Hide Tests and Stock Road (The Black Riders)

By Bullroarer Took, in Rules questions & answers

I get the Hide Tests in general, but it appears that there is no penalty for failing a Hide Test unless there is a card in play that says "If a player fails a Hide Test..." Stock Road requires the first player to make a Hide Test in order to travel there, but there is no penalty for failing the test. Am I missing something or is this just a bigger issue in multiplayer?

Failing a hide test will trigger immediate attacks for all the Nazguls in the staging area and already engaged with the failing player (per quests and Nazguls forced effects).

Considering most of theses hide tests are triggered by Nazguls themselves, they turn to be quite a penalty actually.

But yes it looks like Mr. Bullroarer Took is right, and there is no penalty for failing a Hide test if there are no cards in play that will trigger off the failure.

Stock Road also makes hide tests for difficult when it's in the staging area. Does this effect apply to the hide test you have to make to travel there? Basically, does the travel effect happen before or after the locations leaves the staging area?

Stock Road will count its ability when you make a Hide test to travel there.

It is written as a cost: "Travel: The first player must make a Hide 1 test to travel here."

Meaning you have to do X before you can do Y. See "Travel Effects" on pg 23, "Paying Costs" on pg 25 of the manual for more detail.

Edited by GrandSpleen

Hey guys,

I´m sorry, I just got my copy of The Black Riders (german version) and I dont understand the hide rule.

What I did understand is that I have to tap heroes and allies which are not already tapped in order to pass the hide test.

My question is: Do I untap them after I passed or failed that test? Then why shouldn´t I use all my heroes and allies to face the hide test if they can be used as normal afterwards?

Thanks alot!

they exhaust and remain so until the end of the round as usual. so its basically a double quest phase if you get a hide test- a very hard test

rich

Edited by richsabre
On 2013-10-11 at 5:48 AM, GrandSpleen said:

Stock Road will count its ability when you make a Hide test to travel there.

It is written as a cost: "Travel: The first player must make a Hide 1 test to travel here."

Meaning you have to do X before you can do Y. See "Travel Effects" on pg 23, "Paying Costs" on pg 25 of the manual for more detail.

Does this mean that on quest 3B Escape to Buckland in a two player game you can attempt the Hide 1 test on Stock Road, place progress tokens on it for succeeding - which makes it explored then choose a different location to travel to?

That's a good question actually. I think the answer is no, but there is a reading of the rules which would suggest the answer is yes.

If I were playing it, I'd say the moment you have elected to pay the cost of a location, you have chosen that as the location to travel to. And you are only allowed one travel per round. So, you would do the Hide test, and you could explore and discard Stock Road from play, but you could not travel to another location.

However, the rules define traveling as moving the location out of the staging area. In this scenario, that never happens. You elect to pay the cost, and before you actually move the card, you place progress tokens as a result of Escape to Buckland's effect, and the location is explored and discarded before it has ever been moved out of the staging area. So technically, you have paid the cost but not traveled there. So you have not exhausted your one travel per round, and you could travel again.

Probably not intended to be played that way, but you could house rule it. Or get an official response if you prefer.

I agree with your first sentiment, that you couldn't initiate a second travel attempt.

Btw, are we even sure the quest's Response would trigger before the Stock Road go to the Active location spot?

While there is an action window inside the Hide test, there is no action window after resolution. The moment we have done the Hide test successfully, we find ourselves back in the middle of resolving the Travel action, having just paid the listed cost. And while Responses can trigger without an Action window, they don't usually go off mid-resolution of some other thing (excepting cancel/replacement type responses). This leads me to suspect the Travel resolves before the Response can trigger, thus it does reach active location status.

You are right. I got an official statement backing up your reasoning. It counts as traveling and only one location can be choosen eash travel phase.