We are currently playing Death on the Wing. I am playing the Heroes (4 of them, one being Jain Fairwood) and my friend is the overlord. The overlord chose Merriod as his open group and we are having some movement issues. My Jain is in the starting hallway along with 3 Cave Spiders and 1 Merriod. He attempted to move his Merriod to block the exit of the hallway that leads into the area where the cave spiders started, but when he moved the Merriod next to my Jain, I gained a fatigue to use her nimble ability and positioned myself in such a way that would not let him expand the Merriod to fit in any orientation. There is a cave spider blocking his ability to expand as well. The only place he can fit is where the Merriod started from.

My question is what happens to the Merriod, he used all his movement points and cannot expand and fit, does he go back to where he started from and lose that action? Also, am I using Jain's ability correctly by using it when the monsters moves next to her (thus interrupting his movement) to move one space of my own?

FFG didn't answer that dilemma in the FAQ … there are other abilities, etc. that have a similar effect.

One question that occurs to me … why did you let Jain move before the LM expanded, or didn't it matter -- were all spaces it could expand into already blocked? I'm not sure if there is a defined precedence, but as the LM was doing the moving the OL gets to decide the order of timing conflicts.

Page 18: "Timing conflicts may arise when two or more players wish to use an ability with the same triggering condition. In these situations, the current player (the player who is currently taking his turn) decides the order in which the abilities are resolved."

I forgot about the timing rule, but I don't think there was a shared triggering action.

Basically the whole hallway piece is 2x8 (including the entrance). If the entrance is on the left, this was the orientation of the monsters/hero before any movement (S = Spider, O = empty space, M= Merriod, J = Jain, W is the border, H is another Hero):

WWWWWWWW H O W

S O M M S J O O W

S O M M O O O O W

WWWWWWWWWWWW

He shrunk the Merriod down to the bottom right space and then moved it one to the right to the open space below the rightmost spider. Because that space is adjacent to Jain I used Nimble and moved her one to the right. So it ended up looking like this:

WWWWWWWW H O W

S O O O S O J O W

S O O O M O O O W

WWWWWWWWWWWW

The monster had only used one movement point of his 3 but he has no area in which he could finish his movement except the place in which he started his turn.

This to me seemed to be a fair move for Nimble makes the Hero act before the monster, "Each time a monster moves into a space adjacent to you, you may use this card to move 1 space; then the monster may continue its activation ." It makes it sound as if nimble stops the monsters turn and activates and then the monster continues.

It looks legit to me. OL used a move action, and you effectively paid a fatigue to block it. If H weren't there, OL could maybe try to move up the diagonal & worst case make you spend more fatigue to block that. Did the OL attack with Reach before trying to move? If not, he allowed you to Nimble out of range.

I don't have the game in front of me, so I wasn't sure about the wording. There's no mention of "interrupting" movement, so it's not clear if the Merriod is forced to expand when Jain's ability is triggered. That would force it back to it's starting square, meaning it could no longer reach the H square with the 2 MP remaining.

If your hero were a Knight instead & used Guard, the errata says "exhaust this card to interrupt that monster's activation and perform an attack with a Melee weapon." If the interrupt forces the Merriod to expand back in its starting position, the Knight is then out of melee range (without Reach). Not sure how to handle that situation.

Ya, you have found an interesting dilimma. Clearly the only current resolution is to house rule it and wait for the next FAQ, whenever that is. In the meantime, I would suggest you send this question in via the support link. Both of my questions to FFG were answered in roughly a week's time. If you get a response please post it.

Our house rule is to place it in the nearest available location.

@Triu:

No the OL did not attack first, he used Dash on the Merriod and was trying to get him up where all my Heroes were. It's why the situation was a big deal for him, he wasted a dash on one movement, moved me out of attack range and got stuck back at the entrance blocking his spiders behind him.

Would he have been able to move him through the corner and Jain? We have been playing it that if you have an enemy figure (or one that blocks line of sight and movement) diagonally from a corner you would not be able to move through.

@Rico:

I will send this to them and if I get sent a response you can be sure to see it posted here!

@jcbbjjttt:

What happens if the nearest closest space is further away than the monsters movement range? Wouldn't that be a little unfair for the Heroes?

Philodept said:

There is an example in the book showing that this is a legal move.

The question for me would be: Does the FAQ statement that LM's can only interrupt their move where they can expand, extend to Heroes interrupting a LM move? Which, let's face it, is what Nimble does, even though it doesn't state it.

ie. should you only be able to use Nimble if the LM is in a position to expand?

Philodept said:

If the OL has no legal moves, he can not move the monster. However, if there is a legal move BUT the heroes do something that prevents the monster from having a legal end location, the monster goes to the nearest available spot. It isn't unfair to the heroes if they know that is what will happen if they activate their ability. (The monster must use a second movement if able).

Philodept said:

Nimble pauses the monsters turn, but we interpret this as after the monster enters the space. The monster entering the space seems to us to be the trigger and must precede the use of nimble. If the ability read "each time a monster attempts to move into a space" I would interpret the other way.

The knight card "Guard" seems to have a comparable trigger. "When a monster moves into an empty space adjacent to you, exhaust this card to interrupt that monsters activation and perform an attack with a Melee weapon. After… it may continue it's activation".

The words are not an identical match, but I believe the tense and trigger is the same. It would not make sense to be able to perform the melee attack until after the monster has moved into the adjacent square (for most melee weapons), so that is likely how this card is played. I believe the case with Nimble is the same.

So you are saying that the monster would have to complete its current move action and then end up in a space adjacent to the Wildlander for the Wildlander to use the Nimble ability? I could see it for Nimble since no where does it say interrupt, but I definitely think Guard would interrupt their movement for the Knight to attack. It makes sense, you are essentially guarding the squishier people behind you by attacking anything that tries to move past the Knight.

It doesn't have to complete its move action. I think ssgeorge was just saying that the monster has already moved into that space when Nimble triggers, so the hero does not get to act before the monster moves into the square as you suggested.

I didn't mean to suggest that if that is what it sounded like. I agree with ssgeorge then. If we are going for my original post (the one with the diagram) this is what I talked about. The Merriod moved into the bottom left adjacent square of Jain and I activated nimble to move one to the right. This blocked the only available expanding space for the Merriod.

But ssgeorge gave me the idea that Nimble functions in a different way. Me and my friend kinda like the idea that nimble only triggers when a monster ends a move action next to the Wildlander. This essentially would prevent melee monsters from hitting the wildlander and once you got the Fleet of Foot ability it would prevent monsters with reach from hitting her too. Plus it makes sense seeing as guard specifcally mentions that it interrupts movement, while Nimble makes no such mention.