can benefit from orders placed by the avatar himself. In the case of guard orders, only one of the figures can make the attack.

So the way I am reading and understanding this is that if the Beastman Lord does a ready action, and places an aim order then does nothing else the clones are assumed to have the same order as well, and will continue to have it under all the conditions associated with the aim order. If the clones go second, after the Avatar itself, then they will still be assumed to have the aim order if they move a space because the avatar did not move a space, suffer any damage, or use the order to make an aimed attack.

So, to make an example of how I am reading and understanding this:

Avatar does his turn, does a ready action and places an aim order. Done.

Clone#1 goes next, declares an advance action and moves next to a hero and makes an aimed attack because it is still assumed to have the aim order.

Clone#2 follows with a battle action and makes two aimed attacks because it is still assumed to have the aim order.

Jonny WS said:

Why would you not assume that the Guard example holds for Aim as well?
And why would you assume that the clones don't lose 'their' Aim when they move?
They're only actually assumed to have the same order when placing it , not necessarily throughout the turn.

We basically have two 'extra' rules.
When the Avatar places an order, they all get it.
When any one of them uses a guard, they all lose it.

All other rules apply normally (we aren't told they don't), so if the clones move, or use their Aim, they lose it. I don't see any way to argue against this part.
I would also guess that the Guard rule represents a precedent so that if one of the three Avatars 'uses' the Aim, they all lose it. However this one can easily be argued that the Guard rule is a unique rule and does not apply to Aim so it is nothing more than my personal opinion.

I'd note that you could still effectively 'gain' 2 free half actions this way, so long as the clones started adjacent to targets.

As an aside, I would have thought that a Dodge order would be by far the most efficient, unless you think you can actually kill a hero outright this turn.

I do try to play this game as correctly as possible, but with so many loopholes in the rules and ways people can interpret certain things this sort of issue comes up often.

I am more then happy to play in such a way that the designers intended, but with the second edition in the near future, support for the first edition will drop right off.

Like I said, I will talk to my play group about this situation and try to come to some sort of agreement as to the "most" correct way to play.

I appreciate the debate though. Thank you.

One of the three figures losing their order individually can create a few curious situations.

Example: Avatar declares Ready-Aim, so all three get an Aim order. Avatar then moves, loses his Aim, the clones still have it and do nothing beyond (unaimed) attacks. Next OL turn, the OL declares Ready-Guard. Avatar receives a Guard order - what happens to the clones? Are the Aim tokens replaced by Guard? That wouldn´t happen to a hero, according to the basic rules. If the Aim orders are not replaced, then you´ll have mixed orders placed. It will still work out if you stick to the rules, but it can get complicated, especially since you don´t even have physical order tokens for the Avatar (they are all used by the heros) to keep track.

My suggestion would be to have one and only one "order status" for all of the three figures at any given time - "if one figure uses it, all of them lose it" could and should be expanded to "if one figure loses it, all of them lose it".

I have to agree with you, it would be very tricky in those situations but AIM and DODGE are the only orders that go away when you use them. Dodge might be the best thing for the avatar because it sticks around until its next turn and the clones can make use if it and not have to worry about losing it.

Jonny WS said:

You mean Guard rather than Dodge I assume? - For going away when used that is.