Since dark host says that the hero is treated as a monster in from his own monster group.

Is it possible to play blood rage on it so it fight twice and dies ?

And so, bye bye the invulnerable Nanok !

No, because blood rage's requirement is your play it at the end of your turn. You cannot play dark host during the end of your turn because it has to be played at the beginning of your turn.

I don't think so. A player's turn is generally divided into three broad phases; "start of turn, "during your turn," and "end of turn."

Dark Host is played at the "start of your turn," but the effect resolves "during your turn" at a moment of your choice.

Blood Rage is played at the "end of your turn." By then, the effect of Dark Host would be over and the hero would no longer be a monster.

Sent a question to FFG for clarification. Only thing that has me thinking you could use Blood Rage on a Dark Hosted hero is that Dark Hero states "During this turn, you may perform 1 move action and 1 attack action with this hero, treating him as a monster in his own monster group." Since it states that the hero is a monster for this turn i'm guessing he's still a monster by the end of the turn.

I could see the argument go either way, kind of a gray area. I'll post up FFGs reply when I get it.

No matter the official ruling, I know how I'll be playing it!

I've send the question, we we will see the response. I hope I could, but i'm not so sure, wording are a bit unclear on this one

No matter the official ruling, I know how I'll be playing it!

And I think I'll play it that way also

Contrary to what Steve-O said, there is nothing indicating that the effect stops somewhere during your turn.

It says to treat the hero as a monster this turn so any effect still happening during this turn, being at end or not, will affect the hero as a monster.

After all, it is the most powerful card of the infector class and without this rule, it would simply be a slightly buffed version of dark charm which is in the free starting pack (and far more easy to trigger on some heroes)!

Contrary to what Steve-O said, there is nothing indicating that the effect stops somewhere during your turn.

Nor does it say that he is under your control for the entirety of your tun. Interpreting the rules loosely for your own purposes is a slippery slope. The excuse "It doesn't say I can't" is never a good one when interpreting rules, and is almost always an incorrect interpretation.

It says to treat the hero as a monster this turn

No, it doesn't. You've taken two parts of the sentence that are not together and put them together. You can't just rearrange sentence structure without possibly changing the meaning.

It says "During this turn, you may perform 1 move action and 1 attack action with this hero, treating him as a monster in his own monster group." It doesn't say that you treat him as a monster in his own monster group for all intents and purposes of what a monster is (picking up special quest tokens, opening doors, etc.). Both the first part ("During this turn") and the last part ("treating him as a monster in his own monster group") are most likely modifiers to the middle part of the sentence ("you may perform 1 move action and 1 attack action"). As such, those two very specific things you can do with the hero must be done during this turn and when performing those two very specific things you can do with the hero, he is treated as a monster in his own monster group. This means the attack must target a hero and not a monster, his movement can not move through other heroes but can move through other monsters, and also provides clarification for how to treat him when using cards and abilities which refer to monster groups.

That said, it is possible that this interpretation is not what FFG intended (they have done things like this in the past where the correct interpretation of the rule is not to treat the rule strictly as written), but in this case, I HIGHLY doubt it because an immediate defeat to a hero is incredibly overpowered.

IMO, if it was intended the other way, it would just leave out the middle part and say "During this turn, treat the hero as a monster in his own monster group" since it's already in the rules that all monsters only get one attack and one movement, and if they wanted to add that as clarification, it would have come at the end of the sentence (as "treat the hero as a monster in his own monster group" does on the card as written).

Got a response back from Justin:

Looks like they'll be doing a compilation and releasing a new FAQ. Should help out!

Justin answered he will give me answer in 30 days, when the team would have made the right answer. So, until it will, i'm gonna play it as if it works, until the true answer

I re-read the overlord turn sequence in the rulebook and FFG needs to clarify the Start/Middle/End of it. It needs to be defined so these kinds of new cards won't require errata.

Had the turn been defined properly, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The thing is, even though dark host is at the start of your turn and the hero has to be be pointed out before the start is finished, the hero does not have to be used right away. That hero is now a monster, like every other monster, till the OL turn ends, which is when blood rage is used. Since monsters are my monsters till my turn ends, even during end of turn, I am guessing this is true with the hero.

Because of that, the heroes can "First Strike" their own hero (say they know you have a blood rage in your hand and they think it would be better to kill the hero and deal with him standing up before you get a chance to kill a different hero with him before blood rage ends, killing him as well) and such abilities. It also means I can't reflective ward him to add more damage, no matter how funny as that would be. Also, any other OL cards playing into a monster can be used, such as dirty fighting and like cards. I think I can even blinding speed. Whatever gets the job done. It really puts an interesting twist on things.

Justin Wrote:

For the next 30 days or so, we'll be collecting questions for Trollfens and forming answers based upon thorough analysis. The purpose for this is to make sure that repeated questions receive consistent, proper answers. We're saving all questions, and they'll all be answered at that time, but until then you'll have to be a bit patient.

This is the best news I've heard all week. Not only because it implies an official FAQ update, but because taking time to think about the questions is never a bad thing.

FFG is great at customer service and providing speedy responses to fans, but sometimes that results in rulings that are based only on the question asked, without regard for other components or cases it may apply to. And some questions can be very leading towards the answer that the person asking it wants to hear.

I'm very happy to hear they're putting so much time and effort into this, and I would encourage everyone to fire off as many questions as you can come up with regarding Trollfens. The more they have to ponder, the more comprehensive the answers will be!

Justin Wrote:

For the next 30 days or so, we'll be collecting questions for Trollfens and forming answers based upon thorough analysis. The purpose for this is to make sure that repeated questions receive consistent, proper answers. We're saving all questions, and they'll all be answered at that time, but until then you'll have to be a bit patient.

This is the best news I've heard all week. Not only because it implies an official FAQ update, but because taking time to think about the questions is never a bad thing.

FFG is great at customer service and providing speedy responses to fans, but sometimes that results in rulings that are based only on the question asked, without regard for other components or cases it may apply to. And some questions can be very leading towards the answer that the person asking it wants to hear.

I'm very happy to hear they're putting so much time and effort into this, and I would encourage everyone to fire off as many questions as you can come up with regarding Trollfens. The more they have to ponder, the more comprehensive the answers will be!

I need to really hurry up and finish my campaign so we can get started with the mini campaign then >O!! I know I have questions... I just haven't figured them out just yet.

That hero is now a monster, like every other monster, till the OL turn ends

As I pointed out above, you're also adding interpretation onto a sentence where the structure simply doesn't imply it. Just because you don't use the hero right away doesn't mean that it's a monster for all intents and purposes, and nowhere does it say that it is.

Two things are happening here with this interpretation which are both generally bad ideas when interpreting rules:

1) Mechanics are being created based on a looser interpretation of the rules than is strictly written.

2) It's basically saying "but the rule doesn't say I CAN'T do this, so it must imply that I CAN".

The rule very specifically says what you CAN do (make 1 attack and 1 move). It also provides 2 modifiers: 1 before (which tells you when you can do those things) and 1 after (which tells you how you should interpret other rules while performing those things).

Is it possible FFG intended it to be allowed? Sure. Is it written that way? Strictly speaking, no.

You're absolutely welcome to play it how you want, but every justification for it here falls flat compared to how rules should be interpreted (as strictly as possible to what is written), until a conflict/paradox arises, or we have official (or semi-official in the case of FFG Sez) errata that it's written incorrectly. (Which, especially in the case of FFG, can happen rather frequently, but that doesn't mean we should just assume everything is incorrect)

Griton, I was just interjecting, which is what we do here, with some thoughts on how I have read the two cards and my observation on how other gears in this game work in other areas. Because of how shaky this is right now, I will not be using it. No matter how good. I am also saying how it changes how the heroes see this option. I really do try to see all sides of this.

At any rate, I am glad FFG is reviewing it. It's always fun to find new combos.

Kunzite, Apologies if that came off a bit terse. (Sometimes it's annoying when it feels like you have to repeat yourself because people didn't catch something the first time.) It also felt like you were making a pretty strong claim as opposed to including "So here's how I read them." Definitely no offense intended.

And I totally agree on finding fun new combos, this is just one that I feel isn't intended. Blood Rage is supposed to be a cheap card that offers some gain (extra attacks) for some sacrifice (losing a monster). Turning it into a cheap card that offers decently sized gain (extra attacks with a hero's power, which is often greater than a monsters) for an even bigger gain (defeating a hero which could be at full health), would make it ridiculously overpowered. (Even if it does have to be paired with an expensive card).

That said, if it is intended that you could use Blood Rage on a hero, since that hero is treated as a monster, would you get to draw a card / gain a threat token? I'd argue no, but it's hard to say based on other rulings they've made where heroes still kind of count as heroes.

Kunzite, Apologies if that came off a bit terse. (Sometimes it's annoying when it feels like you have to repeat yourself because people didn't catch something the first time.) It also felt like you were making a pretty strong claim as opposed to including "So here's how I read them." Definitely no offense intended.

And I totally agree on finding fun new combos, this is just one that I feel isn't intended. Blood Rage is supposed to be a cheap card that offers some gain (extra attacks) for some sacrifice (losing a monster). Turning it into a cheap card that offers decently sized gain (extra attacks with a hero's power, which is often greater than a monsters) for an even bigger gain (defeating a hero which could be at full health), would make it ridiculously overpowered. (Even if it does have to be paired with an expensive card).

That said, if it is intended that you could use Blood Rage on a hero, since that hero is treated as a monster, would you get to draw a card / gain a threat token? I'd argue no, but it's hard to say based on other rulings they've made where heroes still kind of count as heroes.

Oh, no ^.^ I read what you had to say. Playing devil's advocate is what I do. *throws hands up* Overlord =3 I just felt like a clearer explanation might needed to be stated in favor of it since you did make a good point on your end. And I also agree with your point.

As far as combos go, I don't think many of them are intended. Not when they cross over into other classes. I am sure FFG would have changed wording if they knew that two unholy rituals + blood rage + reinforce would be so powerful. I wouldn't have played it if I knew how stupid it was. That is why I am leery of this combo (though this combo isn't half as stupid and requires more work to put it back into their hand).

As far as card draw goes for dropping the hero as he is under your command, I would say no. He is not a hero at the time he was dropped. He was a monster. No card draw. No token. I don't think you could play Bloodlust on him when he falls either. That "Dark Host" is not a hero therefore the only reward the OL would get is the fact that there is a hero on his back and the other disbelief of the heroes when it happens. I don't know about anyone else, but that's reward enough for me ^.^

Finally got a response back from Justin regarding this question:

So effectively it looks like he can be affected by the same stuff that a hero under a Dark Charm could be affected by. Still nice, the Blood Rage + Dark Host would've been a bit much.

Ah. I am relived. My heroes will be happy for this.

disapointed

for 3 xp and 3 infection tokens, this card doesn't look so cool to me now, if not useless !

It's great for removing road blocks. It's better then Dark Charm as in you can move AND attack. Just like it is costly for them to attack during the OL's turn, it should be costly for the OL to mess with them directly as well.

Honestly, infactor has quickly become my favorite of all the OL class card sets. I have played it in two campaigns and have loved it. I love the nervousness my heroes get when they start piling up tokens on their sheets. The fact that it gives me that one point of defiance to stall out a little longer or one point of damage I need to take them out, it's really beautiful. The cleverness of the tokens has become a best friend.

So if it's not as good as you thought it was. So what. You can't beat taking a swing at the healer with the warrior that holds the rage blade + critical hit (basic one card) and then have him move into the den of monsters to let them finish him off for you. Two heroes down that turn and the road block is now cleared WITH the party broken up. >3 I do like this card.

disapointed

for 3 xp and 3 infection tokens, this card doesn't look so cool to me now, if not useless !

Dark Host is far from useless. It's a Dark Charm that cannot fail AND lets the OL move the affected hero before attacking. Knowing how useful DC is, I'd say that's well worth 3 XP. Nothing hurts the heroes more than their own nuke machine turned against them.

I agree with your comment Steve-O. Infector is an incredibly powerful set of cards.

I love it. <3 it takes allot of work to get that dark host going, but once it's there, there is no stopping it from doing the damage you need!