Southron Chieftain

[Kralik]

Minions are assigned one at a time

I bow to bibfortuna... didn't realize I could be so incredibly wrong on this one! On the plus side, that means that for many, many games, my Southron initiative deck with Southron Chieftain was being played wrong and my opponents got lots of leeway. They always assigned him last. How many games should I have won? I'll have to break that one out again.

[bibfortuna25]

Here's the thing. If Desert Sneak's ability were mandatory as printed on the card, he and the Southron Chieftain would have the same trigger. Meaning that FP would choose the order in which those actions would occur, so a smart player would never choose for the Chieftain's action first.

So I think the Sneak's text was clarified to be more in line with what Decipher intended with those Southron initiative mechanics in the ROTK set.

[MarcinS]

Here's the thing. If Desert Sneak's ability were mandatory as printed on the card, he and the Southron Chieftain would have the same trigger. Meaning that FP would choose the order in which those actions would occur, so a smart player would never choose for the Chieftain's action first.

No, I believe, if they both were required, that the Desert Sneak would not trigger at all, because you don't meet all the requirements. Anyway the card indeed has an errata disguised as a clarification, didn't notice it.

[Elessar's Socks]

Bib is correct, I believe. This might again be asking more of the rulebook than is written in there, but I think the end result is being able to recheck for cards that can respond to a trigger. For example, if Wulf is played as a response to a Man winning a skirmish, he himself can respond, even though when the " Man wins a skirmish" trigger happened he wasn't even in play.

[MarcinS]

Bib is correct, I believe. This might again be asking more of the rulebook than is written in there, but I think the end result is being able to recheck for cards that can respond to a trigger. For example, if Wulf is played as a response to a Man winning a skirmish, he himself can respond, even though when the " Man wins a skirmish" trigger happened he wasn't even in play.

Well, the way Gemp-LotR is implemented at the moment, is that the required actions are not rechecked and optional actions are rechecked.

The reasoning behind this is simple:
- required - rule-book says to "Free Peoples player decides in which order they occur", I was even wondering for a time, if FP player should choose the order and THEN resolve them in that order, or if he should choose one to resolve, resolve it, choose another one, resolve it, etc. If it would have to recheck, then if there was only one required action and the result of that action introduced one more action (for example it brought a card into play), then it would give a perceived effect, that FP player was not given a choice of ordering these two actions,
- optional - it's not rechecking, because playing responses from hand is also optional, if one of the optional actions you had was to draw a card if something happens, and you decided to play a response from hand as a second action, how would your opponent know, that the card you want to play, wasn't the one you already drew as a result of another optional trigger (hence was not valid to play at the time the event occurred)?

[Elessar's Socks]

If it would have to recheck, then if there was only one required action and the result of that action introduced one more action (for example it brought a card into play), then it would give a perceived effect, that FP player was not given a choice of ordering these two actions,

Not sure I follow your train of thought, but it seems to me that if the first action needs to be resolved in order to introduce another action, then that introduced action could not have been ordered first anyway (regardless of whether triggers are rechecked or not).

In the Dunlending Arsonist / Wulf situation, both minions have the same trigger; Arsonist is optional, Wulf is required. I think it'd surprise players if Wulf couldn't take control of a site (for example, mentioned here) after being played by the Arsonist.

Anyway, just trying to get to the bottom of this. Thanks for all the work getting Gemp-LotR into gear.

[bibfortuna25]

Wulf is an optional action too. All bolded actions are optional. He and the Dunlending Arsonist have the exact same trigger.

[Elessar's Socks]

Man, I was looking for "may" and totally overlooked that it was a bolded action. Any objections to required actions working as implemented, Bib? Can't think of a good example off the top of my head at this point (there's the one with Memories of Darkness / My Axe Is Notched, but it's probably not all that common).

[bibfortuna25]

It's not so much of the Free Peoples player choosing the order of automatic actions, but rather, the FP chooses one required action, resolves it, then if there are any other automatic actions from that same trigger, he chooses the next one, and so on.

That's why when you're playing Gemp-LOTR, as the FP, you are often asked to choose between competing automatic actions. One example is when an Uruk Rager wins a skirmish. Both placing the wounds and the Rager discarding 2 cards from the loser's deck have the same trigger, so the Free Peoples player chooses which one will resolve first.

I can't think of any specific examples at the moment, but let's say there are three competing automatic actions to be resolved. If resolving Action 1 causes conditions to change so that Actions 2 and 3 no longer have a trigger, then they simply won't occur.

[MarcinS]

I can't think of any specific examples at the moment, but let's say there are three competing automatic actions to be resolved. If resolving Action 1 causes conditions to change so that Actions 2 and 3 no longer have a trigger, then they simply won't occur.

So in other words, you want to recheck the required actions after resolving each action? Changing this would have the following results:
1. If a required action introduced a new card into play (either directly or indirectly, e.g. a response to a required action), and that new introduced card had a required trigger on it to the original event, then the introduced card upon recheck would trigger, even though it wasn't around when the original event happened.
2. In your example with Uruk Rager, if a FP player chose to deal dmg first, and then somehow managed to discard/kill the Uruk Rager while resolving the damage (or by responding to the damage), then upon rechecking for the "Win skirmish" event, Uruk Rager would no longer be around, so the 2 cards would not be discarded from FP deck.

[bibfortuna25]

Correct on both counts.