Hi

I'd like to know what happens when a damaged unit is defending an area. For example if I was the attacking player and was attacking my opponents battlefield zone with Ironclaw's Horde (CS 58) power 4, Crooked Teef Goblins (CS 56) power 1 and Doom Divers (CS 65) power 2, a total of 7. And my opponent is defending their battlefield zone with Mountain Brigade (CS 11) HP 6 but it has taken two damage already.

Do I have to……

1. Assign 4 more damage to the Mountain Brigade bringing the total to 6 damage (enough to destroy them) before I can apply damage to the battlefield Zone.

or

2. Assign 6 damage equal to its printed HP, before assigning damage to the Battlefield Zone.

The other question I have is

If my battlefield zone is burning and my opponent attacks it, do I have to defend with my units. I know he cant do any more damage too that zone but if I don't elect defenders nothing happens. And vice versa if I attack his battlefield zone and he doesn't allocate defenders I can't destroy his combat units. Is this within the rules?

Any help is much appreciated

It's 1. You have to assign at least enough damage to each defending unit to destroy it (taking damage cancellation effects like toughness into consideration) before you can assing damage to the zone. If the unit isn't damaged, this will be an amount at least equal to its HP, but if it is already damaged like in your example, it's less.

Whether the zone is burning or not, the defender always has the choice which, if any, of his units defend. The attacker can only force units to defend by using card effects that accomplish this. Sometimes new players think this is a problem, because they can't destroy the units through combat damage. But there are plenty of other ways to handle units, and if he's not defending, well, he is taking damage to the zone. Let him keep his units, just burn two zones and be done with it. Don't keep attacking a burning zone in hopes of getting at the units there, just burn another one.