Hello guys,

I'd like to know what happens in the following situation because it's not entirely clear to me:

I charge an enemy formation and call epic rage. A hero from the formation I charged then declares a heroic duel on that hero. We fight the duel and that hero kills the one I used to call epic rage. Does the rest of my formation still get the bonus to strength (and penalty to defence) if that hero is killed or does the ability die with him? Or do we have to roll off to see which action happens first. If mine goes ahead first, the whole formation gets it. If my opponent wins the roll off, my hero is killed before he can call the epic rage.

So what do you think happens in this situation? Roll off or does the whole formation get epic rage regardless?

I haven't looked at the wording in the book, but my interpretation of the situation you described is that the Epic Rage was put into effect before the heroic duel, thus would remain in effect for the remainder of that turn.

_________________
Respectfully,
Jonathan

Do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly

Battle Companies

Since Epic Rage is called before the hero's formation fights, while Heroic Duel is called at the start of the phase, the situation you describe can't actually happen.

There is still a bit of an issue however. The ruling that Epic Strike can be used in a duel establishes the precedent that a duel qualifies as a fight for calling epic actions, however, the wording of ES is that it is called before the hero fights, while Epic Rage (and all the other epic actions called at the same time) are phrased that they are called before the hero's FORMATION fights, so there has been some debate as to whether those actions can be called before a duel. Discuss with your group to decide how you want to handle it.

If "before the hero's formation fights" actions can not be called before a duel then at the start of the phase your opponent calls a duel and that has to be fully resolved before moving on to the fight, when ER can be called.

If your group decides that "before the hero's formation fights" and "before the hero fights" are intended to be the same, then your opponent calls a duel at the start of the phase, when the duel is ready to resolve it creates a new "before a fight" trigger during which Epic Rage, Epic Strike, and similar actions can be called. In that case, all of those actions would need to be resolved before proceeding with the duel, including the ER.

I can see arguments for both sides. I tend to lean toward the RAW interpretation that there is a difference between "before the hero's formation fights" and "before the hero fights", but the authors were pretty sloppy when it comes to that kind of wording, in several places they seem to forget that the game is organized around companies not individual models, so I can see someone arguing that the two are meant to be identical.

Of course, adding Heroic Fight to the mix creates a whole new set of complexities and rules issues, but I'll save that discussion for a latter time.

Hope that made sense. For some reason most people seem to have trouble understanding timing issues of the game but if you read the rules for epic actions carefully, they really make perfect sense and there are hardly any unclear areas.

Thanks for the responses guys. I see what you mean about the differences between "before the hero fights" and "before the formation fights". I didn't think they meant there was a different order to what goes on in the fight phase. I thought that was simply because rage has no use in duels because the duel table is used instead. Therefore, it has no use to the hero specifically and is just used to boost the formation he's in. Strike is the only one which brings a benefit to duels so I thought the wording changed for that reason to take heroic duels into account where it's possible the hero may have to fight directly rather than as part of the formation.

I think you're right about the sloppy writing of the rules though. I guess we'll just have to establish our own group rule on how such situations work.

But you do understand the difference between "at the start of the phase" and "before the {whatever} fights", right?