WoW board game Nefarian question

By Reveil, in Legacy Game Discussion

Good day. Me and my friend had a debate on Nefarian ability to change damage tokens to attrition. Let me explain by example

First of all, Nef abilities:

  • each character's Attrition value is halved (rounded up)
  • During the Place tokens step: the active character may only place hit tokens in the damage or defense boxes equal to the number of 8 (red or blue) results rolled (these are not considered spotted). All other hit tokens are placed in the attrition box.

Let's imagine that only 1 player fights Nef. The player rolled:

3 attrition

blue: 7 7 8

red: 7 7 7

green: 7 7 8

My logic: I have one blue 8, that allows me to put 1 token to damage or defence box (1 equal to the number of 8 (which is one)), all the others will go to attrition. I choose this token to be given by red 7, so in the end, I can do:

blue damage: 0

red damage: 1 token

green shields: 3 tokens

attrition: 5 + 2 tokens

Friends logic: I have blue 8, that means that I can place damage token only as blue damage (ranged one). In the end I can only go with:

blue damage: 1

red damage: 0

green shields: 3

attrition: 5 + 2

Which way is correct? Please, be a bit detailed, since we had a bet on this :) Thank you in advance.

So.. no one understood me or no one knows?

had to go dig out the game.


You are playing the card wrong.

only "8" in red or blue can be placed there.

all other hits go to attrition.


so using your example

1 goes in blue and only there.

Thanks for the replay! But I'll try to alter your logic. Please, prove me wrong with logic and not "you'r just wrong". Say something at least :)

I'll use nef abilitie text with comments: the active character (I) may only place hit tokens in the damage or defense (can place tokens to damage OR defense) boxes equal to the number of 8 (equal to number 1 (I rolled only one eight)) results rolled (these are not considered spotted). All other hit tokens are placed in the attrition box.

review: I can place tokens to damage or defense equalt to number 1.

Let's revise the rolls:

blue 7 7 8

red 7 7 7

green 7 7 8

All rolls hit, so basicly I can put 3 damage tokens to "ranged damage zone", 3 damage tokens to "defense zone" and 3 shield tokens to "defense zone". But, but the abitily states that I can leave only only 1 tokens in damage or defence box (since I rolled only one 8). This is my right to leave a damage token, where it is. I choose the damage token from defense box and move all the others to attrition, as the card commands.

It never specified any correlation between the damage token and dice color anywhere. And it never stated that I should put damage token corresponding to 8 dice, it sayed (any) damage token equal to ammount of 1 may stay (number of 8 dices in this roll).

Thank you for your feedback.

Well, it's very easy.

Only '8' in red or blue truly hits Nefarian, and gets placed in it's correlated box. Blue dice that hit (that's only 8's), go into the damage box. Red dice which hits (again, only the 8's) go into the defense box. You can not choose for a blue hit to go into the defense box, or vice versa.

Quote: It never specified any correlation between the damage token and dice colour anywhere.

There I must prove you wrong. If you look on the board, the Combat Area (the 3 circles) show quite clearly that blue dice go into Damage, red and green dice go into Defense. Otherwise, there's also page 29 in the rulebook, under PLACING DICE HITS. It states:

Blue dice: for each blue die producing a hit, place a hit token in the damage box of the Combat area.

Red dice: for each red die producing a hit place a hit token in the defense box of the combat area

Green dice: for blabla hit blabla armour token blabla defense box blablabla.

Off course there are some exceptions...The Hunter has a skillcard which allows him to replace a certain amount of blue hits to go in the defense box (Clipped Wing iirc) and the Ring of Agility (auction house, soulbound item) allows to do the same, but only for 1 hit token. But remember, these are exceptional conditions. You did not mention this in your post, so let's presume you do not have access to these 2 possibilities. I just mention this to be complete in the overall answer.

Blue dice represent direct damage, like arrows or fireball spells. It is very difficult to form an effective shield with something as flimsy as an arrow.

Red dice are comparable to melee damage, the damage you deal using the fine art of sticking the pointy end of a sword into the squichy bits. As with every hand-to-hand weapon, the sturdyness of these tools also allow you to parry damaging blows from your enemy, thus reducing the damage you need to soak up.

Green dice are your armour, with a pretty straightforward -and singleminded- use.

Now the problem with Nefarian is this: He's a dragon. As you might know, these magnificent creatures tend to feast on the succulent flesh of all sorts of adventurers and pompous knights. Most of the time, there is only one tricky bit for a dragon. These fools come barging in, clad in armour and loaded with gems, gold and whatnots. You might have noticed also that dragons don't have opposable thumbs, which makes the use of a can-opener close to impossible. This means chomping off large pieces, with armour and goldcoins included. And thus, little by little, the ground of their lair accumulates all thess metal tidbits picked out from their teeth, on which they then fall asleep. Over time, theses metal chunks get interlinked with their scales, in fact hardening their already pretty decent natural armour. Nefarian is comparable to a dragon emperor, who has had already many tons of adventurers' flesh going through his gastro-intestinal tract. His natural armour has had just as many upgrades :)

So, to go back to your example:

B: 7,7,8: The 8 produces a hit, it goes to the damage box, while the 7's can't reach the squichy bits directly, so they bleed into attrition.

R: 7,7,7: There are no 8's, so nothing goes in the defense box, everything bleeds into the attrition box.

G: 7,7,8: Nefarians power does not target armour results, so you can put these 3 as armour tokens into the defense box.

This would give the following result:

Damage: 1 hit token

Defense : 0 hit tokens, 3 armour tokens

Attrition: 5 hit tokens from 7's, and 2 hits from the +3 attrition halved & rounded up

So, if you would be playing against the weak Nefarian, who has an attack of 12, you would need to soak up succesfully 9 damage. If you survive this onslaught, then you put the hit tokens who are in the attrition box into the damage box, giving you a grand total of eight hits in the damage box. Congratulations, now you only need to do 18 more damage before Nefarian dies.

So yes, your friend was right...

Anyhow, happy hunting! :)

I never said that I put 8 blue in melee atack box, I do know that blue dices go into direct damage and red dices go into melee atack box. BUT, nef's ability text says "put tokens equal to number of 8's. It does not specialy states that I must put damage tokes corresponding to that 8 dice, that's why while I have 8 blue, I choose to put damage token corresponding to other dice (red 7). That's 1 damage token equal to number or 8s (blue 8).

What do you say to that? Because you totaly missed that point, imho.

So, what you want to do is switch the BLUE 8 into a RED 8 via the use of a RED 7 and ditching the BLUE 8 result... That's NOT possible. If it would, Nefarian's special-power text would state this clearly. It does not. What it says is, only red&blue 8's do what they do, the rest of the hits go into attrition.

So, you're stuck with a BLUE hit, no switching colours allowed. Time to cough up that crate of beers you promised your friend, or whatever it was you promised him :P

It was icecream actualy ;)

But still missing the point. All 7 and 8 dices hit, let's just imagine that I put all off the damage tokens to the corresponding boxes.

red 777

blue 778

So we have 3 damage tokens in direct damage box (top one), and 3 damage tokens in melee atack box (lower one). As nef's ability text says, now I must move all those damage tokens to attrition box. All but one, since we have one 8. And I move 3 damage tokens from top (direct damage) box, and 2 from melee atack (lower box).

Think about it. You make a mistake thinking you put DICES in to damage boxes. But you don't. You put damage tokens. Dices only show WHERE you should put damage tokens to. And nef's ability text (read it again please) does not states that THIS DICE hits, it specialy states that damage tokens STAY, and number of those staying ones is equal to number of 8dices.

And I'll point out again, that dice color only states where you put damage tokens. You can put them in NORMALY and then move necessary ammount to attrition. Where necessary is ALL but 1. That's why you don't move the dice, you move damage tokens. Dice color have nothing to do with damage token in that case

If you'r still don't see it, I'll agree on me loosing this bet fair and square.

Using this official FAQ I'lve found the answer files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/6kbxov74yz/WoW_FAQ__v1_4.pdf

page 3, under overlords. It proves me right - damage token does not correspond to dice rolled and thus againste nef with 8blud and 7red I actualy can place a damage token in a melee defense box.