A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 28 December 2011
This is kinda an extension of the thread here : http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=64362&p=824523&hilit=surprise+attack#p824125 which is really old, so pardon me. I see the samurai ruling is straight forward, but if you go further into 'legacy' cards and pull out plans within plans it starts being complicated and I just want to be sure I understand how it works. Don't want to screw up any 'create a battlefield' cards that might appear during the action phase.
This depends heavily on 2 cards: Ambush:
Limited: Choose your performing unbowed Personality and target another player's Personality: Create a battlefield (not at any province). Assign your Personality to attack there. Assign the target to defend there, even if he is bowed. Other Personalities will not move there. Fight a battle there (after this action's resolution). After the battle ends, lose 5 Honor.
Surprise Attack:
Battle: Choose one or more of your performing Nonhuman Personalities at the current battlefield and target one of the enemy leader's Personalities there or at home: Create a battlefield (not associated with any province). Move all the performers and targets there.
It touches briefly on Plans within Plans:
Open: At your next opportunity to take an Open action, you may instead take a Limited action.
So if somebody creates an attack (but not an attack phase) like say use of the card "Ambush" and as a result players are forced into attacker/defender roles. You then use Surprise attack to move to yet another created battlefield (still outside the attack phase) but the movement of one of the parties is negated.
example: I'm playing with a bunch of nonhumans (we'll use Tokuro's bear as an example. nonhuman spirit)
My enemy is running Wrathful Dead (nonhuman spirit). ---- I play Ambush and force him into a battle as the defender.
I then play surprise attack, but the 'Wrathful Dead' is either cowed by wisdom (by me) or Height of Courage (by the scorpion controller), are they still considered the defender at the new battlefield? Even though they were never in the defending army? Its not during an attack phase, so I find it odd to imagine it just retains attacker/defender status through the entire open phase.
---- To further complicate things (and ultimately the reason I asked, I might be at a tournament in the near future where these 'legacy cards' all might be present.)
If it DOES retain attacker/defender status, what if the scorpion 'Wrathful Dead' after the end of my created battle, uses "plans within plans" to ambush ME in the same phase targeting my En'you (not the bear, which last had 'attacker status') and the same thing happens (but in reverse where I negate my En'you's movement to the surprise attack's battlefield). Would I be able to move my Tokuro's bear into the attacking army at the enemy's surprise attack battlefield because I never had anybody in the defending army at the surprise attack? Or would it retain my last (player) attacker/defender status from his ambush? Or a 3rd scenario, where his ambush fails because I have attacker status this phase from MY ambush and cannot be assigned as defender (not sure if cardinal rule 'card overrides rulebook' applies)
Jon Palmer (rules official), 28 December 2011
This is kinda an extension of the thread here : http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=64362&p=824523&hilit=surprise+attack#p824125 which is really old, so pardon me. I see the samurai ruling is straight forward, but if you go further into 'legacy' cards and pull out plans within plans it starts being complicated and I just want to be sure I understand how it works. Don't want to screw up any 'create a battlefield' cards that might appear during the action phase.
This depends heavily on 2 cards: Ambush:
Surprise Attack:
It touches briefly on Plans within Plans:
So if somebody creates an attack (but not an attack phase) like say use of the card "Ambush" and as a result players are forced into attacker/defender roles. You then use Surprise attack to move to yet another created battlefield (still outside the attack phase) but the movement of one of the parties is negated.
example: I'm playing with a bunch of nonhumans (we'll use Tokuro's bear as an example. nonhuman spirit)
My enemy is running Wrathful Dead (nonhuman spirit). ---- I play Ambush and force him into a battle as the defender.
I then play surprise attack, but the 'Wrathful Dead' is either cowed by wisdom (by me) or Height of Courage (by the scorpion controller), are they still considered the defender at the new battlefield? Even though they were never in the defending army? Its not during an attack phase, so I find it odd to imagine it just retains attacker/defender status through the entire open phase.
---- To further complicate things (and ultimately the reason I asked, I might be at a tournament in the near future where these 'legacy cards' all might be present.)
If it DOES retain attacker/defender status, what if the scorpion 'Wrathful Dead' after the end of my created battle, uses "plans within plans" to ambush ME in the same phase targeting my En'you (not the bear, which last had 'attacker status') and the same thing happens (but in reverse where I negate my En'you's movement to the surprise attack's battlefield). Would I be able to move my Tokuro's bear into the attacking army at the enemy's surprise attack battlefield because I never had anybody in the defending army at the surprise attack? Or would it retain my last (player) attacker/defender status from his ambush? Or a 3rd scenario, where his ambush fails because I have attacker status this phase from MY ambush and cannot be assigned as defender (not sure if cardinal rule 'card overrides rulebook' applies)
The flow here is a little hard to follow, but I'll try to answer where you've got question marks.
1. If the Wrathful Dead does not move to the battlefield created by Surprise Attack, it is never the defender at that battlefield. It ceases to be a defender once the battlefield created by Ambush resolves, although another action could then move it into the battlefield created by Surprise Attack and it would become a defender once again.
2. It seems the answer to question 1 makes the questions you ask in this paragraph irrelevant. I think you may have slightly misinterpreted Zen's original response. He was saying that Surprise Attack itself does not reset who the "attacker" and "defender" are for the Surprise Attack battlefield based on who played the Surprise Attack.
If the Scorpion player plays Plans Within Plans, then Ambush, then Surprise Attack, the fact that you played Ambush and Surprise Attack earlier in the turn are not relevant to the definition of attacker and defender. He will be the attacker during his Ambush and any subsequent Surprise Attack battlefields created from it.
A player, 29 December 2011
this is a follow up to http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=95455#p1265582
How is the scorpion (wrathful dead) the defender in the surprise attack if he is never moved there by the surprise attack? At a battlefield that occurs outside an attack phase, how do you know who is the attacker and who is the defender when the card doesn't say? It says on Ambush (assign into attacking/defending) but does not on surprise attack.
Question A: At which point are you no longer the defender/attacker? Since you can't move a battlefield on sides that you are not on/invited, if you were never the defender, could you move into the attacking army at the Surprise attack battlefield?
Ninube Ogoku can move into any attacking armies even where you are the defender, in the case of a surprise attack. I would assume this means he can move to either army during a surprise attack where normally a player on the defending side could not move into the attacking army.
Ogoku can join any army, including an army attacking your Provinces, regardless of whether you have been invited in that battle. You never gain Honor when Ogoku joins an army.
But if its not at your province, and you're not in the defending or attacking army, what rule makes it so you can only move into one side or another? (or are you an "ally" or something like that)
So lets try this again (continued from the above linked thread): I understand that you have to continue "choose battlefield" until there are no longer new battlefields to choose, but once that's over does the fact that one player is the defending player forgotten? (also question A) What rules control what armies players can be in during battlefields where somebody isn't defender/attacker by default? (Question B) All I can find are rules prohibiting "3rd party" players joining the battle, not what controls who is on what side of the battle in the first place. Surprise attack doesn't dictate defender/attacker side, and apparently open phase battlefields don't retain that information either if a subsequent ambush doesn't care about the previous one, so what prevents you from moving to either side of a surprise attack?
if the scorpion player is never in the defending army during the surprise attack (because the scorpion person's movement was negated away from the ambush), can the scorpion then move (join) the attacking army since he isn't a defender? () (If not, can the scorpion be pulled into the defending army? What makes him a defender if he was never there, its open phase, and it isn't at his provinces?)
At which point can the scorpion join an attacking army during that open phase? (Kinda both A and B) (because he would use ambush via plans within plans to create a battlefield and assign to the attacking army)
Is it just ruled that any attacker in the ambush is the attacker in any battlefields created during the ambush (I can't find such a rule in the comprehensive rules)? Also, when does the ambush field (and its defender/attacker sides) stop existing at some point? (new question: C) Does the ambush exist until the surprise attack field resolves (and there are no other currently existing fields), until the end of the ambush (no longer existing when surprise attack engages), or until the end of the phase (allowing players to in theory move back to the 1st surprise attack battlefield if a 2nd surprise attack battlefield created off a later ambush)
(I could see this going into a war of honor rules section instead since I'm tempted to follow up with "what about people who can move in like Hida Yakamo even if not invited to ally vs. people who can just move in when there is no defending army" but that isn't really the issue. Because 'inviting' only really applies in multiplayer, but I'm curious how you KNOW who is actually part of a battle and who MUST invite themselves to join it since surprise attack doesn't negate/stop/etc any movement from anybody into either army. So how can you tell which side you can be on? Mentions of 3rd party players exists in the normal rulebook, so I feel like there is a chance you could become a "3rd party player" if nobody is successfully targeted by something that creates a battlefield outside an attack phase. Or can anybody who isn't currently on one side or the other, but isn't "3rd party" go to either side? Say delayed conflict followed up by counter-move or intimidation to switch 'attacker/defender' status by sending everybody home then pulling people back but onto sides they were not previously on.)
so I see it as 3 questions, with a bunch of questions I would expect to be answered somewhere between the main 2. I have a few others that more or less specify why I need clarity on those rules questions because I feel like the rules I'm targeting are vague and if they exist but I'm not seeing them then explanation as to how the interact with particular scenarios I present might help me better understand them. the 3rd one was more on the moment because a lot of silly actions are coming to mind depending on the ons. to the 1st two que
Jon Palmer (rules official), 31 December 2011
this is a follow up to http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=95455#p1265582
How is the scorpion (wrathful dead) the defender in the surprise attack if he is never moved there by the surprise attack? At a battlefield that occurs outside an attack phase, how do you know who is the attacker and who is the defender when the card doesn't say?
Because, as the original ruling you cited in the first question mentioned, Surprise Attack does not change who the attacker and defender are. The attacker and defender is the Ambush will remain the same for all subsequent battles created during that Ambush, unless specifically overridden by card text.
A lot of the hypothetical questions you ask afterwards seem to rely on that not being the case. Just because Ambush doesn't create an attack phase doesn't mean that attacker and defender work any different than a normal attack phase if other battles are chained off an Ambush.
I will check to see if Roger feels this warrants any sort of an update to the CR.