post for 12 December 2001

Gaijutsu Ancestor Question

But it is one of the few unique cards you can get with an event. I have another question to add on top of this, if I put the Dragon Tattoo on my ancestor, can I then draw a card from my tattoo holding?

No.

Odd question on basic concepts

Unfortunately, my question is about the philosophy -- Toshiken was just a good segue card. Allow me to put up a (hopefully short) list of example cards, each of which have 'can' or 'may' as an operative word that would seem to allow the player(s) a choice of performing the action on the card or not. Moreover, if the player chooses not to do the effect right now, will the trigger allow the choice to happen again?

Battle of Quiet Winds : Battle Terrain: The Attacker and the Defender may each send an opposing unit home bowed. (Choice: first player lets the unit remain - he's winning. Player two sends home a unit, now he's winning. Does player one say, "Since I have not sent a unit home yet, I will do so now."?)

No.

Goblin Sneaks : When this Follower has been destroyed, you may return it to play during your end phase... (If the player chooses not to return the Sneaks, has the window of opportunity passed? ) Similar: Undead Legion

You get multiple End Phases over the course of the game, and the "trigger" is not dying but being dead in the discard pile. You can return the Sneaks on any later turn.

Shaunasea : During your End Phase, if Shaunasea is Honorable Dead, you may shuffle him into your Dynasty deck. (The player chooses to keep three of him Honorable dead until, say, the overlord (Kobayun?) comes out and gains +3/+3 from it. In that turn's End phase, can the player recycle the three Shaunaseas even though they died several turns ago?)

Yes.

Street to Street : After the end of this battle action phase, or when this terrain is destroyed, each player's remaining Followers may be attached to any of that player's surviving Personalities in this battle. (May a player choose not to reattach a Haunted, Kolat Geisha, Monk Advisors, etc that another player had attached to their cards?)

A player may choose that.

Path of Wisdom : Immediately before your end phase, if this card is in your discard pile, you may place it in your fate hand. Shinjo's Breath : If the unit is led by a Unicorn Personality, you may return this card to your hand at the beginning of the current player's end phase. (Do each of these have a repeatable trigger, if the player wishes to avoid discarding down to 8 at the end).

No, and irrelevant. You discard at the end of the turn, so cards that enter your hand "before" or "at the beginning of" your End Phase will always be there before it's time to discard.

Bitter question and towers of the yogo

Bitter's actions targets the personnality it is attached on (Battle : THIS PERSONNALITY bla bla blah...), thus you cannot use that action, as per targetting rules you are not allowed to target your bowed guy. I thought the new targeting rules say that if the object or objects in question are part of a distinct whole group that is referred to (all ninja in play, all monks in your army, etc.) the action did not target. Well, this is referring to a distinct group, all personalities the sword is attached to. Just how I read it.

The old rules were that anything that fully specified what it affected did not target since it did not allow a choice. You're thinking of the new rule that global effects are untargeted. Bitter doesn't fit that category. It falls under the "it doesn't fit any of the other rules so it's targeted" rule.

post for 11 December 2001

Thanks, Jeff and Vaughn. You guys can skip my latest post last night on this thread that has my list of examples if you want. The other card that I thought had 'may' in it was Awakening Shokuji Doju, but the card search engine doesn't have the word. (That and the Path and Shinjo's Breath were my big three points of confusion on 'may') I guess this was errata'd to make the 'go home' clause mandatory?

It's the other way 'round. Errata was issued to make it OPTIONAL. The word "may" should have appeared on the card but did not.

An Oni's Fury answers

So since the Dragon tat is attached to the ancestor, does this mean that you can add three fire tokens to your personality every turn?

No. Tattoos possessed (not "attached" -- tattoos technically go into the discard pile after being played) by the Ancestor are treated as being on his Personality if the Personality does not have them already.

Citadel of Daigitsu question

Iron Mempo: Battle: Once per battle, create Fear that bows all the Follower tokens in one unit. Citadel of Daigotsu: When one of your cards is producing Fear, you may bow the card to have the Fear also affect Personalities that do not have unbowed cards attached.

How does this interact with the Citadel. By my reading it could read,,,

1) Battle: Once per battle, create fear that bows all Personalities that do not have unbowed cards attached in one unit.

or

2) Battle: Once per battle, create Fear that bows all Personality tokens that do not have unbowed cards attached in one unit.

2).

An Oni's Fury answers

You can bow Kitsune Gohei to destroy a personality that does not have unbowed cards attached.

That is correct.

Are you sure about that? The cost for Gohei's effect is bowing, and the cost for the Citadel effect of affecting the personality also requires bowing. How can he do both at the exact same time?

It's not my week for Shadowlands cards, is it?

No, Kitsune Gohei can't bow twice in the same action. He can't be used with the Citadel's special effect.

Tattoo question

Can you use the Arrowroot tattoo in conjunction with a Crane tattoo? I guess no, because ....

1). The cost for using the arrowroot tattoo is "destroy this person" which can't be done because of the Crane tat.

and

2). A personality with the Crane tat can't be targeted by me.

Am I right?

Not quite.

The Crane Tattoo does not make destruction of the Personality illegal. It lets you return him to play after he dies, if he dies in a battle or duel.

Using the Arrowroot Tattoo does not target the Personality possessing it. Someone who has a Crane and an Arrowroot tattoo can use both, provided he's in the current battle (otherwise he's not destroyed "during a battle" and can't use the Crane tattoo).

Yakamo's Armor/Armor of the Shadow Warrior question

Here's something I found odd.

There are two new cards that have me confused...The Armor of the Shadow Warrior and Yakamo's Armor. I thought that Yakamo wore the armor of the Shadow Warrior. Didn't he don it after his pop Kisada went to meet his ancestors? Aren't these two items the same item?

Yakamo had his own armor before inheriting his father's.

Quick attaching question

Greetings, I have a quick question on attaching and targetting. The answer to this is in the AoF rulebook I'm sure, but I'll be at work until late today and therefore won't have access to it. So I was wondering if any player (rules gurus need not chime in) might answer me this. I seem to recall a change as of gold edition stating that attaching items, followers, etc, is no longer considered to be a "targetted action" and that you may therefore attach things to your own bowed personalities. Is this accurate?

It's just the opposite: it was clarified that it IS a targeted action. Because of that, the separate rule that only unbowed Personalities could attach cards could be eliminated.