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Hi.

My wife and I picked up the 10th anniversary tin from Mardel and have been learning the game by playing the G and H decks against each other.  Everything we know about Redemption comes from the rulebook (woefully lacking in details on things like banding), the forums (hard to find specific information) and the REG (good, but requires some digging.)  (I picked Redemption up instead of M:tG and finding others who are interested has been a challenge.)

Here's the setup:
I have Egyptian Horsemen (7/7, Discard the top card from your opponent’s draw pile or draw a card from yours.)
I have captured her Miriam (4/4, Hero ignores gold brigade evil characters.)  I have other lost souls in my land of bondage.

She draws and makes a rescue attempt with Aaron (6/4, May band to Miriam. Protect all active Holy of Holies artifacts from discard while Aaron is in play.)  We decided (since it's not clear to we noobs) that she's allowed to band Miriam in to batte.

Questions:
1) Can my wife band Miriam in to battle from my land of bondage?
2) Assuming no enhancements are played, is Aaron slain or does Miriam's toughness somehow benefit Aaron?
3) If multiple characters of equal toughness are in battle, ignoring special abilities, who decides which character receives what damage?
(Underlying question: how is damage apportioned when multiple characters are in play?)
4) Totally unrelated to the previous questions: we received Poison in a booster pack.  Why is there a card called Poison with no special ability when there is an Instant Ability section called Poisons and Diseases?

Finally, if these questions belong in the Rulings section, feel free to move my post.

Thanks.
Troy

I didn't explain why Aaron can't band to Miriam...sorry for that.  Miriam is not considered "in play" which is both battle and territory.  Instead, she is in the Land of Bondage.  So the banding Special Ability targets all Miriams in play, so the Miriam in the Land of Bondage is not a valid target.

Mr. Seeker, that is not correct. The Land of Bondage is in play. Banding to a captured character doesn't work because you must band to characters of your alignment (exceptions: Siege and The Second Seal explicitly say to add characters of the opposite alignment), plus captured characters are not characters (and therefore cannot enter battle until released).

If a Hero ignores all Evil Characters in battle, then the battle is won, even if the other characters in battle die. For example, Cherubim (5/5 silver Hero) banded to Lois (2/2 purple Hero) vs. Goliath (10/10 black EC), Cherubim plays Spiritual Warfare (Hero ignores all human Evil Characters) which only enhances Cherubim. Lois is killed by Goliath, but Cherubim rescues the soul.

On distributing damage:
So the ignore special ability causes the rescue to succeed.  If and only if the heroes' combined toughness is overcome, the heroes which are not protected are discarded.  I think I get it.  This could be better spelled out in the rules.

On banding in captured heros:
I'm not sure what you mean by alignment except that you might mean side/player/team.  I don't find any such stipulation in the REG.  What I did find was this, in the third paragraph:

Players may band to any opponent’s character(s) unless the opponent’s cards are protected from being brought into battle (e.g., Wall of Protection).  The player bringing in the additional characters is referred to as the holder and retains control until the end of battle.  However, the owner does not relinquish ownership unless stated otherwise.  Characters are returned to their respective territories at the end of battle.  If characters are discarded during battle, they are placed on their owner’s discard piles.

So it seems that it does not matter whether the captured hero is considered "aligned" with me or with my opponent.  Thoughts?

Thanks.
Troy

I think by alignment...Tim might have meant that Miriam is no longer a "hero" it is now classified (aligned) as  "lost soul".  Again, I'm 99% sure that is what Tim meant.

*EDIT:  instaposted...Tim will just tell you what he means. "

Actually tim... I think forts are neutral. But I could be wrong. At least for deck building requirements. 

REG:
"When a special ability or deck building rule refers to a good card it means Hero (cross icon), good enhancement (Bible icon), good dominant (lamb icon), covenant (Bible and grail icon),or good fortress (fortress with bright rainbow colors)."
"When a special ability or deck building rule refers to an evil card it means Evil Character (dragon icon), evil enhancement (skull icon), evil dominant (reaper icon), or evil fortress (fortress with dark rainbow colors)."

Samson's Sacrifice: "If used by a judge, negate and discard one O.T. evil Fortress or occupied Site in play to discard all cards in battle and all human Evil Characters in opponent’s territory."

I don't see any where the REG requires that banding cards be aligned.  It makes sense, but the REG doesn't require it*.

I posted a quote saying so in my above post. That particular quote was taken from, of all places, the Convert section.

I also don't see how captured characters are not characters.  They must be characters or they would be lost souls.  Discarded characters are also characters for that matter.  Adding an adjective does not abrogate the noun.

They are treated as Lost Souls, if they're in the Land of Bondage. If there in something like Raider's Camp, then they're just captured characters, which are neutral cards. You cannot play Christian Martyr on a captured Hero, but you can play Burial on one in your Land of Bondage. See http://www.redemptionreg.com/REG/howtouse31.htm for some further details and examples.

Bryon Hake likes to use the examples: peanuts are not nuts, crab apples are not apples, and cow pies are not pies.

I'd like to take a moment to encourage you along the lines of having others to play Redemption with.  When I started playing a little over three years ago I only had my wife and my sister to play with.  We learned the game together so that was fun, but for a long time I didn't have anyone else to play except when we traveled to tournaments.  Eventually we started a "play group" by inviting several of our friends and people from church that we knew enjoyed gaming.  We got some copies of the G/H starter deck and gave half to each person that decided to join us.  We met weekly (on Friday nights) for fun, food and games for over a year.  It's been great to have friends locally to play with.  In the past year and half most of them have gotten pretty good.  One of them even beats me pretty regularly now.

You'll also find that there's a great community of people to play with online.  Check out the "RTS Online Play" section of these boards to find out about using RTS (Redemption Table Simulator) to play with other people online.  Besides opening up vast new opportunities for people to play, it's a great tool because it will let you try out cards you don't physically own so you can see if they are ones you'd want to get.

...
They are treated as Lost Souls, if they're in the Land of Bondage. If there in something like Raider's Camp, then they're just captured characters, which are neutral cards. You cannot play Christian Martyr on a captured Hero, but you can play Burial on one in your Land of Bondage. See http://www.redemptionreg.com/REG/howtouse31.htm for some further details and examples.
...

The REG says all over the place that they are treated like Lost Souls.  I get that.  I was being thrown by the fact that the REG doesn't seem to have a listing of what Lost Souls can and cannot do (e.g., banding.)  (Ignore for a moment that it doesn't make sense for a Lost Soul to enter battle.)

This is what I missed:

Only a card that affects Lost Soul cards is able to affect that character held prisoner, unless a card specifies “captured Hero” or “captured Evil Character.”

So, Aaron cannot bring Miriam into battle because his banding ability does not specify (not that it ever would reasonably) that it can target a captured Miriam.  (Yes, among the numerous other reasons mentioned, e.g., alignment.)

Thanks for being patient with me.  I feel honored to have received such persistent attention from such widely know players.

Thanks for the welcome.  I have installed RTS (on Linux no less) which makes me wonder if there are plans for an on-line version of Redemption.  (I have a feeling that is a longer, larger discussion than suites this thread.)  On the other hand, one reason we picked up a card game is so we can do the face-to-face thing instead of playing on the computer all the time.

We may try to form a play group, though we wouldn't mind meeting other players in Austin, Texas (not Minnesota.)  What is the most economical way to acquire several starting decks?

I'll try to start new threads for the rest of my questions.

Thanks.
Troy