Rules for November 18th

Quickie Answers:

Snow Crane Tattoo will only add to Focuses from duels.

Not that anyone asked on the list, but in conversation on IRC the other night, someone asked, so...

Deeds, not Words is *not* trumped by Seppun Sensei.

Any other Seppun Sensei questions will be met by a show of extreme force.

Moving Motos

Shiryo no Ujik-hai R +1F 0C 1HR 0GC - 3F Unicorn Clan Cavalry Ancestor * Unique Battle: Bow Shiryo no Ujik-hai to move one of your Moto Personalities into this battle.

If I understand this correctly, If I have a Moto personality in play and this ancestor on any of my personalities, I can bow the ancestor (who will continue to provide +1 force to it's personality) to move my Moto personality into whatever battle is being resolved right now.

No. Because Shiryo no Ujik-Hai says 'this battle', the card generating the effect has to be in the battle that the effect is being used in.

Define Innate, please...

Mind you, I'm typing from a remote terminal with no web browser access, but to the best of my recollection from the last time I perused the rules archive, this is _not_ correct. Innate abilties are ONLY abilities printed on a Shugenja personality's actual card. Anything gained later does not count, IIRCC. If I'm wrong (and I may well be) any more rules-guru esque people should feel free to correct my misguided and presently archive-less self.

Sure. An innate ability is anything printed in a Shugenja's trait box that is preceded by Battle, Open, Limited, or Reaction. However, abilities gained that are *not* printed on the card are still legit, as long as they are actually considered to be on the card. There's a subtle and complex difference there, but for the purposes of this question, Tattoos all count as gained abilities when you're trying to figure out if they're innates.

Gaheris Strong like Rock!

Hi folks! I'd like to ask a quick question to you rules guys out there: if I egg Gaheris, and attack with both, does my opponent get a chance to play any action cards at all? My reasoning is : if he plays, say, refugees on Gaheris n°1, Gaheris n°2 says no, because the action is not sending Gaheris n°2 home, as Gaheris' trait is most probably self-referential. If so, the only action cards he may play are the ones that send both gaheris home at the same time, as force of honor would be able to do... So, am I right?

Completely. Two Gaheris's (Gaherii?) is a nigh-unstoppable combo.

More Hida Technique...

Having Hida Technique would have been particularly nice with the new ruling that simply having ANY trait at all qualifies as being affected by the trait. Which reminds me: Can you Way of Shadow your own ninja simply for being a ninja? ;)

No. The Ninja trait is not an action targeting one of your Ninja cards.

:)

My Personal Nightmare

I'm a dash confused about this new Spirit Wars card......does it mean thatit affects Personalities and it also affects followers immune to fear or does it mean that it affects personalities who are immune to fear and followers who are immune to fear?

Bottom line: Does it make fear affect personalities??

No. Personalities are not innately immune to fear, they just aren't affected by it. It's like trying to destroy an Item with a Ranged Attack. If you had a card that let you target Items that were normally immune to Ranged Attacks, you'd still need *another* card effect to let you try to shoot the Item in the first place. So it is with Nightmare.

Ally with the Shadow! Ally with the Shadow!

Alliance will be making an appearance in gold, will a player be still be able to name clans that have traits but no actual stronghold?

ie, In gold can a player use alliance with "lost clans" such as Yortomo's alliance, Monk, Ninja or Toturi's Army? (since there are numerous gold bugged cards with such traits)

The list of 'legal' Clans will not be changing with Gold, so you can still name Yoritomo's Alliance or...Ninja (!) with Alliance. TA and Naga and Monk, too. And anyone else I forgot who got removed from Gold.

The Mystery of Events

When does an Event that is revelaed thru the use of Essence resolve? Immediately? During the Dynasty phase? Or just it just sit there until your next Events phase?

They just sit there until your Events phase. The general rule is that any time an Event is flipped up outside of your Events phase (or a Region, too), it does not resolve or attach normally until the appropriate time. This applies to any effect that just flips up a Dynasty card outside of your Events phase.

Yogo Junzo, the *real* People's Champion

First: is the People's Champion a Political Action? I don't think it is because it doesn't say Political and it does not modify an honor gain or loss.

It's not inherently Political, no.

Also, is the honor reduction (the drop from 40-something to 39) and honor loss? If so that means I can use The Wind's Truth to redirect it.

It is an honor loss, and yes you can redirect it with The Wind's Truth. The loss generated is exactly equal to what it would take to reduce the original 'target' of People's Champion to 39 honor. You could also Dirty Politics it, which is kinda fun.

The People's Champion does not directly cause an unconditional honor loss because the player could choose to have someone step forward and accept (and win) the challange.

It looks to me as if Shadowlands players can take this action (for the same reason that they can issue Iajutsu Challanges).

Can we?

Yes. You may now perform the Dance of Infinite Thanks for a combo that works for Shadowlands players.

But what about the 20 honor?

Text: Unaligned Emperor Spirit Samurai Unique Hantei XVI will not join a Toturi's Army player. No player can acheive an Honor Victory while Hantei XVI is in play unless the player controls Hantei XVI. Any player may, as an Open Action, Lower his or her Honor by 20 to permanently take control of Hantei XVI. This is not considered an Honor loss.

Question: Can't the Spirit player just take back control immediately after control has been lost, thus making it impossible for anyone other than the Spirit player to win via Honor?

Sure...at a cost of 20 honor or so. Matter of fact, two Sepulchre of Bone or old Scorpion players could just do this forever, losing 20 honor as an Open action each turn until they got tired of it. The Crane player in the example would probably be much better off losing 5 honor to send a Korat Assassin after the Revered Emperor.

But what about the Shadowlands?

Yes, but the point being that there is only so many times you can take control of him before you loose from dishonor.

And if I understand the rulings on taking control of a personality, if your Family Honor drops below his Honor Requirement, you cannot take control of him anyhow. In that case, you'd need at least 30 FH to try to take him anyhow.

Jeff (or Vaughn, or Zen), is this a correct understanding of honor requirements and taking control of a personality?

Not quite. You only need check the honor requirement for a personality when bringing them into play from your provinces. Once they've entered play, their honor req only comes into play on certain obscure card effects. Taking control of them doesn't check their HR.