Rules for 11 June 2004

Before I give you the Rules for Friday, June 11, 2004, I wanted to address a typographical error in the Rules for 10 June 2004.

In the response to "[L5R-CCG] A few overwhelmed question" I missed a line when I was editing my post.

"You can choose to destroy the largest Personality, or you can choose to send two units home that don't have any Traits or ongoing effects that say they can't be sent home. (IE - you can't choose to send Chagatai home)."

Just ignore that last bit "(IE - you can't choose ...)". It doesn't fit with the rest of the post at all and wasn't a completed thought.

Anyway, on with the show.

Kenson Gakka pseudo-tactician rules Qn

I was just wondering the following - Is a personality granted the Tactician trait by Kenson Gakka allowed to attempt the default rulebook Tactical action and just not gain the force or does Gakka's text prevent the pseudo-Tactician from even attempting the action?

Nothing on Kenson Gakka prevents you from performing the Standard Tactical Action. All it does is prevent such a "Pseudo-tactician" from gaining Force from that Action. The Force Gain would be Negated, but you could still successfully perform the Action. Even if all the effects of an Action are Negated, it is still taken. Only Canceling the Action will prevent the successful play of an Action.

Question Batch

Can I return Hiruma Ashihei to life with Feign Death or is the action canceled by his trait? If I can bring him back, is he dishonored? Do I still lose 2 honor?

The Action gets Canceled once it tries to resolve the effect "Dishonor Hiruma Ashihei." Do not undo any effects that have already been produced by an Action when it is Canceled. (Diamond Edition Rulebook, page 72, "Canceling Actions and Negating Effects")

So you play Feign Death. You resolve the first effect - returning Ashihei into play. Move on to the next effect on the card - dishonoring Ashihei. Cancel the Action and don't dishonor Ashihei. You never even get to the third effect - lose 2 Honor. The only effect that will actually "go off" from Feign Death on Ashihei is the return-to-play effect.

Can Imperial Messenger be used to increase the honor loss from bringing Voitagi (or similar personality with honor-losing entering play effects) into play?

Yes.

I'm playing RED. As their first action, an opponent Ambushes me with Tsuruchi Nobumoto and does a Ranged 3 attack to kill my personality. How many cards must they discard? 1 or 2? If my opponent targets me with another limited action, does he need to discard since the Ambush interrupted the Limited phase? Finally, if he attacks me that turn, will he still have to discard for the first battle action he takes that targets me?

In the case of Ambush, you have to play the card during the Action Phase. That forces you to choose legal targets before resolving any effects (Diamond Edition Rulebook, Page 73). That'll trigger a discard from RED during the Action Phase. Then, during the Attack Phase created by Ambush, targeting your Personality with a Ranged Attack would again trigger a discard from RED during that phase.

Once the Attack Phase of Ambush finishes, you go back to your original Action Phase. This is not a new phase, so the once-per-phase discard of RED has already occurred for that phase. Playing further targeted Limited Actions during this Action Phase will not trigger another discard.

If your opponent declares an Attack, yes, he will have to discard for the first targeted battle action against your cards. That's a brand new Attack Phase, distinct from the one created by the earlier Ambush.

That looks like everything from Friday, June 11, 2004. If I missed your question, please repost it with a clear subject line including the flag [RULES] and I'll get back to you at the first opportunity.