Cactus Game Design Message Boards

If Foreign Wives is protected by her/their ability, can Ambush the City be used to create a new battle that is the actual rescue attempt?

Break-down of the question:

1. "If making a rescue attempt, set all cards in battle aside (regardless of immunity)."

At this point, FW should not be set aside, we can all agree on this.  Despite immune and protect meaning the exact same thing (I still advocate them being equivalent for this reason), the difference in wording means that the 'regardless' does nothing in this case.

So, the first issue is, since FW is protected from the first part, what happens at this point?  Does she remain "in battle" and "in play", while the heroes go to set-aside?  And can the rest proceed with:

2. "Holder may begin a new rescue attempt against same player."

Different part of the ability completely, and not dependent upon the previous ability (there is no cost/benefit or dependency indicated).  So, if FW remains "in battle" and "in play" from the previous part, is the new battle still created and separate?


My contention would be that AtC could be played, with all heroes being set-aside while FW stays in play, remaining in the battle that will become a battle challenge.  A new battle, separate from the one FW is in, begins and is a rescue attempt.  Once that finishes, the heroes return and join FW in the original battle as a battle challenge.

Thoughts?

I agree with Redoubter and The Van.

So if Foreign Wives is still in play, can I band to her in the new battle?

No.

Band
Default Conditions
Targets must be in a territory or in holder's hand.

So to stretch this: What if FW is banded into battle or plays an enhancement. I then play graps on the other evil card. Am I now allowed to begin a new rescue attempt?

Grapes' second half
"If the current rescuer doesn't have the most Redeemed Souls, he may begin a new battle."

And if yes does Wives just go back to territory? Does she get a counter in T2?

Grapes has an errata that only starts a new battle if no characters remain in battle.  FW is not shuffled by opponents' Grapes (unless they had drawn fewer than 5 cards) and is shuffled by your Grapes.

That's an interesting scenario. The ruling on cards like The Long Day, Grapes of Wrath and Lazarus (Di) is that they start a new battle phase. That means the current battle ends and goes through battle resolution. Wouldn't Foreign Wives return to territory and not be allowed to enter battle a second time during the new rescue attempt?

That's an interesting scenario. The ruling on cards like The Long Day, Grapes of Wrath and Lazarus (Di) is that they start a new battle phase. That means the current battle ends and goes through battle resolution.

Sorry, you're right, I misremembered how the rules regarding multiple battles work, she would not be protected after that resolution.

Wouldn't Foreign Wives return to territory and not be allowed to enter battle a second time during the new rescue attempt?

Why wouldn't she?  Are we treating her/they as unique?  I understand that they are specifically Solomon's wives, but we have precedent of cards with a reference to a large group being treated as generic (Pharisees/Sadducees/the civilizations with armies/archers/etc.), there is no "The" in the name, and it seems to be more expansive to the state of marriage of Israel as a whole, where there were many times of decadence brought on by having marriage with other religions.

As far as I know you can't have the exact same copie of a card enter battle twice in the same turn -  Generic or not.

You could however have two different copies of a generic enter two battles. I don't know where to look to back this up.

This is not correct, that rule changed in the 2011-2012 season.

Interesting.  While I understand your point, why are Pharisees and Pharisees considered generic, when they have the same verse and refer to the same Pharisees that Jesus was dealing with?  Why is Babylonian Forces considered generic when it describes the host of Nebuchadnezzar that specifically came upon Jerusalem?  Why are Gibeonite Delegates considered generic, when it was a single group of people who have a specific story related to their dealings with the Israelites?

The precedent has been established that a large group of people, even if they are from a specific story in the bible, are generally considered generic characters.  I honestly see FW in the exact same way I see Gibeonite Delegates, and from the rulings we have from the past, the classification of FW as unique seems inconsistent.

Hey,

Groups with unspecified size tend to become generic characters.  Groups with known size tend to be unique characters.  Foreign Wives fits in the later group (Solomon had 300 wives and 700 concubines).  Other examples of cards that represent a group and are unique would be Job's 3 Friends, Lot's Daughters, and Frog Demons.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

The problem is that those examples are of small groups of specific individuals, excluding frog demons, while Solomon's wives were a faceless mob of 1000 people. Isn't a "unique group" an oxymoron, anyway?

The real problem is not which groups of people are unique and which ones are generic. It's that we don't have a consistent system in place to easily determine one from the other. Right now the only way to know is to look on a list in the REG. Some of the elders recognize that.

A few years back, before I was part of the elder team, maybe even before he was, Tim suggested a system. In true Tim fashion it was a little complicated, but it was a workable system. I don't know the ins and outs of why it was rejected, or maybe it just fell by the wayside.

In the past year, Jordan suggested a fairly straight forward, 4 bullet point system that covered every character we could think of except for Ethiopian Treasurer. ET would have been the lone exception (we can't have him be generic for T2 purposes unless we issue an errata). Unfortunately his system did not receive enough support and it was deemed that the REG list is "good enough".

So it's not for lack of trying, or lack of wanting a logical system to determine unique vs. generic. We have been unable to get enough of the leadership to embrace the need for such a system.