Hi all,

In playing tonight an interesting situation came up and I just want a little bit of clarification on it.

Can an Any Phase ability be used in the middle of a challenge? Our case was when icons were removed using this ability on cards that were attackingdefending. Is that legal?

Cheers,

Mooch

Yes, you can take actions during a challenge. I highly recommend checking out the FAQ for the game, especially the detailed timing charts.

However, removing icons mid-challenge will NOT remove a character from the challenge. You only check for the right icon as a character is declared as an attacker or defender.

(Another reason to check out the FAQ. This question is probably by FAR the one most asked by new players. Welcome to the game!)

OK, I just had a look at the FAQ and I see that they are not removed from the challenge, which is important in cases of unopposed challenges in defense. But to be clear, if I am attacking for say Military and the Military icon is removed from the card after declaring the challenge, is there still a challenge that needs to be met by the defending player or has the attack failed?

Of course. You have declared attackers in a Military challenge. Your opponent needs to declare defenders in a Military challenge, or suffer the consequences. The attack has not in any sense failed. Removing a challenge icon from a participant in that kind of challenge is almost always pointless.

The thing to keep in mind is that if you want to stop a challenge by removing character's icons, you have to remove those icons before they are declared as an attacker or defender.

It's a little subtle, but the only time the rules actually look at a character's icons is when they are declared as an attacker or defender. The rules do not require the character to have the corresponding icon in order to remain in the challenge, or to count its STR during challenge resolution. (This becomes much more intuitive once you come across effects that let you jump characters into challenges that are already taking place without declaring them.)