Combat Stance

I have a quick question concerning Combat Stance. It says “The first time the Wraith is dealt damage by a target each turn, the Wraith deals that target 2 melee damage.” My question concerns the phrasing. Is this intended to take effect once each turn, or once each turn per target? For example, if a bunch of Voss’ baddies are out, does Wraith only smack the first one to deal her damage, or does she smack them EACH for two damage, since it’s the first time each target has dealt her damage this turn?

It says the first time she is dealt damage by a target per turn. So, each turn, the first time a target deals damage, she retaliates. If another target deals damage later that turn, it wouldn’t be the first time she was dealt damage by a target this turn. The reason “by a target” is included is that non-targets can deal damage, and if she were to attempt to retaliate to that, nothing would happen.

You seem to be asking what the definition of a turn is. The villain gets a turn. Each hero gets a turn. The environment gets a turn. So, all of the villain cards act during a single turn.

Nah, I’m well versed on what a turn is, as I’ve seen that question asked by others here and on BGG.
Essentially, I can see the wording being read as “any target each turn” (i.e. only one retaliation per turn) or “each target each turn” (i.e. only retaliation per target per turn). The problem is that it says “a target”, which is ambiguous. I’m perfectly willing to accept JayMann’s answer, as he tends to be right more often than not,and it makes her more powerful. I was just curious how others read it.

How does JayMann’s answer make Wraith more powerful? Isn’t JayMann saying that Wraith only retaliates against the first target that attacks Wraith, not against all of them?

Wow, somehow I totally misread his response. I guess that’s what I get for reading forums half-asleep. gets more caffeine
It would be nice to have an official chime in looks around hopefully

I will provide a second hand official stance here. During the first time I demoed the game with Adam, I played with Ra (who has a card which plays similarly to Combat Stance). I asked him this same question, and he gave me the same response I gave you. So, only the first target per turn.

And for a pseudo-official response from an admin (but not a creator), TheJayMann is correct.

This was recently clarified by Christopher in another post. I can’t link you to it, because it was posted in the playtester forums, but here is his quote:

The first time a single target hits Ra while he has his Flame Barrier, he hits it back. If that same target hits him again, he doesn’t get to respond. However, if a different target in the same turn hits Ra, Ra’s Flame Barrier goes off again. At least that is the intention of the wording.

This applies to Combat Stance as well. This means that it will go off once PER TARGET per turn.

Really?
That’s… actually pretty shitty, makes Voss (and other minion heavy decks) much easier to beat.

Cuts both ways. Backlash field becomes more of a challenge, for instance, as things like divine focus and funneling attacks through AZ don’t work quite as well. Unity, in particular, is greatly affected.

Not having Unity I can’t comment but making Backlash Field more challenging? I can’t see that with any of the heroes as it went off once per turn anyway, how many times do you have multiple targets damage the villain in an individual hero’s turn?

The Argent Adept?

And it also significantly underpowers Mr Fixer’s Driving Mantis style, before it was on a par with the other cards, his definitely only goes off once per turn, not once per target per turn.

That’s why I mentioned Divine Focus and funneling attacks through Absolute Zero, but I agree that they are weak sauce compared to how much more potent Combat Stance is made.

Also it’s much more likely that she will retaliate against Heroes that deal damage to other Heroes (Such as Haka’s Rampage), or themselves (as when Plague Rat infects a hero and causes them to deal damage to themselves). It isn’t purely better or worse. I actually like it this way. It does a lot more good than bad, for the most part.

Picking on Haka’s Rampage, you would do damage if it had the ‘original’ interpretation or the ‘correct’ interpretation, both would be the first time you are damaged during a turn (Haka’s turn in this case), it doesn’t change anything for that example.

Ah, true. My mistake! Good catch.

I think it SHOULD have a “you MAY” in there, so if you have to hit yourself or are hit by another hero you at least have the option of not hitting them back.

That would completely overpower the cards.

I agree with McBehrer. I mean… I don’t know, Wraith is already a very powerful hero, so on one hand the thought of giving her a buff is kind of bad. But OTOH it seems just silly for her combat stance to include occasionally whacking her allies in the face. This is especially the case with Embolden and Combat Stance or Flame Barrier, and it really hurts the effectiveness of all 3 of these cards.

You could of course just word it so it only takes effect when the hero was dealt damage by a villain/environment card. I feel that would be the more elegant solution. That way you’d not be able to avoid dealing damage to villain cards that you didn’t want in the trash, so Combat Stance would become in some ways kind of like Electrical Storm.

Really?! I think it’s hilarious and awesome that occasionally the heroes are forced to hit each other or themselves.

I personally see nother wrong with Combat Stance the way it is now. If one of your friends hit you, won’t you hit them back? Now as for attacking herself it doesn’t make much sense but since the only instance that should be a problem is against Plague Rat it also makes since she is currently whacked out.

4:06-4:13

And that is why The Wraith has to hit heroes back when they damage her while she is in her Combat Stance.

Because they watch Family Guy? That… actually makes sense.

Still, I think the best way is for the option to be there; Absolute Zero, for instance, would LOVE to get attacked by Ra or Wraith for fire damage.

On the other hand, Wraith being infected, hitting herself, and then retaliating against herself is just plain stupid. And I mean wallbanger territory.

Another thing is to think of Wolverine, no matter who it is, if you sneak up on him he’ll react. I remember at least a few times in the shows where he nearly attacks one of the other X-men when they get too close when he’s in battle. And in one of them he actually does attack Rogue, luckily she had touched him and gotten his healing ability.

Honestly, I think any interpretation is fine for Wraith. I don’t get much mileage out of Combat Stance in the first place.

wraith is not wolverine by any means. She’s not a fanatical machine of death. She’s female-ninja-batman. I’m sure she’s good enough with her fighting style to not just punch anybody in the face. If you react and actually hurt someone that you didn’t mean to hurt, then you’e just awful.

I had this question tonight, and I see that it took a while to reach consensus.  I'll go with the Christopher quote Broccoli posted, even though it's secondhand.

As to the "should you retaliate against your fellow heroes" question, I think it'd be nice if the answer was "yes" for Ra and "no" for Wraith, as it would seem more fitting that way, for both flavor reasons (Ra is an imperious ancient god, Wraith is a friendly young lady) and mechanical ones (Combat Stance is Wraith choosing to punch someone, Flame Barrier is Ra being on fire).  In general, I am always favor of making the heroes more individualized.

I dunno, I got the Chairman to retaliate against himself once and it was pretty frickin' hilarious.  I figure that if Wraith is deadly in hand-to-hand combat, then an Infection making her deadly even to herself sort of fits.  Figure that she's berserking and attacking imaginary enemies and periodically bashing her face into a wall or something.

I see Flame Barrier as a wall between Ra and harm. Not so much Ra being on fire.

Either way, it's fire, and thus it cannot choose to not burn things that step into it.  Whereas Wraith could in theory choose not to punch people who get too close to her, although I can see the argument for saying she reacts on instinct before she has time to recognize friend (or even self) from foe.  Even so, I can see no argument for saying the Flame Barrier shouldn't be 100% automatic, and like I said, I wish they were different just for the sake of being so.

I know it isn't officially kosher, but we play that it is optional, simply because it does make sense and makes it diferent from Flame Barrier.