post for 30 May 2002

Card Question

Quick question:

(In Search of the Future)Battle: Lower all current force bonuses for cards in this battle to 0, expect bonuses to or from cards attached to them.

(Battle of Shallow Waters) Battle Terrain: Negate all force penalties for cards in this battle.

Question being....is the force reduction cause by In Search of the future a force penalty seeing it dont negate force bonuses just "penalizes" them and if so does the terrain negate it?

The reduction or negation of a bonus is not a penalty [DA rulebook p. 31]. The Terrain does not counter In Search...

Another newbie question

I know this is really elementary, but my son and I were playing today and couldn't settle something in the battle phase.

It was at the beginning of the game -- I had one personality with light infantry out, and he had one personality out with a follower. I attacked a province, and he chose not to move his personality in to defend it. So I defeat the province, right?

The total attacking army Force minus the total defending army Force (if any) has to *exceed* the Province strength to destroy it. If it's lower or tied, the Province survives.

Next question -- p. 53 of my rulebook says that "one battle occurs at each of the defender's provinces, whether the province has units assigned to it or not." Does this mean that I can continue attacking his other provinces in that turn? It seems illogical to me, but we couldn't make sense of that wording in this context.

Gary Kirby (Kirbdog53@aol.com) answered this well enough that I don't feel a need to add much. Here's his answer again, so it gets flagged with the Mark of Officialness (Officiality?):

] You attack players, not provinces. After you declare an attack on a ] player, you assign units to attack his provinces. There is a battle ] at every province that your opponent has. However if there are no ] units assigned to a province, or moved into it with a battle action, ] nothing takes place at that battle besides both players saying ] "pass" and ending the battle. In order to speed things up, many ] players ignore these battles. However the following is completely ] legal (and used to be a standard for unicorn). You declare an attack ] on your opponent. You assign a unit to his first province. He ] doesn't (or can't assign any defenders. You resolve the battle at ] the first province, and produce enough strength to take it. You then ] play Rallying cry to keep your unit from bowing from the battle. You ] then resolve the battle at his second province. as your first action ] you play Accessible Terrain. Your opponent passes. For your second ] action you move your unit from the first battle to the second ] battle. You continue on to resolve the battle. If you have three ] Accessible Terrains and three Rallying Crys, you can destroy all ] four of his provinces on the same turn.

Abush Stratagist question....

After looking at the stratagist last night and then looking at Ikiryo I am wondering if this is something I can pull off.

Ambush Strategist Rarity/Edition C Fire and Shadow [ Reprints ] Text Battle: Bow the Ambush Strategist to give each card in this unit with one or more ranged attacks a Force bonus equal to the card's highest non-variable Ranged Attack strength.

Ikiryo Rarity/Edition C Shadowlands [ Reprints ] Text Nonhuman Shadowlands Battle: Bow and destroy Ikiryo to have it make a ranged attack with strength equal to the Chi of Ikiryo's Personality. The ranged attack can target a Personality with Followers. Lose Honor equal to the Chi of Ikiryo's Personality. Dishonor Ikiryo's Personality.

If I have Bayushi Pankei (4/4) with Ikiryo and Ambush Strategist attached, can I bow the AB to give the Ikiryo a +4 bonus?

Yes.

Sender:

The Bulb's attack comes immediately after the Personality's own, so it would happen before Nobumoto goes home.

My question is: does Isawa Nakamuro (Exp.) ability ' Elemental Reaction: Bow Nakamuro when a ranged attack or spell effect targets a card in his army to redirect it to another target in this battle. This may redirect an effect that targets an "opposing" card to a card in its own army. ' allow me to redirect it to Mukami before he leaves the battle?

Yes.

and in the above situation, before his second attack?

It would destroy him (possibly) but would not stop the Bulb's attack from happening, since that was paid for "before" Mukami made his first attack [Bulb card text, DA rulebook p. 45]

Gold edition fixed sets

Very cool. That is, if you can read French, and guess the English names of all French cards. And I'd be delighted if AEG decided to do this for future sets. (Hey, current new rulebooks include checklists; would it be that much more trouble to add fixed card information?)

That depends. How hard do you want to squint?

Seriously, besides the space issue, there would be a huge impact on the Sealed Deck format. "Do I use my 6/1 berserker? Hmmm...sure! No one has any duels!"

It's a neat request, but I think blindly satisfying it for no other reason is unwise.

Uso+Strike of the Flowing Water

This came up the other day at our Strategic tourney betweeen a Tainted Crane and Dragon player.

The Crane player is down to his last province and is sitting at a comfortable 30 honor, the Dragon player is at 23 no thanks to some Wind's Truths. The Dragon player lays down a Ki-Rin's Shrine Exp. and a Mirumoto Uso Exp. Ends his turn and draws two cards (Thanks to a Ashigaru follower).

The Crane player gains five honor (Kabuki Theater Troupe+2 Fantastic Gardens) and slaps down an I. Challenge. He challenges Uso with his Kuhorito with a CSotC and a Blackened Claws for a chi of 20. Dragon accepts and gets corrupted (now down to 3 C). He then bows a shugenja for Double Chi and focuses his two cards (2 Strike of the Flowing Waters). The Crane slaps down his first focus and grins (Focus). Dragon responds by focussing 2 more (Draw From Within!) and the Crane focusses as well (another Focus). Dragon then strikes and Crane responds with a Bend Like a Reed smiles and flips over his focused cards and proudly announces a total of 42 (20+5+5+5+5+2). The Dragon laughs and shows his total and bellows out "111!". Now here is where the contention is. The Dragon explained his total by saying that BOTH SotFWs doubled BOTH DFWs. In other words 6*2*2+6*2*2 for the second focus then Double Chi, making it worth 96! Plus 12 from the Double Chi and his base of 3 making his total of 111. Now the Crane player said that the two SotFW only applied for 1 of the DWFs in other words Uso's total would only be 75. The Crane player wasn't contesting his loss he just said that the Dragon player played incorrectly.

This isn't simple, is it?

Let's see. Dragon focused like this:

SoFW (3), SoFW (3), DFW (3), DFW (3)

By the Gold Edition wording, SoFW doubles the Focus value of the next card you focus in this duel. By text, that's just one card, so it won't double Uso's next focus's two cards. And by ruling, the doubling happens when the next card is played. That gives us:

SoFW (3), SoFW (6), DFW (6), DFW (3)

When the Dragon player strikes, the focus values of both Draws

From Within go DOWN by 3 (not up -- that requires the other player to strike), giving us

SoFW (3), SoFW (6), DFW (3), DFW (0)

These then all get added twice due to Double Chi, giving Uso a total focus bonus of 24, for a total of 27...not *quite* enough to beat the Crane. (Even if Draw From Within worked the way he obviously wanted it to, when YOU strike, he'd still only have 39.)

Rules questions

I have a couple of questions and I am sure you can answer these for me.

I am attacking with a Personality and have another Personality at home, and the second has an Armor of Sun-Tao attached. Can I play the Terrain stored under it in the battle where the first Personality is attacking?

No.

This one follows the first: If the attacking Personality has a Scout attached can I play the Terrain under the Armor before the defender's first action?

Not if the Armor is not in the battle, no.

My Doom of the Dark Lord resolves. A couple of turns later, I get an Aka Mizu-Umi into play at one of my Provinces. What happens if I cannot draw any more cards and have to destroy the Province with Aka Mizu-Umi attached? Does DotDL get negated for everyone or are the effects negated until the end of turn, which means that my opponent(s) need to keep destroying their Provinces if they cannot draw cards?

In the spirit of past rulings, it would only prevent the draws and distruction that turn.

Question about Kokus

I would like to know if, when we are member of the Imperial Assembly, we can use plunders (koku for 7th Sea CCG) to buy L5R cards.

It does not matter if you are a member of the Assembly. Anyone can redeem Koku, and anyone redeeming Koku can also send Plunder from 7th Sea, Ghostrock from Doomtown, and Dinari from LBS.