Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The short answer is no you can't.

The explanation is: Special Initiative, what we call the ability to play an interrupt or negate on a character being removed from battle before the remove completes is only granted if the entire side is being removed.

unless it make you loose the battle, right. like if one hero is discarded and it makes you loosing the battle, you can play a negate then. but if you arent loosing the battle, you cant. I think thats how it works.

If you are referring to a special ability causing you to be losing by numbers you still won't be able to play a negate on the removed character.

Example: Jacob banded to Angel at Jerusalem (Jacob is a 6/5 and Angel at Jerusalem is a 2/2, Jacob bands to Angel at Jerusalem, who's ability is irrelevant in this example) It is blocked by Women of Thebez (4/4 black character, who's ability will also be irrelevant in this example). The rescuing player has a blue negate (say Sign of the Rainbow, but it isn't terribly important) and the blocking player has Wrath of Satan (discard all Heroes in play) and Net (capture a hero).

The blocking player has initiative and if he has noticed that the opponent has mostly blue cards in their deck he may decide to play Net to capture Jacob. The rescuing player can't play Sign of the Rainbow because the rescuing player didn't have Special Initiative, which allows you to play an interrupt or negate before it finishes resolving (the removal hasn't finished so the character is still technically in battle), if the rescuing player had a Flaming Sword (a silver enhancement that negates an evil enhancement) they could play that.

If the blocking player chose instead to play Wrath of Satan, this would have removed all the heroes in battle and the rescuing player could have played Sign of the Rainbow (since it doesn't finish resolving until the chance to negate has happened).

I hope this clears things up.

In the past, the answer was yes (which is probably why people are a bit confused on this one).  But with the rulings figuring out exactly how special initiative works (ex. only in cases when your last character is removed from battle), you can't anymore.

Since there is no Special Initiative, the card that pushes back the banded hero will complete before regular initiative passes to the remaining hero.  At that point, the only cards legal for that hero to play would be ones that matched their brigade.

In the past, the answer was yes (which is probably why people are a bit confused on this one).  But with the rulings figuring out exactly how special initiative works (ex. only in cases when your last character is removed from battle), you can't anymore.

Since there is no Special Initiative, the card that pushes back the banded hero will complete before regular initiative passes to the remaining hero.  At that point, the only cards legal for that hero to play would be ones that matched their brigade.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification, I didn't know that had been changed.

The current rule makes bad gameplay. Change it back please?

How does it make bad gamelplay?

That creates the need for players to actually use enhancements for each brigade they play, how many games have you played with these rules?? I assure you this ruling improves the game. It makes for more strategy in how you deliver your hits and in how you plan to receive them.

To continue what Redoubter said.

Special Initiative is an exception to normal rules (abilities have to complete before anything else can be inserted) and can lead to some confusion in how it works in weird situations. By limited the amount of times it can come up will limit the possible times when weird Special Initiative situations come up.

By making it only come up when the entire side (I don't like using "Last" because it implies 1) is removed it makes it easier to rule, less complicated rulings and less use of breaks in normal use of abilities.

Also it's not so much of a change as a good definition of how Special Initiative works, since before it was defined the way it was there wasn't a consensus on how it worked.

We are in the same boat Tim because I am still used to the old rules.