It IS a frequently asked question… but yes, it could just be clarified in the rulings spreadsheet.
If there are no stealthed units on the board and you have a tower, does it still shoot one thing per turn? What exactly does “that it can see” mean?
The Tower addon has 2 distinct abilities:
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Once per turn, it disables all effects of stealth or invisibility. On your own turn, you can decide when to use this power in order to attack or target an invisible thing. On your opponent’s turn, it will automatically force the first invisible or stealthy thing to follow normal patrol zone rules instead of attacking whatever it wants.
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Whenever one of your things gets attacked, your Tower deals 1 damage to the attacker (at the same time that the attacker deals damage). The exception are undetected stealthy or invisible attackers past the first one (see ability 1), as far as I understand this bit.
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I assume that there are at least slight “counterpick” dynamics in this game in terms of which factions/specs even slightly counter one another(I assume this because that’s the case in most asymmetric games that I’m aware of). If this is in fact the case, it makes me wonder: is there any set order to how people choose what goes in their codex?
Is it just “blind pick”, like both players choose their faction/hero etc secretly and then reveal it simultaneously? For high level play maybe a drafting order would be what I would expect to exist (as in the case in DotA-like games).
Thanks!
(I couldn’t find anything about this in the manual - if it is there and I missed it, apologies.)
Tournament play it’s generally blind pick. For people playing casually, there’s no set rule.
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Drafting isn’t an official part of the game. Years of work went into making a game that specifically does not need drafting. Also, your opponent should never have any say whatsoever what YOU play in any competitive game. That goes against the point of having characters and letting people play the styles they enjoy or the characters they are good at.
If you play a casual game, it should be double blind character selection.
In a tournament, you’re expected to play the same deck the entire tournament. In a fighting game, you can switch if you lose and in Magic the Gathering you can sideboard in cards, but Codex already gives you an absurdly large “sideboard” every time you play. Much bigger than an MtG sideboard. Your three different specs (and 9 different common starts of heroX + specY) should give you enough versatility to deal with whatever. It’s definitely true that some combinations of heroX + specY counter others, and that’s intentional. Though you should have enough in your bag of tricks to deal with what’s thrown at you.
Logistically, it’s also very annoying to support people switching decks (multiple times possibly) during a tournament. So it’s best to not allow it, have the tournament run faster, and have it be more manageable to deal with potential cheaters (though that’s the least of the concerns here).
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That is fantastic, and I strongly agree on both points. Thanks for the answer!
By default, I should assume effects stack – right? Like, Might of Leaf and Claw would stack with itself if you got two of them going? Two Grounded Guides would give a double bonus to the field? Hotter Fire explicitly says it stacks with itself. A few cards go out of their way to say they don’t stack with themselves in certain ways, so I’m guessing the default answer is ‘yes’, but since in a lot of games the default answer is ‘no’, I can’t help but ask to be sure.
Chameleon Lizzo says, “At end of turn, return Chameleon Lizzo to his owner’s hand.” Is that after the draw phase or before?
A number of cards say you take control of an opposing unit. How does that work exactly? I think that you move them to your side of the board and treat them like a card you just played, with arrival fatigue, but they keep their damage, haste works as if you just played them, and they have your buffs not your opponents. Since Kidnapping specifies control for just one turn, I think the default is to control the unit until it dies, and then it goes into the other player’s discard pile. And I suspect you do not get their arrival effect. Have I got all of that right?
Do buildings get arrival fatigue?
Flying units flying over anti-air patrollers take damage from them, which makes sense, but does that work the other way around? Does a unit running under a flying patroller take damage? It seems logical that it would, but nothing I can find says that it does or doesn’t, and I kind of suspect that if it worked that way, something would mention it.
Are the detection abilities of the tower on your turn and on your opponent’s turn drawing from the same action pool or separate ones? The rules read just as well under both of these interpretations: I can detect one thing at will with my tower on my turn and independent of that, it negates the stealth/invisibility of the first thing that attacks me between turns, one action limit on each of those —or— I can detect one thing at will with my tower on my turn and it stays detected until my next ready phase, so can’t sneak around patrollers, but other things might, and if I’ve done that, the tower doesn’t do its autodetect thing between turns, but if it does do that thing, the thing it autodetected stays visible until . . . Okay I’m just lost on this. Help. 
This is more procedural than rules, but – there are a few things the rules don’t say how to denote, which I still need help remembering. The big one is arrival fatigue. With enough units on the board, it’s easy to forget exactly which ones just showed up and which ones are exhausted and which ones are ready to go. Exhausted is sideways, but what do you all do for fatigue? Do put the cards in a special area or tilt them diagonally or something like that?
I’m also having trouble with heroes dying. I like putting them face down to show they can’t be summoned, but I kind of need something with two ticks because I want to get them closer to ready along with all the other stuff during the ready phase, but they actually have to go through two ready phases. What happens to me is, my opponent kills my hero and I put it face down, and then I get to my ready phase and I’m like, “No, don’t put it face up, it just died, leave it face down to remind you not to summon it.” But then my next turn comes along and I’m like, “Did he die last turn? Or two turns ago? How long has that hero been dead?” I think I leave them in there way too long sometimes, and would be better off putting two runes on it. What do you all do, just remember?
More minor items: How do you denote “My tech 2 building has been destroyed but will be coming back”?
How do you denote that your tower has done its detection thing?
Sorry if that’s so much as to be obnoxious. Speaking of obnoxious! I am up to my eyeballs learning these rules, and at the moment have a clear memory of exactly what I found super confusing the first time through. In a few days, I’ll forget. Is that useful feedback? Should I write it up?
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Effects stack unless they don’t, yes.
Chameleon Lizzo has a handy word of god for clarification, found here or here
short answer, lizzo returns after your discard and draw
A turn is defined as the actions starting with readying everything to discarding and drawing a new hand. Each player takes a turn. Anything referencing one turn or end of turn is only one player’s turn.
Building cards cannot tap for effects when they have just been played, but their other abilities do take effect. Addons and Tech buildings are not completed until the end of your turn and thus have no effect during your turn.
Flying units do not have any effect on ground units that run under them.
Towers Detection once per turn is once per each player’sturn. See above.
I tend to put units in the vicinity of the patrol zone as I play them, and everything that has been around since before the turn is back towards me. During the ready step everything moves back towards me.
I agree. Maybe try flipping him over during the ready phase but exhausting him in the command zone until the next turn?
If it is destroyed, during the main phase you simply put it back to 5 health to denote it is rebuilding.
I have never thought about that, i suppose you could put a rune on the tower. But I generally just think about the one thing I am going to detect, and then forget that I have a tower. Same if my opponent has a tower, as it will only go off on the first thing that has stealth/invisibility.
There is no harm in posting what you found confusing. I would recommend putting it in this thread, so that anything of note can be summarized in the original post.
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Great, that was quick! Thank you very much!
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I think there are the little building tokens in the set, for buildings that were previously built but now destroyed.
Oh, I was using those when I built the things the first time! What do you use for that, then?
A lot of people seem to use dice to indicate base/building hit points, rather than using the building marker and adding damage markers. I saw it being done on the gameplay videos linked in the kickstarter (I think they’re LK404’s, playing with Leontes). Basically, if a die is there, then the building is there. It works pretty well; it’s easy to see for any player and it doesn’t require people adding up a bunch of damage markers.
It honestly never occurred to me to use the little building markers for destroyed buildings, because they rebuild for free the next turn (well, one will) and it’s not like one player or the other is going to forget what tech levels have been destroyed in a 2-player game (I could see it happening in a 5-player free-for-all).
I was using the little building markers from the print-and-play for indicating a hero was max level, but I’ve since switched to some acrylic tokens because they’re much easier to use than little squares of card stock. LK404/Leontes tend to use the little blue/yellow multipurpose runes to show a hero is max-band. I figured it was common enough to deserve a distinct token for my set.
Nice! I see. So it’s not as though there’s such an established face to face community that there are significant conventions about these things. Ok, I’ll figure out stuff that works for me, then.
I actually have a question relating to 2v2 matches, after attempting my first one:
2v2 Add-ons: Completely shared as part of the shared base, right? I initially missed the “can’t have two of the same add-on” rule somehow, so we played it incorrectly with too many towers. I just want to confirm that one player building a tech lab, heroes’ hall, or surplus means that both players on the team can choose another spec, summon an extra hero, and draw an extra card each turn.
This seems strong? It effectively doubles the value of non-tower add-ons, but denying your teammate the ability to build their own copy of these add-ons seems really arbitrary, unless it would be redundant because they’re shared. Two towers seems game-warping in a way that two tech labs/heroes’ halls/surpluses wouldn’t be, precisely because defenses are shared but tech buildings/heroes/hands aren’t. I do think that the tower is much stronger, what with two patrol zones to get through to twice as many buildings (except bases), so it still seems like the benefits of the non-tower add-ons are intended to be shared.
So…can someone confirm: double-power non-tower add-ons, or weird team legendary-esque non-tower add-ons?
As far as I know, when you first build a building, put one of those down. Then use a die to track its health. That seems to be the best solution, since when it’s destroyed, take the die off and the token remains.
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Each player may build an add-on, but you cannot have two of the same. A tech lab built by one player has a spec attached to it for that player only.
Remember, things that say you really mean you, and not your ally.
I’m trying not to be a rules robot here, but it’s a little hard to sort the rules as written from the rules as intended sometimes. The rules are sparse enough on the 2v2 to allow for misinterpretation (although I’m amazed at how explicitly and efficiently they answer other things, like Double Time and Legendary). Anyway, the non-robot version of the post was above, so apologies in advance for sounding pedantic here.
“You means you” is a great rule than answers almost everything.
However, the actual sentence on 2v2 add-ons in the rulebook (v.46) is:
“You” is specifically being used to refer to two people at a time here.
What else can we go off of? There’s some more rules for Tower, specifically.
(emphasis added)
Also:
The rulings spreadsheet says about Towers:
A literal interpretation of “you” through these in 2v2 would have the tower hitting anyone without stealth or invisible attacking your team, but only detecting stealth and invisible if it attacks a unit or building that is not controlled exclusively by your teammate. Additionally, if you have a tower, your teammate will probably never get to use a detector at all (unless they have Grave + Versatile Style or Eyes of the Chancellor), because only one of you gets to build a tower. Under that, stealth units could destroy all of your teammates’ buildings without facing a single patroller or tower shot, but would (once) if they attacked yours. Additionally, a detected unit would still get to ignore your teammate’s patrollers, just not yours. That’s…weird, and probably a sign that the “you means you” rule isn’t quite aligned.
There clearly was a reason that each side was restricted to one add-on of a given type. Two damage per attacker from two towers seems excessive, but is that also true of two separately purchased heroes’ halls?
I’m hoping sharpobject or someone who isn’t just guessing at why that restriction is there will weigh in and clear things up. In the meantime, I’ll continue with the idea that towers detect and hit anyone attacking the team’s stuff, and heroes’ halls/tech labs/surpluses will require coordinating with your teammate to see who gets to build and use one since the other will have to do without. It almost doesn’t matter, because towers seem like nearly must-build in 2v2.
You’re right, I hadn’t specifically thought about that.
But instead of waiting for sharpo, why not head to the source?
How about it, @Sirlin? Care to enlighten us?