replies to 6-9 July 2001

Rules Q

With the new wording on judgement of toshiken, are bend like a reed and strike without though added to chiu totals since they are "focused" in the duel? or are they simply playable but negated without affect by judgement?

They no longer count towards the duel because they're not focussed.

Defend your Honor

Here's the situation:

Opposing peronality A Iaijutsu Challenges my personality B.

I refuse, and dishonor B.

Can I play Defend your Honor to prevent the 7 point honor loss?

Defend your Honor, Reaction: Play when another player's action is causing you a loss of honor. The honor loss is canceled. <snip the step forward and honor loss reversal>

Iaijutsu Challenge: <snip first part> The challenged Personality can refuse the challenge by losing 7 family honor and becoming Dishonored.

I only ask this because a) the honor loss is originating from the opponent's card (a limited action) and b) I *think* I remember reading in the erratta somewhere that making a decision is not considered an action.

So is the honor loss the opponent's action or your personality's?

I just want a final answer on this. It's come up several times in my games recently and I never heard a definitive answer.

The 7-pt honor loss is caused by the Iaijutsu Challenge action and card. Defend Your Honor may be played against the loss.

Question on Moving Items

Just remember that if the item or follower is bowed, they can't be moved, as far as I know. (Can't target your own bowed cards).

They can be moved. I tried to spell this out even more clearly in the Gold rulebook: you cannot target your own bowed Personalities with actions, but you CAN freely target other types of bowed cards with actions, as well as target your own bowed Personalities with effects that aren't actions.

Rules, Ratlings, Oath of Fealty Q

Now that Ratlings are a clan, i just thought i'd check the state of oath being played on them and then losing their former clan alignements. Although it would be amusing if a ratling swore to another clan and suddenly became human, i think it might screw up some gameplay :).

A card with the printed Ratling trait will not lose it when swearing fealty. And even if it did, whether a Ratling or Naga card is human or not is determined by the card's *printed* traits, which swearing fealty does not change.

Another related question is on cards that are specific about ratlings, ie. the trait "Ratlings in this army gain +1F" and similar. If i oath a human out of the Warrens of the Nezumi, do they gain the ratling, or nezumi alignment.

They gain "Ratling" now, as that is the formal alignment trait for the Ratling Faction given in the latest rulebook. They'll get that Force bonus.

Rules Question

Ok, we had a debate about this recently in the local group, and we all have our own thoughts on it so I thought I put it out here:

If I play To Do What We Must, and it is cancelled by Flee the Darkness, does my guy still die?

If you check the MRP of To Do What We Must, you should find it reworded so that it's clear you destroy your unit "to" destroy the opposing unit. That makes it a cost.

Does my To Do What We Must go back in my hand?

No. Gold rulebook, p. 45.

What exactly is the definition of a cost of a card?

Gold rulebook, p. 39.

Defend your Honor

The honorloss is caused by the refusal, not by the action. That is why shadowlands personality destruction decks can actually use Iaijutsu Challange. This is because the action it is not a direct honorloss, but an honorloss created by the action of the refusal.

Just to pick a nit: the loss *is* direct. The Horde can play Iaijutsu Challenge because it's *conditional*.

Kuro's Fire question

If Higher Ground is in play, or Arrows from the Woods is used, do these count for the total strength of the Ranged attacks, which must be less than the caster's force+chi?

This is one for the Junta. I can see it being read either way: applying the Chi as a limit only to the initial splitting or to their total strengths until they're all resolved. The latter is the more literal, but it leads to undefined cases when their strengths start getting decreased and increased in a series of reactions.

Yodin sensei rules question

Can a Yodin Sensei player play Enough Talk! and Overconfidence now?

No.

Could they ever?

Yes. Before Gold.

How about Kolat Duplicate?

Still no.

Rules Qtn: Heroic Opportunities

Greetings.

Just a rules question.

Heroic Opportunities Battle Terrain The Attacker and Defender each choose a number of different Personalities in their army up to the number of units in the opposing army. The selected Personalities gain Force bonuses equal to their Chi until the end of the battle.

The phrase "until the end of the battle" implies that this terrain's effects resolve immediately, rather than at battle resolution. Am I correct?

Are you correct that this implies HO is Immediate? Maybe. Are you correct that HO really is Immediate? No.

rules question

Being on the other side of this argument, I said 'no' for the following reason:

The book says it cancels any Ninja or Kolat action. Is any action generated by a ninja or kolat personality inherently Ninja/Kolat?

Gold rulebook, p. 34. An action takes on the traits of the action itself and all traits of the one card it's printed on, if any. So a Ninja Personality using one of her own actions would be a Ninja action (even if the action itself didn't say "Ninja" in front of it), but bowing to lobby or to shoot a Jade Bow would not be.

Also, does this mean that the book could conceivably cancel the sleeper token ability granted by Kage Sensei?

That ability is on Kolat Personalities, so it's going to be a Kolat action. Yes.

Some questions.

Okay. Ran into some card problems. Here are some questions:

1.

"Hiruma Sensei

Each player with one or more units in a defensive army may play actions in that battle regardless of card effects. Negate all costs for such players to take actions. While this card is in play, card effects created by the attacker cannot end a Battle Action Segment."

So, how does Hiruma Sensei works with, say, Deadly Ground? Played from either side. Does this allows the defensive player to basically ignore Deadly Ground and carry on playing action, while the attacking player and allying players just takes it to the chin?

Yes, it does. Note that defending allies are also spared, provided they have troops in the battle, and that it doesn't matter at all who played Deadly Ground.

2.

"Soul's Sacrifice

Gold 0 Focus 2

Battle: One of your Samurai in this battle with over 2 Personal Honor sends home an opposing unit. The Samurai permanently gains the Undead and Shadowlands traits. "

First question: does the sent-home unit goes back bowed or unbowed?

It goes back as-is.

Fox vs Mantis question [rules guys]

How is it that the Fox Clan stonghold can use the At'tok'tuk(Rat) sensei when the sensei states Mantis not Yoritomo's Alliance can use it, when the Fox clan stronghold clearly states they may not recruit Mantis clan personalities?

Although "Yoritomo's Alliance" and "Mantis Clan" are equivalent, the first one is the formal trait for that Faction, as per the latest rulebook. Personalities which swear fealty or otherwise gain your Faction's trait while under control of a Kyuden Kitsune player gain only "Yoritomo's Alliance".

Mantis Proxies in Gold [AEG]

The Great and Terrible Ray Lau said that we could interchangeably use the "Spirit of" cards with their previous incarnations. Kitsune Shudo is a member of Yoritomo's Alliance, but his next version, Ryukan, is not. Is Shudo played as though he has no such allegiance?

If you're using an old card as a proxy for its Gold Edition "Soul of..." version, you treat it IN ALL WAYS as that version. You are not allowed to use the older cards as-printed in the Strict Gold environment.

New Rules: Targeting

I need some help with Gold Edition new rules of targetting:

In the rules only reffers to actions, what about other cards or effects? (like Kolat Duplicate).

The new definition of "targeted" applies to them too.

Can now I target my non-personalities bowed cards?

You always could. Gold Edition hasn't changed this part of the rules.

Concretely, if my opponet targets one of my personalities with 'Ninja Kidnapper' and then names this personality with Shoju Sensei. How can I obtain an Honor Victory?. Can I target this bowed personality? (see Shoju sensei text: Until the end of the game, card effects that would prevent your opponents from targeting the personality are negated.)

You can't target him with actions while he's bowed, no. This is a rulebook effect and not a card effect, so Shoju Sensei doesn't allow you to ignore it. Again, this works no differently under Gold Edition than it did before.

Wind question

Can your choice of Wind change between rounds of a tournament, or is it fixed?

I believe it's fixed.

New Rules: Targeting

Then, can you target one of your own bowed personalities when bringing Tsuburu no Oni into play? I don't believe that's an action.

You can target one. This is even used as an example now.

rules question

one of my personalities is attacking my friends province, my personalities has berserkers on it, he has none personalities defending his province.

I use the battle action of my berserkers... If i destroy his province, my berserkers are destroyed because he has no force in his province.

Untrue. The Berserkers follower and Hida Amoro, by ruling, do not die if there is no opposing army during resolution.