The Art of Killing Part Two

On Saturday, we went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was darker than the rest of the films, as expected. Each film has been progressively darker, and that has helped me enjoy each film more than the one before it. I gave it a rating of 9.5/10, which is pretty darn good.

My wife worked from 3-11 last night. I made a couple new Star Trek decks (card night Tuesday!), and decided to go watch my friend's Tim and Tom softball game. Tim wasn't there, and they were short players, so they asked me to sub, which I happily accepted. It was fun, though I think I let my nerves get the best of me, and struck out a couple times. The team lost both games though, even after being ahead 14-0 after the first inning in the first game. It wasn't pretty. :)

Though Tim may have already seen this, here are my proposed updated rules to battles. Let me know of any thoughts you may have. A few notes to cover first:

• A conflict is not the same thing as a battle. A battle is an event that is made up of several conflicts. Conflicts can still be initiated outside of normal battles.
• I may very well change how characters are played to the character grid (these updated battle rules assume that change has been made). Currently, everything must be played to the first row, and then the grid can grow outward from there. I am considering allowing characters to be played anywhere in the grid, no matter where other characters are. I think this would work better with these different battle rules, and would give a player a little more options in playing their characters (and options = strategy, and strategy is good). This would end up eliminating the need for characters to shift when other characters die.
• When two players are battling, their character grids are (essentially, even if not physically) right next to each other. During battle, each of a player's columns will be directly across from an opponent's column. These two columns are considered to be opposite each other.
• Also, the draw phases have been removed, and drawing has been added to the end of the battle phase (players still draw even if no battle occurred) and the end of the retaliation phase.

Here are the rules, pasted in from the rulebook.

Battle.

• Heaven player decides if he or she will initiate a battle. Only characters who are designated as fighters participate in battles. Thus, if the Heaven player has no fighters in play, that player cannot initiate a battle. Characters that do not participate in a battle can still, however, affect that battle using their game text, but do not add their might in that battle, and cannot take wounds as a result of losing that battle. If the Heaven player does not initiate a battle, skip to last step of this phase (even-up). Otherwise:
• Heaven player targets which battlefield he or she will attempt to control.
• Going counter-clockwise, Hell players decide if they will defend the battlefield (if no Hell players defend, the Heaven player automatically wins control of the battlefield with no battle necessary). Each battle is between two players only, so the first Hell player to decide to defend is the only Hell player who will be able to defend. The Hell players may talk amongst themselves to try and decide who is better for defending, but the decision to defend is still made counter-clockwise. Hell players choosing not to defend do not participate in the battle. Since only fighters participate in battles, a Hell player must have a fighter in order to defend).
• Battles are resolved through a series of conflicts. At the start of each battle, determine how many conflicts there will be. Each conflict will occur between the attacking player’s fighter characters in each column and the opponent’s fighter characters in the opposite column. Each column where each player has fighters opposite of each other, there will be a conflict. At the start of each battle, for each column where a player has a fighter and the opponent does not, that player gains an additional might +1 in each of that battle’s conflicts. This bonus stays throughout the battle, and is known as that player’s advantage.
• One by one, the conflicts are resolved, starting with the root characters (column 1) and moving outwards. These conflicts are always between only those characters in the specific column. If a character is removed from or added to a column before that column’s conflict is resolved, that affects the conflict (if a character is removed from a column, that character no longer participates in that conflict).
• For each conflict:

· Starting with Heaven player, the two participating players may take conflict actions. This continues until both players pass their actions consecutively. Any actions taken during a conflict that affect a character’s attributes (might, mind, etc.) affect those attributes only until the end of the battle, unless the card says it affects that attributes for remainder of turn.

· Heaven player compares total might of column against the total might of the defending Hell player’s column; side with most might is determined the winner of the conflict.

· Player losing the conflict must take damages; they must take X total wounds on his or her participating characters in that conflict, where X = the difference between the two sides’ total might. Losing players must wound the participating character in a row at least once before characters in rows behind that row may begin receiving wounds. Thus, if a player has 3 rows, the participating character in the first row must have received at least one wound before the character in the second row can receive wounds. Then, the participating character in the second row must receive at least one wound before the character in the third row can start receiving wounds. A non-participating character in a row does not need to be wounded before a character in a row behind that character can be wounded.

· Losing players may wound their character X times, where X is that character’s health, immediately killing that character; wound cards are not placed for these wounds. This reduces their damages by X.

· If a player is about to wound a character and that wound would kill that character, a wound card is not placed for that wound.

• After all conflicts have been resolved, the player who won the most conflicts is determined the winner. If both players won the same amount of conflicts, the battle is determined a tie.
• If Heaven player wins a battle, they take control of the specified battlefield (by placing it in their Heaven trench), and they may immediately plunder that battlefield – that player reveals the top X cards of his or her game deck, where X = the plunder value of that battlefield. That player may discard any of those cards and then shuffles the remaining cards into his plunder pile (if he does not have a plunder pile yet, he shuffles those cards and creates a plunder pile). Plundering is optional.
• If the Hell player wins the battle, battlefield remains an enemy battlefield (or, if that battlefield was controlled by the Heaven player at the time, that battlefield is forfeited, meaning it is returned to the atlas and becomes an enemy battlefield again).
• Starting with the player to the right of the Heaven player and moving counter-clockwise, each player evens-up his hand. When a player evens-up, he or she may discard any number of cards from his or her hand, then must draw from his or her game deck until that player has 10 cards in his hand.