Heroic Duel and Heroic Fight

I was giving the heroic rules some thought over the past few days as duels cost me big on Sunday.

It says you complete Heroic Actions in the order declared.
It also says you can use heroic actions to negate your opponents intended heroic actions.

Based on these rules - I think we have been playing Heroic Duel wrong when it is called after Heroic Fight. The Duel should not go first.

The Heroic Fight should go first, then the companies would seperate and resolve combat. Depending on the victor, they may fight again. Either way, then end combat 1" apart and the duel would not happen.

To make the Heroic Duel automatically first, it makes the heroic priority roll obsolete (to the player that wants to duel). It also nullifies any possibility to negate your opponents heroic action with a heroic action of your own.

Based on how we currently play it - the duel can negate the fight, but the fight can not negate the duel. That is not correct. The forced duels with Troll Captains and Prince Imrahils of the world is making them over-powered as they get to auto rape any captain led formation on one good dice roll simply by entering into combat.

I realize the Heroic Duel rule states it goes at the start of the combat, but the Heroic Fight rule also states it goes first - so heroic priority should decide who gets to call their action and what happens next.

Thoughts?

Shadow, it states that " If a Hero declares a Heroic Fight at the start of the Fight phase, the combat his formation is involved in is worked out before other combats that turn".
The key words being "his (Hero) formation is involved in. In other words the combat that is about to take place. This combat is resolved first before "other combats that turn", not before all other actions. I see nothing indicating that proceeds before duels.
I think the best anyone could do is get a successful roll off and kill there opponent off first in the duel (a draw would allow the opponent to live and then duel).



JerryB

Well, I would agree that if both players are calling Heroic Actions then they will roll to see who goes first.

I would also tend to agree with Jerry though, that all duels go before any actual combat takes place.

So, I don't know. Nate has my book so I will have reread all of this before I can give a more informed opinion. My logic as of now is leaning towards Jerry, but I will explore further.

The fight would proceed before the duel if it was declared first because you perform heroic actions in the order they are declared.

Piggy backing the heroic duel onto the same combat as the heroic fight should not trump the heroic priority roll.

You basicly leaving no option to avoid a duel except avoid combat and that should not be the case.

Dont see what the problem is, you have to roll to see which Heroic action takes place first, if the Heroic Fight wins the roll, then it happens first and THAT combat is resolved before any other combats.
If the Heroic Duel wins the roll then the duel is resolved BEFORE any other combats take place.

Situations:
You call heroic fight and i call Heroic duel, we roll and your Heroic fight wins, so THAT goes in first, and beats my duel. But if Heroic duel wins the roll, the the duel is fought first before anything else, if the Hero and his formation survive the fight, then the Heroic fight goes off BEFORE any other fights.

Now, if you call Heroic fight with one formation, and i have another one that called Heroic Duel and they are not engaged with each other, the Heroic duel goes off first, and then the Heroic fight happens. It says that Heroic duels take place first before any other combats, and that Heroic fights are fought before any other fights. Heroic Duel is NOT a fight between formations, is a combat between 2 heroes, Heroic fight clearly states that the Formation the hero is in gets to fight its Formation combat before any other formations.

At least thats how i see it.

The issue is balance -

You can call a Heroic Duel and kill the enemy hero and prevent the Heroic Fight from being called

it needs to work both ways

You should also be able to call a Heroic Fight to hit the enemy formation first and prevent the Heroic Duel from being called

Right now we play it that the duel goes first regardless of priority or what else is called - and I think that is incorrect.

We are not processing the Heroic Action in the order they were called.
We are not allowing the Heroic Duel to be averted with another Heroic action.

True, I currently do not see anything proclaiming that a duel should occur before all actions.

However if someone declares a Heroic Duel that has priority and then someone else (within the same clashing formation) declares a heroic fight, you have to have a roll off. And if you opponent Hero is killed during the duel, thus preventing the heroic fight, thats the mis-fortunes of war.

JerryB

I posted this on the UK boards to get a 2nd opinion. I'll report back when I get some feedback.

Bill, just so I'm clear.

Example A (from the tournament actually):

Bill and I get into combat (KoDA vs. Dead King)
We both declare heroic actions, and I will the roll-off.
I declare heroic duel, and then Bill declares heroic fight.

By this situation Bill, your saying that the Duel would go first, and then the Fight, because I won the roll off? Or are you saying that because you called a Heroic Fight that my Duel is "trumped?"

Example B:
Same fight / charge.
Bill wins the roll off. He declares Heroic Fight and I declare Heroic Duel.

Would we then do the Fight first, and then the duel? Or is the duel void because we've already done the fight?


I feel like you can't "trump" the duel. I may believe that you could do the Fight before it since you won the priority, but in Example A's situation, if you had won the following fight (after the duel) then you would still get to charge again, like the action says. The action still goes off for the other benefits. Therefore, I feel like if you call the Heroic Fight first, then maybe you'd do the actual combat first, but the duel would still occur, just afterwards.

Does that make sense, and is that kind of what you mean?

You are suppose to do back to back duel's if neccessary.

So if I call a duel and then my opponent declares a duel, if my opponent survied the duel, we would go straight into the next duel.

JerryB

So I got my rulebook back and read this. Not to point a few things, but here's how the rules explain it:

Fight Phase (pg. 46): "The side that has priority that turn decides the order that fights are resolved in."

Heroic Fight (pg. 66): "If a Hero declares a Heroic Fight at the start of the Fight phase, the combat his formation is involved in is worked out before other combats that turn."

Heroic Duel (pg. 67): "If a Her odeclares a Heroic Duel at the start of the Fight phase, he may challenge one enmy Hero to a duel... (next column) Once the Heroic Duel has been resolved, the fight continues as normal."


As I read it, here's how it states. If you don't have priority, but you want a particular combat to happen first, then you declare a Heroic Fight to make that combat go first. You also gain the benefits of being able to charge again, if you win.

A duel is part of the combat, and takes place at the start of the Fight. The Fight then happens after the duel is concluded.

Basically I think the answer is that no, a Heroic Fight cannot trump a Heroic Duel in any way.

Your not quoting the entire Heroic Fight rule. If you process "in the order they are picked" (p. 66) and the fight is called first:

You fight then seperate and determine who won combat - next there is possibly a 2nd charge (depending on victor) and another round of combat. You would then seperate again which prevents the Heroic fight because the formations are no longer in base to base.

There is nothing that says Heroic Duel trumps the priority of Heroic fight.

Your right, there is nothing that says that a Heroic Duel trumps a Heroic Fight.

Thats because, the way I see it, Duels are PART of Fights.

Duels go first, not because they go before Fights, but because they go AT THE BEGINNING of a Fight. You with Priority gets to choose which Fights take place (the order) UNLESS someone calls a Heroic Fight, in which case that FIGHT must go first. Duels will happen regardless because they are part of the fight


Does that make sense? Thats how I see it anyways.

Sorry if it came off harsh, didn't mean to at all.

You don't sound harsh - we are debating. no big deal.

I need to look at my book but I think your mixing up WHFB challenge rules with the WOTR rules.

In WHFB Challanges go AT THE BEGINNING of a combat.

Reread Heroic Duel. IIRC there is nothing that says it goes "AT THE BEGINNING of a Fight".

Now if you call a Heroic Duel it will always happen before the normal fight phase combat because heroics actions are processed before proceeding with the remainder of the phase. Thus the rule statement "process with the combat as normal".

In WoTR Heroics go "in the order they are picked" (p. 66)

I'm playing Eric at lunch in 10 minutes - so I'll look it over with him and let you know what we find.

Alrighty then. In the worse case we'll look over it again tonight.

Eric and I reviewed the text at lunch.

Duels are Heroics called at the start of FIGHT PHASE.
They require base to base contact with an enemy formation containing a hero.

The Duel is not connected to the formation combat in any way.
There is not one single sentence that indicates the Duel "goes first" or is "at the start of combat".

Heroics all go first by rule before proceeding with the phase.
They go in the order called.
This guarentees the Duel goes before the normal combat phase fight, but it does not guarentee it is the first Heroic processed that turn.

Shadow, I have to check, but I believe there is a statement that says "once all combatS are resolved, the formation are seperated". Which to me implies once the fight is completed you immediatly go into a duel and once that combat is done, you go into any other conflict involving that formation, and so on until ALL combats have been complete, then you pull everyone apart.

Again I have to check the wording and get the complete content. I could be wrong of course.

JerryB

Again - your mixing Warhammer Challenge rules into the WOTR game.

The Heroic Duel and the Fight Phase combat are completely seperate game mechanics. They are not connected in any way except for the phase in which they occur.

I'll review the text with you guys tonight.

I WANT AN FAQ!!!!!!

You and me both.

So then, by what your saying, Duels will always happen so long as your in base-to-base at the start of the Fight phase?

Based on last nights conversations I believe this issue has been answered to everyone's statisfaction (well we are at least clear on the rule) that was present.

Once a heroic fight is completed then the formations are seperated and the winner is determined, thus cancelling th Duel (no longer in base contact), it states this in the rules.

However the declaring player has to win the roll if the opponent also declared a heroic action (duel) at the same time during the fight phase.

If the opponent wins the dice roll to determine who goes first and during the duel AND kills the hero, the heroic fight is canceled (no hero, no heroic fight).

Duel's do not get any special consideration for sequence of action in regards to the fight phase.

All of this can be reference, but I do not have my book right now (can you believe it), a lot has already been mentioned in earlier posts.

This is short version.

whew!

JerryB

I think I agree with how we did it yesterday. It goes off priority. If you have priority then your heroic action is resolved first.

Just to clarify a bit more. If an epic challenge is called in the move phase and the two hero's find themselves in contact at the beginning of the fight phase they must fight a heroic duel. That in my opinion cannot be trumped with the heroic fight because it was called in the move phase and the rule states that "if the two heros find themselves in combat during the fight phase, they must fight a heroic duel, although no might points need be expended.