lt you pass the Before Combat test of Farrow's Outriders it states you can choose either ranged, melee or magic as your first combat.

lf you choose melee first which is second ranged or magic.

alboy said:

Since the card doesn't say that you might change the order of combat actions, but only choose which one you want to have as first, if you choose Melee the order will be Melee, Ranged, Magic.

Thanks Warlock. l did assume that first of all but just wanted to see if others did it the same.

The base game rules state that phase order in round is: ranged - melee - magic.

So if you skip one phase you just continue to next one. In your case if you skip melee then you continue with magic, of course.

What do other people do when this happens, so far the answers are 1 for Ranged & 1 for Magic.

Crash said:

In my opinion this card doesn't say you skip a phase. It says you may choose either ranged, melee or magic as your first combat . If you start with Melee, you can't make melee-magic-ranged for the rest of the combat.

The result will be a different phase order for this combat, which is not what the card says. Another outcome is that a Ranged phase disappears, which is not correct.

Assuming that you are alone and your best choice is to attack in the Melee phase, if you make melee-magic-ranged-melee and defeat the challenge in the last melee attack, you actually cancelled one ranged phase. I think it should be: melee-ranged-magic-ranged-melee

By the way, if you choose Magic you have magic-ranged-melee-ranged-melee-magic. Otherwise you give priority to the slowest attack on the faster ones.

The_Warlock said:

But un this case you did just that, you changed the order of combat phases.

I think it shoud be melee than magic. You start in the second phase of the combat round, you can't go back to the firrst, after that you play the third phase and then it's a new combat round. So : melee, magic, (new round) escape, ranged, melee, magic ...

I don't remember what is the exact thing that the card says, but if it says that you can choose in which phase you start the battle than I'm sure that what I wrote is correct. If it says choose the first phase (not start battle in that phase) then I'm not sure how it should be played.

why shouldn't the ranged phase dissapear, again I'm not sure what are you testing, but it's like your enemy didn't spotted you in time to do a ranged attack, you are already to close to him

Sorry Warlock, I'm with fpol on this one, to me starting in a different phase implies skipping, otherwise, where's the benefit? If you have an official FFG response to back your view, I will happily concede, but switching the order makes less sense than skipping to me. So if you choose melee, then its melee, magic, then back to the beginning with escape, ranged, etc... It only affects the first combat round.

I just sent the question in to FFG, so we should have an official answer soon.

fpol said:

I concur with this ruling. If you choose melee or magic as the first combat roll of the round, you simply skip the others. The advantage of winning this roll is that someone who works primarily in melee or magic can start with their preferred attack phase and skip the defend rolls in their weaker phases. Anything else would be rearranging the order of the phases and would also defeat the purpose of the skill test (you would still have to make the unwanted defend rolls, just in a different order.)

Alternatively, you could just roll the one attack phase for the first round. ie: choose melee and go Melee (new round) escape, ranged, magic, etc....

I think the first option sounds more like what was intended, although now that I think about it, the second option would allow for ranged heroes to gain an advantage from this skill test, too. So maybe I'm going to play it as you only roll the chosen combat phase for the first round, then start fresh with escape in round 2.