Take out your opponents ranged units before they get to shoot?  What's not to like?  The two-cost obviously, but it is a powerful ability.  Stick it in an AM deck with Preliminary Barrage to overpower your opponent without them taking a shot.

Things to like:

- It goes before Ranged, so you can take out Ranged guys early

- It pretty much trumps initiative

- Its not an attack, so can target Honored Librarian.

- Its not Wargear, so can go on most units.

- Its non-unique, so you can dekbuild around 3 copies, should you desire.

Things which are good and bad:

- 1 Shield. Not 2 or 0.

- It is deployed, which is when your resources are at their tightest, but at least you get a deploy turn's grace.

Things not to like:

- Its not an attack, so you can't sub in AoE, or benefit from other effects that trigger on attack.

- Its expensive for its benefit

- It only hits Army Units, so you can't use it to beatdown / bloody a Warlord. This in turn means its negated in benefit by Warlord vs Unit, and so isn't something you'd play on an isolated Army Unit.

- Its strongly telegraphed

3/5

Card by itself has a powerull effect since it's a flexible Attachment in terms of Army units it can get sticked to.

I do feel that it's effect only becomes important in the lategame and only if the opposing force has a multitude of Ranged units to work with. 

Still it's effect can be powerfull without doubt.

3/5

Question:

The way the card is worded makes me think you MUST exhaust to get the effect, is this correct? For instance if this is attached to a unit at your Headquarters and the unit joins a planet with your Warlord already exhausted, does this card do nothing, or do you still get the effect?

Also, I guess this is just an overall question, but are "Reaction" keywords mandatory? For instance if I for some reason did not want to use this effect can I choose not to? Like if I want to go for a Warlord kill can I choose not to use this so my unit does not exhaust?

Thanks

Correct, the unit must be "ready" to be able to satisfy FW's cost (which is to exhaust the attached unit).

Reactions are always optional. Forced Reactions are always mandatory.

Been discussing on the Shadowsun Deck Thread that there's a synergy with Experimental Devilfish here, to get round the commit and exhaust problem you mention.

While that was my own suggestion, I am hesitant to call it a strong play because of all those resources being tied up in one somewhat fragile bundle, and the fact that you can't boost those HP easily. Plus, with a meta that is adding another Rout option, we have to beware of putting too many eggs in one basket.

Seems like "Even the Odds" would be a better synergy in the Shadowsun deck. Move this attachment from the exhausted unit to a ready unit wherever you happen to need it. Do it in the command phase and you get to see where it will do you the most good before deciding where to put it. Do it between battles in the combat phase and you get multiple uses in the same phase. Heck, since Even the Odds isn't loyal, it might just be a good match with this card no matter what the deck (assuming SM and Tau are your factions).

The card doesn't state on "your" unit, so what i understand here is that you can attach this to your opponent's unit to have the attached unit exhaust to kill one other of your opponent's unit. 2 birds with 1 stone. That does not feel right....

You cannot pay cost with opponent's card (page 5 RRG).

Cost are always like DO Y TO DO X.

In other words, you must control both the attachment and the character it is attached to in order to successfully pay the cost and trigger its reaction.

Seems like "Even the Odds" would be a better synergy in the Shadowsun deck. Move this attachment from the exhausted unit to a ready unit wherever you happen to need it. Do it in the command phase and you get to see where it will do you the most good before deciding where to put it. Do it between battles in the combat phase and you get multiple uses in the same phase. Heck, since Even the Odds isn't loyal, it might just be a good match with this card no matter what the deck (assuming SM and Tau are your factions).

Can you play Even the Odds during the command phase?

Sure. Even the Odds is a standard "Action" effect not limited to any one phase. You can play it in any "Player Action" window. And there is a player action window in the command phase after resolving the command struggles, but before the phase actually ends.

Can you play Even the Odds during the command phase?

You can play it during any phase. 

Seems like "Even the Odds" would be a better synergy in the Shadowsun deck. Move this attachment from the exhausted unit to a ready unit wherever you happen to need it. Do it in the command phase and you get to see where it will do you the most good before deciding where to put it. Do it between battles in the combat phase and you get multiple uses in the same phase. Heck, since Even the Odds isn't loyal, it might just be a good match with this card no matter what the deck (assuming SM and Tau are your factions).

Agree, there's quite a few synergies that make this a reasonable 1x in a Shadowsun deck, though to be honest I'm more drawn to Eldar allies for Shadowsun right now, as Eldritch Corsairs and Warlock Destructor support the Shadowsun game in a much more direct way.

Does this ability triggers before the Gleeful Plague Beast?

Just a quick question: The card says "after a battle at this planet begins.." so, can you use it more than one time in a battle for a planet? If the unit with this attachment readies (because of the normal course of the battle turn), lets you use the fenrisian wolves again?

I don't think you are answering the question that was asked, VonWibble.

As I read Kriegkorp's question, he is asking that, if the unit with Fenrisian Wolf survives the combat round and readies in "the normal course of the battle turn," can you use the Reaction on the attachment a second time because it is still "after a battle at this planet begins" - just longer "after". Essentially, it is a variation on a question about reaction use that has come up a number of times in recent weeks: "Does 'after X happens' in a reaction's text mean 'immediately after X happens,' or 'any time after X happens'"?

The answer to this question (i.e., the basic way all reactions work) is that reactions can only be used immediately after whatever they are reacting to happens. Once all players have passed on the opportunity to use reactions, you cannot react to that triggering condition any more -- at least until it happens a new time.

In short, the battle at the planet begins one time. You can only play reactions at that one time. Once all players pass on the opportunity to play reactions and move on to the next action and/or combat turn, you are no longer in the "after a battle beings at this planet" reaction window.

VonWibble's answer is quite correct, but for a different question (as far as I can tell): effectively, "Can I trigger a reaction twice in the same reaction window?" The answer to that, as he says, is "no." You can only use each individual reaction effect one time per triggering condition. So, for example, after using the Wolf, even if you were able to ready the unit within the same reaction window (say, with an effect saying, "Reaction: After a battle begins at this planet, ready a unit at this planet"), you would not be able to trigger the Wolf a second time in response to that one triggering condition.

In other words, you must control both the attachment and the character it is attached to in order to successfully pay the cost and trigger its reaction.

So theoretically, if it was Forced Reaction instead of Reaction, and you attached it initially to an enemy unit, what would happen? Since you cannot pay with enemy's cards to pay for the effect, but it's your attachment and his unit.... Just curious!

This card just got a lot more weaker- I thought all this time I could attach it to enemy unit and then exhaust it at the beginning of the battle to deal any enemy unit that damage...  

Oh and a second question,

If I had it in Aun'Shi deck and attached it to one of my Tau units and I've sent Aun'Shi to the same planet, would I get the Armorbane benefit too? Or is it only applicable to ATK values (plus all multiplying and adding modifiers, etc)?

Reason I'm asking this is because I've read somewhere here that Gun Drones get Armorbane with Area Effect, if Aun'Shi is at the same planet. Both are "card effects."

First one is something of an academic question, as there are no forced reactions that could end up needing an opponent's cards to pay for a cost. I expect such a situation would result in a fizzle though, where the forced reaction attempts to resolve but cannot. To take an analogy, if there is one planet left in play and someone puts a Heretek Inventor on it, that cards forced reaction would attempt to trigger, then fail to do so.

Second one is no. Check Armorbane in the RRG - it applies during attacks. Note that the damage dealt doesn't need to be from an attack or even from the unit with armorbane to benefit from Armorbane, but it must be DURING an attack made by a unit with armorbane. Thats why Area Effect works: its damage dealt during the attack.

Question 1 actually gets into some pretty fine points of the rules and so, as a hypothetical, is something of a nightmare. Remember that while they are triggered abilities, Forced Reactions are not considered to be triggered by the person who controls the card. (Remember this from the whole Nurgling thing? That when 2 units move to a planet with a Nurgling at the same time, it is the player with initiative who decides the order of the damage? This is because the person controlling the Nurgling is not triggering the ability - otherwise, they would choose the order of damage.)

Because no player is triggering a Forced Reaction, the question of who pays the costs (if any) of the forced effect is going to need to be inherent in the text of the ability itself. For example, Neophyte Apprentice (the only forced effect I can think of that has a cost) inherently tells you who pays the cost (and therefore gets the benefit of the effect) by using the word "sacrifice" - since only the controller of a card can sacrifice it.

So I would say that if you simply changed the bold text on this attachment to "Forced Reaction," the controller of the unit (as the only person who can exhaust that unit to pay a cost) would be the one forced to pay the cost when the attachment's ability triggered (by itself) - and would therefore get the benefit. Meaning that if this was a Forced Reaction, you would never want to deploy it on an enemy's unit.

tl, dr - Turning this into a Forced Reaction would take the controller of the attachment out of the equation. As such, it would force the controller of the unit to exhaust the unit and deal damage to a target of their choice, no matter who controlled the attachment.

No need for me to weigh in on Q2.