Rules Questions thread

It’s like going to a chess tournament because you like chess, then finding out at the tournament about en passant, castling, maybe some fictional obscure rule that changes how promotion works depending on some odd board state (to imagine a complex rule in chess).

And then when you ask how you were supposed to know about those rules, why aren’t they in the official rulebook, the response is to point to the “helpfully” published minutes of the royal chess society over the past decade, where the rules were debated thoroughly. Of course, since the minutes are debates, it’s easy to get confused as different interpretations are advocated for.

I don’t think it would be unusual under those circumstances to ask that at the least an updated list of the conclusions from the rules debates were made available to players who are interested in playing the game without engaging with or studying the rules debates.

In this community it’s pretty difficult to prepare for games without studying the rules debates. This is a big ask for new players.

I ask you, quite sincerely and genuinely, how many times have you been caught in tournament matches by unclear/obscure interactions?
You speak as if this happens constantly, that it repeatedly impedes your victory. Is that true?

1 Like

I’ve done a full pass on anything combat damage and how its assigned, trying to make everything clear and consistent with all the rulings. First off, Glaxx needed a slight tweak, the wording above says he gets his immunities back at the end of combat, meaning Crash Bomber or Opal’s max band could potentially be able to finish him off when they shouldn’t be able to. Changing that last sentence to:

When it is dealt combat damage it loses these effects, if it doesn’t die it immediately regains them.

I’ve also changed the wording on armor, in Codex Classic it is ambiguous whether dealing damage to armor counts as dealing damage. In some cases it does (MoLaC, deathtouch) and it some cases it doesn’t (Glaxx, stuff that deals damage as -1/-1 runes). Armor’s reminder text now reads:

Armor prevents that much damage and is then destroyed.

MoLaC is then updated to read:

Whenever you attack, if the attacker has at least 1 power put a [whatever] rune on this.

This also clarifies that you don’t get additional runes if you also do damage with effects like sparkshot or overpower. However there is a corner case when attacking a squad leader Debilitator Alpha with a 1 power unit. I can see this corner case actually making a difference in a real match, but I’ve painted myself into a corner here, I can’t find a better wording.

Moving on to deathtouch:

When this deals combat damage to a unit or hero, the first point of damage ignores armor and destroys the recipient.

The intent with this somewhat awkward wording is to codify the interaction between deathtouch and overpower more clearly. Even though the first point of damage is lethal you still have to chew through the rest of their health and armor to overpower. This isn’t super clear, but barring a paragraph of explanation in the reminder text I think this is the best we’re going to get. Overpower now reads:

Combat damage this deals to a patroller in excess of their HP and armor also hits something else this could attack.

The interaction with armor piercing is still a little ambiguous here, but atleast it now says “also hits” clarifying the interaction with Focus Master.

I’ve also made sparkshot and the tower specify that they do combat damage, and Hotter Fire now specifies non-combat damage. Not 100% satisfied with all of these wordings, but trying to get all of these interactions to line up while still keeping things clear has been a real challenge. Overall I think things are a significant net improvement. IDK how many of y’all are gonna be interested in digging in to this nonsense with me, but as always the feedback is appreciated, especially if you can point out anywhere the new wording diverges from the old.

I want to address several of your points but I feel this is better suited to a separate thread, so it does not confuse people seeking answers to codex official rulings.

3 Likes

I think it’s worth addressing the parts that contradict the rules here, just not the wording. For example, the MoLaC tweak doesn’t work, because units with 0 power still trigger it if their sparkshot goes off.

1 Like

New thread here:

Excellent catch, back to the drawing board.

1 Like

Just a few more notes, now I have the time:

  • Damage in -1/-1 runes to armour still counts as dealing damage, it’s just that the counters are… applied to the armour, I suppose. You are correct that an armoured 0 HP Glaxx is an exception here, though.
  • Deathtouch rewording: personally I find this more confusing than the original text: “first point of damage destroys the recipient” heavily implies all the rest goes to overpower to me. I don’t think the new overpower text helps in this regard.

This reminds me that one of my pipe dreams was to essentially turn the ruling in this thread into a list of “unit tests”, removing any out-of-date ones along the way, with the intention of reducing the initial learning curve for people trying to make rules-enforced digital versions of Codex. It would be a long undertaking, though, and I don’t know whether people would use it.

1 Like

It does happen constantly. I wouldn’t say that I would otherwise win, but it doesn’t feel like a good match.

If you look at all the tournaments I’ve played here, only 1 or two I have succeeded in being eliminated without triggering a significant reunderstanding of the rules for me. I literally measure this as a kind of success for participation.

1 Like

If a Ramaba Twin dies with a Graveyard out, active player decides whether it goes to Graveyard or codex, right?

This should be similar to Reteller instead of Twin

and the reply, which I second

1 Like

Great, that’s what I thought. It creates an odd situation where the opponent can kill both Twins on the same turn, and put them both in the Graveyard, so they don’t bring each other back when played.

If I cast a Maximum Anarchy while my opponent has invisible units that I cannot see: do they get destroyed as “destroy all units” probably does not require the player to see the unit(s)?

Yep. Invisibility only matters to attacking and targeting.

2 Likes

How do Tower damage and Armor Piercing interact?

Say a 3/3 defending unit has both a Tower and the benefits of Ferocity and is attacked by a 3/4+1A with Swift Strike. Do both die or only the defender?

As far as I know, Tower damage is not unit damage, and therefore does not have armour piercing.

1 Like

Indeed: Ferocity affects units, not buildings, and Towers don’t get the abilities of the defender. The defender can bypass the armour, but the Tower can’t, so the Tower just pings the armour, leaving the attacker on 1 health.

4 Likes

So the armour is ignored “for the damage” with armour piercing not “for the combat”. I wasn’t sure because of how Tower kind of gets Swift Strike when defenders have it.

The first sentence is spot on, the second is not true. Tower deals damage at the same time normal combat damage is dealt, independent on whether the defender deals his damage swiftly or not.

A Tower deals damage at the same time as the attacker, not at the same time normal combat damage is dealt. So, for example, if I have 3 visible 1/1 Skeleton tokens and Ferocity active, and my opponent has a 3/3 Plague Spitter in SQL backed by a maxband Orpal and Tower, I can attack with all 3 Skeletons and kill the Spitter without triggering Orpal’s maxband because the Tower would kill the Skeletons before the Spitter had a chance to put any -1/-1 runes on them.

But, this doesn’t mean the Tower gets the swift strike ability. Dealing damage at the same time as the attacker is just its normal behavior.

6 Likes

(Emphasis added)

This is the timing subtlety I needed to understand, Thanks!

However I now have a follow-up question. In your example if the skeletons don’t have swift strike but do have armour, say from Safe Attacking, will Orpal’s Maxband trigger?

The skeletons definitely die from combat of course, but if the Tower damage is simultaneous with Spiitter damage, how do we resolve which damage goes on armour and which damage goes on HP? Is it just active player decides?