Alright, here's something that I may just be getting too wrapped up in because of possible similarities or disparities to other games I've played where similar situations or effects can occer, such as Call of Cthulhu.

But when you play a card with Ambush, you would have to do it during the appropriate action window in order for you to also then kneel and assign it legally as an attacker or defender, correct?

I couldn't for instance Ambush in a character after I'd already assigned and knelt attackers and my opponent had knelt defenders? Thus, creating a weird situation where I have a standing character materialize directly into a challenge.

At least thats how I'm reading, but I didn't find anything to absolutely clarify, and it is a little ambiguous as written.

Secondly. On events like Battle of Ruby Ford. Its Unique, and its Deathbound. So am I correct in assuming that means I'm only going to be able to play one copy of it per game? (Unless I have some way of removing it from the dead pile.)

Thanks again for answering all my questions... And by the way, is there a policy on these boards for separating unrelated rules questions into different threads? On forums I've used in the past, we did this to help make future searches for specific issues easier. But I didn't see anything with such a guideline around here, and don't want to create a perceived clutter out of all my issues. :-)

You are correct in both situations.

1. You can ambush the character before you declare atackers, if you dont there is no normal way to get him in to the challenge later. On the other hand if your opponent attacks you can then ambush a character into the game in the window before defenders are declared. So then you may use him as a defender.

2. Completely right. There is not much events like this, but is is very strong so I can see the point why they made it unique and deathbound.

I dont know anything about putting the questions into different threads.

Just a little more detail on the ambush question, you can always put a charachter into play with ambush in the challenge phase when your are allowed to take player actions, thus:

1. Challenge phase beginns
2. Player actions , if no more player actions are taken and no challenges are announced move to 10.
3. announce a challenge type
4. declare attackers
5. player actions
6. declare defenders (stealth is assigned)
7. player actions
8. result of the challenge (saves, cancels responses etc.)
9. loop to 2.
10. challenge phases ends (probably start the next players challenge phase or move on to dominance phase)

So you can put a charachter into play versus ambush in the middle of a challenge, but you can´t make him participate in the challenge, unless you put him into play in step 2 (if you are attacking) or in step 5 (if you are defending).

There are some special charachters which specifically allow you to put them into play and let them participate in the current challenge (so they also have the chance to "jump" into the challenge in step 7). Examples are maritime sneakthief and the glorius horseback archers.

The basis for these (absolutely correct) descriptions of the timing of Ambush and/or declaring challenge participants is in the rulebook and FAQ. Like many other things in this (very "open-architecture") game, you have to take a couple of entries and put them together. You have to know the following to answer your question:

1) That the basic timing of Ambush is as an "Any Phase" action. This means you can use it as a standard player action.

2) The timing structure of player and "game" action windows from the flow charts for challenge phase (as summarized by Old Ben)

3) Putting a character into play during the challenge phase and declaring/having them participate in a challenge are two separate things (although, as Old Ben says, a single effect can specifically say it accomplishes both things)

So that's what the answers above come down to. Ambush is a standard player action. Opportunities to use standard player actions are all over the place. Declaring an attacker/defender is a framework action with strict timing limitations. Since Ambushed characters do not enter play as challenge participants, you have to plan the open timing of your Ambush player action to fit with the specific framework timing of declaring challenge participants.