My friend asked about the following situation:

He has Vader and an Imperial Royal Guard in play, as well as another unit (name unimportant) with 3 damage capacity. Only Vader and the other unit are participating as defenders. He's facing Yoda with 7 total unit damage coming across. I know that absent Shii-Cho training Yoda would resolve all 7 unit damage at once, placing all of it on Vader and not making the Royal Guard even attempt to use the protector, ultimately resulting in 3 damage being ignored.

But with Shii-Cho training, can you declare Vader as the recipient of 4 damage, then after the Royal Guard soaks up 3 of it declare Vader again as the recipient of 3 more damage? Do you have to declare all your targets and the amount of damage you will do to them up front, such that you'd have to once again declare 7 damage towards Vader to ensure his death, and again losing out on 3 unit damage?

Thanks everyone. Also, thanks to Toqtamish (I think it was) for emailing Nate French on my last question about A JOurney to Dagobah and Decoy at Dantooine. The idea came from the same friend. If there's no consensus on this I'm happy to email Nate myself this time, or someone else can jump on it, whatever.

For what it's worth, I told my friend I thought that Vader had to be declared as the recipient of all 7 damage if you wanted to kill him off, because as I see it, Shii-Cho training just tells you you can distribute it amoung several targets, it doesn't say you can deal your damage one by one. Therefore I'd think you declare your several targets, how much damage each target is receiving, and then resolve the unit damage all at once again.

If it's anything like other LCGs, damage is assigned -- and then all assigned damage is resolved at once. So you'd need to assign everything to Vader. But just my thoughts…

To the OP:

Hey, not to throw a wrench in the works, but Shii-Cho training doesn't really work with Yoda. Shii-Cho training only allows you to split up your normal unit damage, not your edge-enabled damage. And Yoda only gains edge-enabled damage, from his own trait. I find it infuriating, personally, that he is not a viable target for the enhancement that comes IN HIS OWN POD, but them's the breaks. You'd have to find a way to give him normal unit damage icons before Shii-Cho would be usable on him.

As far as your question, I agree with your conclusion, and that's how I'd rule on it if I were a TO. But an official answer would be nice.

Micah

edit: For succinctness.

I sent this directly to Nate French this morning.

Assuming it works like I think it does, meaning you split all of Yodas blaster icons, then why not put 3 on the protectors and 4 on Vader. The protectors would die and so would vader.

My thoughts exactly.

You would have to assign all the damage at once. So best thing to do is assign enough to kill the protector first.

The scenario is very specifically set up so that the protector is not a participant in the combat, so you cannot assign damage to him. However, that does still bring up the idea, if he were in the engagement, does the player dealing the damage decide which order they resolve in?

As for the thought that Shii-Cho training uses only unit damage and not [unit damage], I agree nothing specifically says you can or cannot, but I had always interpreted the card as applying to both edge dependent and regular because of the use of the words "icon type". The rules on page 21 state there are three icon types, not six. It then says that they have two different appearances. All other cards talk about gaining an icon type, but they specify whether they're edge or non-edge (Such as Yoda himself) in order to balance the cards, I assume. But Shii-Cho training specifies the whole unit damage icon type.

Finally, even if Shii-Cho training only uses regular unit damage, the new card Weapon Master from Desolation of Hoth makes the original question relevant, because Yoda is going to go to war with Old Ben's Spirit.

Response from Nate French: Shii-Cho Training does allow you to split edge enabled unit damage as well.

dbmeboy said:

i can confirm this. Win the edge and split all blaster icons.

dbmeboy said:

*edit*: Nevermind, after reading Scoob's post more thoroughly, and double-checking the rulebook, I feel I have enough to explain my position in any tournament as long as I have the rulebook handy.

Ok, I'm a much happier Jedi player now. However, based on the rulebook stating that, in card text, anything referring to edge-enabled icons would have the icon in brackets, and Shii-Cho Traingin has the icon without the brackets, I just know I'm going to get into disputes with other players who might not be aware of this ruling, and without something public from someone official, I won't have much of a leg to stand on. Is there any possibility of an updated FAQ with this point added on?

Micah

To help with your "official" response:

From Nate French:

If the light side player won the edge battle, it is all unit damage icons that can be split.

I appreciate the help to figure out how Shii-Cho training works, but the original idea I was getting at was lost. Here's my friend's original email to me:

"Let's say I've got Yoda with a crapload of unit-damage icons from various sources, and Shii-Cho training. You're defending with Vader and, I dunno, some other doinkus. Elsewhere on your board is an Imperial Royal Guard, with his "Protect: Character" ability.

Being that the thread was getting derailed (as Scoob said), I went ahead and contacted Nate French about this matter. His response:

"Damage from a single strike is assigned simultaneously -- the attacker would make a statement as to how he wishes to allocate the 7 damage, and then the Protect effect would kick in."