I know that you can use an Ice Tromper before the edge battle starts to remove your opponent's sole character and automatically win the edge, but I'm wondering: can you use the Ice Tromper to remove said character before you even declare a defender? Meaning, if there are no attackers left in the engagement at the start of the "declare defenders" step, can I still declare a defender? Or is the conflict over at that point?

Thanks!

I like this idea, using the Icetromper as a way to remove a unit entirely from the battle before edge to get tactics through!

Would it be possible to focus the Icetromper to strike (and possibly kill a low-hp unit) and then immediately afterwards, discard it to remove a high-threat non-vehicle unit from that same engagement?

Nerdmeister said:

Sure, no problem there. You can even fucus it to deal damage to a 2HP unit and then discard to deliver the killing blow.

What about this combo:

LS declares 2 attackers. DS uses Icetromper's ability to remove one of the attackers from the engagement, deals it 1 damage, thereby destroying it. LS has Forward Reconnaisance objective in play. Can he return the destroyed unit to his hand? Or since the unit was removed from the engagement, is he no longer an attacker?

What about this combo:

LS declares 2 attackers. DS uses Icetromper's ability to remove one of the attackers from the engagement, deals it 1 damage, thereby destroying it. LS has Forward Reconnaisance objective in play. Can he return the destroyed unit to his hand? Or since the unit was removed from the engagement, is he no longer an attacker?

The unit is no longer an attacker at the point when the Icetromper deals it's damage, so Forward Reconnaissance could not trigger in that situation (side note, Forward Recon doesn't ever return units to hand).

Yeah, I meant dealing damage... got my actions confused.