Ithilien Pit

Does this mean you can choose to attack that enemy even if he's in staging area? Or does that enemy still need to engage someone?

By wording I'd say you can attack no matter where the enemy is but I wan't to be sure.

You can attack enemy in the staging area.

You can attack enemy if he is engaged with another player.

Just wondering if you can attack an enemy, which has been moved to an out-of-play area by Saruman´s effect.

Wouldn't Saruman's effect also discard any attachment on that enemy/location? In any case, I'd say you can't attack that enemy since he's out-of-play.

Saruman doesn´t discard. But he does also move the attachment to an out-of-play state and inactivates it

Saruman doesn´t discard. But he does also move the attachment to an out-of-play state and inactivates it

According to page 9 of the rulebook: "If the card to which an attachment is attached leaves play, the attachment card is discarded."

Saruman causes the enemy to leave play. All cards attached to it are discarded.

Ithilien Pit is great with a stealthy Faramir, however.

But the Saruman scenario has been specifically addressed to the fact that it just inactivates any attachments instead.

http://community.fan...9-ithilien-pit/

But the Saruman scenario has been specifically addressed to the fact that it just inactivates any attachments instead.

http://community.fan...9-ithilien-pit/

Good catch on a somewhat goofy ruling (goofy because now we're not really "considering" the host card to be "out of play," but in a third state that is neither in play nor out of play; nothing wrong with that, except that the rules logic is weak: if you're going to define something according to the thesaurus you've created (O rule-writers), don't then redefine the terms of your own thesaurus on the fly; rather, come up with a new term. Some of these guys really need to find out what a controlled vocabulary is and apply it, but I digress).

Nobody has responded to this yet, and I think it's because it isn't easy. I think this a partly because the card is badly worded.

"Any character may choose attached enemy as the target of an attack."

It is my understanding that it is players that declare attacks, not characters, which makes this card marginally incoherent. It certainly disrupts and confuses the usual attack declaration process.

Normally you only have one chance to declare attacks. This is during the combat phase, after the enemies attack each player starting with the first, gets a chance to declare attacks, usually against enemies they are engaged with.

I think, with at least moderate confidence, that in the otherwise normal case, the Ithilien pit lets players declare attacks and have their characters participate in those attacks, even when the attached enemy is in the staging area or engaged with another player. But it has not explicitly granted them the power to participate in attacks declared by other players (the way ranged characters can), and I don't think they get that implicitly either.

And, in the otherwise normal case, the Ambush card lets a the engaged player take a combat phase action, at any action-compatible point of the combat phase, of declaring an attack against the attached enemy. The advantage here is that the enemy can be attacked early in the phase  - prior to it getting a chance to attack.

These cards seem to have little if any synergy.

The Ambush's Combat Action allows the engaged player to declare an attack out-of-sequence. But without contrary indicators, this is still an otherwise boring instance of them declaring an attack, and they need to obey the regular rules and restrictions. This means they need to exhaust at least one character to do the attacking, it can't be done with zero of their characters.

Also, only the usual parties may participate. That is, characters they control, and it seems certain that any ranged character controlled by another player is also acceptable. (From the Ranged rules description: "it can participate in attacks that are declared by other players.")

But there seems to be no power granted to non-ranged characters controlled by other players to participate. The Pit means they can attack that enemy but hasn't broken them free of the other usual restriction, in that they can only attack when their controller is the active attacker.

So while every player might be able to declare an attack against a victim of the Ithilien Pit, and have their own characters participate, collaboration is limited, as only ranged characters can participate in attacks declared by other players.

That lack of collaboration means the Ambush effect gains nothing from having the Ithilien Pit also on the target.

 

As you noticed in my post, I interpreted this wrong, as a collaborative attack card. But I think you are absolutely right, it just 'virtually' changes the player who is enganged with the enemy (for attacking purposes only, of course).

Thanks!