[MECCG] CRF 6 Rulings by Term

[Ichabod]

III. Rulings By Term

Actions

@ Tapping a resource can only be done at a time when you could
otherwise play a resource event.

Active Conditions

An active condition must be in play or established when the action
requiring it is declared. Active conditions serve as the price of an
action. They are restrictions on the player invoking the action.
Annotation 5: If an action requires an entitiy to tap as a condition
for the action's main effect, that entity must be untapped when the
action is declared; else, the action may not be declared. Tap the entity
at this point; this is considered synonymous with the action's
declarartion, i.e., it is not a seperate action. When it comes time to
resolve the action in its chain of effects, that entity must still be in
play and tapped or the action is cancelled.
Annotation 6: If an action requires an entity to be discarded as a
condition for the action's main effect, that entity must be discarded
when the action is declared; this is considered synonymous with the
action's declaration, i.e., it is not a seperate action.
Annotation 7: If any other active condition for an action does not
exist when the action is resolved, the action has no effect; if the
action were playing a card from your hand, it is discarded.
Annotation 8: An action that requires a target is considered to have
the active condition that the target be in play when the action is
declared and when it is resolved. An action may not be declared if its
target is not in play. However, dice-rolling actions may always be
targeted by other actions declared later in the same chain of effects.
When a card mentions an alternate use, the active conditions given in
the begining of the card text need only be met if they are also
mentioned by the alternate use.
Your opponent's resources may be the active conditions for your
resources, but may not be the targets for your resources.

Agent

Rules Erratum: A tapped agent may take an action to untap (i.e., move
from tapped status to utapped status).
Rules Erratum: An agent may tap to play creatures at a site if the
company is moving to the site.
Agents cannot attack or influence each other.
A tapped agent can move. Tapping is not condition of agent movement,
it is an effect of agent movement.
An influence attempt by an agent does not count against the hazard
limit in and of itself. Nor does it count as an agent action. Playing a
hazard event that allows an agent to make an influence attempt does
count against the hazard limit.
Playing a card that makes an agent attack is considered the attack's
declaration. Thus, if an agent is face down when Cunning Foes is played
on him, he receives all the face down bonuses.
Agents are *not* creatures.
Agents do not face attacks when moving.
Rolls made by agents during combat are done simultaneously with rolls
made by characters during combat, after step 4 of the strike sequence.
Agents revealed at Under-deeps are discarded without effect.
Agents may not be attacked by companies.
Only face-up agents are considered for uniqueness.
While in play agents played as hazards may not become minion
characters, and agents played as minion characters may not become
hazards.
An agent in a Ringwraith deck can only be played as a character at
his home site.
Agents may not be in a minion starting company.
When constructing a Ringwraith deck, agents are always considered
characters.
@ To wound an agent you only need to defeat the prowess of one strike.
To eliminate one you must defeat the prowess and body for all strikes.
@ Revealed agents may return to their homesite, even if they are at
one of their homesites.
@ Cards played on an agent remain face up when the agent turns face
down.

Ahunt Manifestations

If one Ahunt is out and you move through four of the regions listed
on it, then you face the attack once.
If four Ahunts are out an you move through one region listed on all
four, then you face each of the four attacks once.
Ahunt manifestations of unique Dragons are not considered creatures
for cards that affect the playing of a creature hazards, since Ahunt
manifestations are not played as creatures. An attack caused by an Ahunt
manifestation is considered to be from a hazard creature for cards that
affect hazard creatures already in play.

Ally

An ally can play any non-item resource that requires a specific
skill.
Allies cannot bear items.
Allies cannot tap to support corruption checks.
Allies may tap to cancel attacks from Slayers and Assassins.
Allies never make corruption checks.
Ent allies can be attacked by rescue attacks.
Allies cannot be targetted to be taken prisoner, and otherwise cannot
be taken prisoner.
Allies that may not be attacked by certain attacks may still tap to
give +1 prowess to characters facing auch attacks, but no player may
assign strikes from such attacks to that ally.
Allies can be controlled by followers.
You do not need to spend influence to control an ally.
Allies cannot be passed from one player to another.
@ Playing an ally is not an influence attempt.
If an ally's controller leaves play for any reason, that ally is
discarded.

Attack

Annotation 12: An attack is considered to be resolved and concluded
when the final strike, all special actions resulting from the final
strike, and the associated body check are resolved.
Annotation 13: An attack may not be cancelled once its strikes have
been assigned. A strike may not be cancelled once the dice-roll for the
strike has been made.
Annotation 14: A cancelled attack has no effect on its target
company, except that the company is considered in its history to have
faced the attack.
Annotation 15: An attack must be the first declared action in a chain
of effects, i.e., a creatue card may not be played in response to
another card in the same chain of effects. Revealing an on-guard
creature is an exception.
In order to cancel an attack or to directly affect an attack, the
character doing so must be in the company facing the attack. Note that
the region/site type a hazard creature is keyed to (when declared) can
be affected otherwise.
Cards only modify attacks if they say they do. So Sun will not
modify an Assassin.
@ When a minion company defeats an attack with no * by the MPs, the
creature goes to the out-of-play pile belonging to the person who played
the attack.
@ Excess strikes applied as -1 modifiers do not have to have their
body defeated

Burglary Attempts

After a succesful burglary attempt, another character may tap to play
a minor item.
May not be used to pick up Ally or Information cards.
The character who fails the burglary roll must face the automatic-
attack as though he were a one-character company. He can receive no
combat support other than what he himself can provide. This is a
reversal of an earlier ruling.
On-guard creatures are faced after a Burglaring attempt regardless of
the success of the attempt.

Body Check

Annotation 22: When a character fails a body check, his items may be
immediately reassigned to unwounded character in his company.
Reassigning of the eliminate character's items is considered to be
synonymous with his failed body check, i.e., no action may take place
between the failed check and reassigning the items. Unassigned items are
discarded.
Effects that modify a character's body also modify the number an Orc
or Troll would be discarded on. A maximum to body applies equally to the
discard number.
If an Orc or Troll character is discarded by the results of a body
check, all cards played with the character are also discarded.
@ If an Orc or Troll could be discarded and eliminated by a result,
discard them instead of eliminating them.

Cannot be Duplicated

Short-events that cannot be duplicated cannot be played if a card of
the same name is currently having an effect on play.
Annotation 11 (modified from its original version): Some cards cannot
be duplicated in limited cases -- generally on a specific target.
Multiple copies of these cards or their effects may be in play normally,
so long as each applies to a different target. A card that cannot be
duplicated can be played when a copy is already in play only if the copy
in play is currently being targetted by an effect that will discard it.

Card Effect Limitations

You may not play the following cards if your opponent is a Ringwraith
or Sauron. Additionally, if you are not a Ringwraith or Sauron, a
Ringwraith or Sauron opponent can play these cards against you and not
be affected by any of their global effects.

All hazard events that require an agent*
Bane of the Ithil-stone
The Black Enemy's Wrath
Foul Fumes
In the Heart of His Realm
Mordor in Arms
Mûmak
Worn and Famished

*Near to Hear a Whisper from Middle-earth: Against the Shadow and
Great Need or Purpose may be played because they do not target a
specific agent.
The following cards are also listed in the MELE Rulesbook as having
no effect on a Ringwraith/Sauron player, but this interpretation has
been modified.
Chance of Being Lost and Winds of Wrath: You may play these cards
against any opponent who is using the same type of location deck (hero
sites or minion sites) as yourself.
Great Secrets Buried There: This card may be played against a
Ringwraith or Sauron player one month after the release of Middle-earth:
Against the Shadow.
The Nazgûl are Abroad: This card may be played against a Ringwraith
or Sauron player. The only restriction is that the first two paragraphs
are ignored when you play Nazgûl creatures against a Ringwraith or
Sauron opponent. Any player can recycle Nazgûl hazards as stated on the
card.

Character

You may continue to play after you have lost all of your characters.
A character enacting an effect counts as a character in his company.
A character in play must always be in one of three independent
states: untapped, tapped, or wounded.

Company

If all characters in a company are removed from the company, all
resource permanent-events played on the company as a whole are
discarded.

Corruption

Annotation 23: When a character fails a corruption check, the
standard effects of this (i.e., the character being discarded or
eliminated and his items being discarded) are implemented immediately
and are considered synonymous with the failed check. A card causing the
corruption check may modify the standard effects of a failed check (e.g.
The Precious), but this timing would not be changed. Certain cards,
e.g., Traitor, which do not cause a corruption check, but specify an
action that results from the passive condition of a failed check, take
effect as the first declared action in a chain of effects immediately
following the chain of effects that contains the corruption check.
Characters with 0 corruption points must still make corruption
checks.
A character may attempt to remove a corruption card without tapping.
The roll is at -3. A corruption card may only be attemtped to be removed
once per turn if the tapping requirement is ignored.
You can not attempt to remove a corruption card without tapping if
you have attempted to remove that card already this turn.
The resolution of a character tapping to give +1 to a corruption
check happens when the corruption check itself resolves.
If an effect is in play that prevents a character from being
discarded, the character is not considered to fail his corruption check
if a result is achieved that would discard him. A Wizard would not be
eliminated and his player would not lose the game.

Darkhaven

Whenever an effect targeting a hero refers to Darkhavens, interpret
it as refering to Havens instead.

Detainment Attacks

Automatic-attacks are not detainment attacks unless specifically
stated on the site card.
@ Automatic-attacks are not detainment attacks unless specifically
stated to be such on the site card.
@ When a strike from a detainment attack succeeds, the character who
was facing that particular strike must tap.
@ Detainment attacks cannot be defeated.
@ Detainment attacks that would force item discards normally do not
force discards while they are detainment attacks.
@ Only cards that say they are detainment vs. hero companies are
detainment vs. hero companies.

Discard

A discarded character may be brought into play again by any player.
When a card is discarded, so are all permanent-events on that card.
Cards discarded from a player's hand must be discarded one at a time
as seperate actions.
Whenever a character is discarded, all non-follower cards played with
that character are also discarded.

Dúnadan

Dúnadan do not count as Men.

Eliminated

An eliminated character may not be played by any player for the rest
of the game.
When a card is eliminated, all permanent-events on that card are
discarded.

Exhausted

Permanent-events discarded when the play deck is exhausted are
shuffled into the new play deck along with the rest of the discard pile.
The play deck is exhausted when the last card is drawn.

Factions

The site does not tap unless the faction is succesfully played.

Gold Ring Item

When a gold ring item is tested, the ring is discarded and its
marshalling points are lost whether or not you are able to play a
special item.
@ Ring tests may have a result of less than two, given sufficient
negative modifiers.
@ Ring special items played as a result of storing a ring at a Dark
Haven will come into play stored.

Hand Size

Effects which increase your hand size or allow you to hold one more
card in your hand mean you draw up to your new hand size or discard down
to it at the appropriate points during the game. This supercedes the
normal requirement of drawing up to or discarding down to 8 cards.

Haven

Havens can tap, but Havens are always returned to the location deck
and not the discard pile.
Whenever an effect targetting a minion refers to a Haven, interpret
as a Darkhaven instead.

Hobbits

Hobbit characters may only be brought into play at Havens if it is
the start of the game and they are your starting characters. If a Hobbit
is a starting character and leaves play, then it may only be brought
back into play normally at Bag End.

Influence

Restricted direct influence is limited in its use, usually to
characters and/or factions of specific races. Unrestricted direct
influence has no restrictions on its use.
When a character suffers a minus to direct influence, it must come
from unrestricted direct influence first. If there is no unrestricted
influence and there are multiple instances of restricted direct
influence, the player may choose which restricted direct influence the
minus is applied to.
@ If a card reduces direct influence, making it illegal for a follower
to be controlled, the follower does need to be controlled until their
next organization phase.
@ A character removed from the control of direct influence outside the
organization phase does not need to be controlled by general influence
until their next organization phase.

Items

You may play two weapons, shields, or armors on the same character
but only one of each may have an effect on the character.
You may play a minor item after succesfully playing a resource that
taps the site even if minor items are not playable at that site.
The "free" minor item may only be played immediately after playing
the resource that taps that site.

Keyed

Only attacks from hazard creatures are considered keyed.

Marshalling Point Pile

Under standard rules, no more than half of your marshalling points
can come from any one type of marshalling point. Do not round up.
@ You may not target hazards in your opponent's marshalling point pile
for removal.

May not Untap

Nothing may untap a character who is the subject of an effect that
states the character may not untap.

MELE vs. METW

Hero items may not be used as active condtions for minion resources,
and minion items may not be used as passive conditions for hero
resources.
If you are playing against a deck with three Wizards in it, you may
play three Ringwraiths. You may play with two of one Ringwraith and one
of another, or with three of one Ringwraith. You may not play with one
each of three different Ringwraiths.
Hero characters may now cancel automatic-attacks at their homesite,
regardless of their opponent.
You may not have both the minion and hero version of a unique item in
your deck.

Minion characters

Minion characters are not affected by cards that target agents.

Multi-player Games

Only the player to the left of the moving player may take advantage
of drawing cards, including cards drawn for events like The Nazgul are
Abroad and From the Pits of Angbad.
Only the hazard player and the moving player may play Twilight unless
a third player¹s card is affected by an environment card.
All players reset their hand size when any turn or movement/hazard
phase ends.
In multi-player games the following hazards count as 1/2 a creature:
hazards that can be played as events or creatures, Ahunt Dragon
manifestations, and At Home Dragon manifestations. Agents in a Wizard
deck also count as 1/2 creatures.
@ You may only play The Lidless Eye if none of your opponents are
Ringwraiths.
@ Twilight may only be played by the moving player and the hazard
player. As an exception, a player who's own enviroment will be
discarded by an environment may play Twilight to cancel that
environment.

Nazgûl

If a Nazgûl is tapped to become a short-event as printed on its card,
it turns into a short-event upon declaration. At this point, the Nazgul
is a short-event just as if had been played as such from your hand.
The body refered to in the text of female characters with combat
bonuses against Nazgûl is the body of the Nazgûl

Optional Rules

If a character is facing two strikes, and the first strike kills the
character, the second strike is considered succesful.
A character tapping to face two strikes is at -3 prowess against both
strikes. The character taps when resolving the second strike.
For recently visited sites in multi-player games, the automatic-
attack gets +1 for each player who has that site in their discard pile.

Passive Conditions

A passive condition causes an action to happen as stated on a card
already in play.
Annotation 9: If a card specifies that an action is to occur as a
result of some specific passive condition, this action becomes
automatically the first action declared in the chain of effects to
immediately follow the chain of effects producing the passive condition.
The passive condition must exist when this resulting action is resolved
in its own chain of effects, or the action is cancelled. Note that
actions in the strike sequence follow a different set of rules.
Annotation 10: If more than one action is required to be the first
action declared in a chain of effects, the player whose turn it is
chooses the order in which they are declared. No other actions may be
declared in this follow-up chain until the multiple required actions
have been declared.
A card causing an action as a result of a passive condition must be
in play when the action resolves, or else the action is cancelled.
@ When something would be discarded by a passive condition, that
discard is considered simultaneous with the resolution of the the
passive condition.

Ringwraiths

You may have any number of Ringwraiths in your sideboard, as long as
you do not duplicate more than one of them in the combined deck and
sideboard.
Ringwraiths may not use region movement. Ringwraiths may only move to
a non-Darkhaven site if they are in a mode (Fell Rider, Black Rider, or
Heralded Lord).
In general, effects that affect Nazgul do not affect Ringwraiths. The
exception is that characters with combat bonuses against Nazgul also get
those bonuses against Ringwraiths.
Ringwraiths may not move from one Darkhaven to another with non-
Ringwraith
characters.

Ringwraith Followers

Ringwraith followers may still use magic as printed on their card.

Sage Only

Any card requiring a sage to play is a sage only card.

Short-event

Short-events are discarded when resolved in a chain of effects, not
when declared. Thus, they can be targetted by certain special effects in
the chain of effects.

Sideboard

The sideboard is increased to 25 cards.
You can access hazards from your sideboard when your opponent's
Wizard is in play. You must declare this at the end of your opponent's
untap phase and then access hazards as if you had tapped a Nazgûl
permament-event to do so. The hazard limit against all of your
opponent's companies that turn is halved, rounded up.
Tapping a Nazgûl to bring cards in from the sideboard does not turn
the Nazgûl into a short-event. The Nazgûl permanent-event is discarded
upon declaration of this effect as per Annotation 6.

Site

To untap a site the character doing so must be at that site.

Site Path

The site path depends on what sort of movement was used. If using
starter movement between Havens the site path is given on the Haven card
in the text box. If using starter movement to or from a non-Haven site
the site path is given on the non-Haven site, along the left side of the
card. If using region movement the site path is determined by the region
cards played on the company. In all of the above cases the site path
includes the site you are moving to. For a Ringwraith player substitute
Dark Haven in the above paragraph.
Certain cards refer to the site's site path. The site's site path is
always the site path given on the site card, regardless of how the
company got to that site.
Events can alter both the site's site path and a company's site path.

Skill Cards

Two skill cards may be played at one time on the same character
outside of combat.

Tap

Tapping a character does not tap that character's items.
A spell only taps a Wizard if the spell card says it does.

Targets

An action that is played out through one or more specific entities as
stated on a card or in the rules is considered to "target" the entities.
A targeted entity is said to be a "target" of the action. A card that
acts on a class of entities does not target them.
Annotation 1: A card is not in play until it is resolved in its chain
of effects. When the play of a card is declared, no elements of the card
may be the target of actions declared in the same chain of effects. An
exception to this is a dice-rolling action, e.g. a corruption check.
Annotation 2: A corruption check or any dice-rolling action can be
targeted in the chain of effects during which it was declared.
Annotation 3: Long-events and certain other cards do not have targets
because they are not played out through one specific entity, i.e., they
generally affect an entire class of things.
Annotation 4: An action may not target a face-down card nor any
element of a face down card. Face down cards include unrevealed new site
cards and on-guard cards.
You cannot target an opponent's character or resouces with your own
resources.
Events that target sites can only target sites in play used to show a
company's location or movement.

Timing

The validity of an effect, including the hazard limit, is checked
upon declaration and upon resolution.
Annotation 24: If a card specifices that more than one action occur
when the card itself is resolved in a chain of effects, all of these
actions are to be resolved in the card's chain of effects uninterrupted
and in the order listed on the card. No actions may be declared to occur
between these multiple actions. The actions listed on the card are
considered to have been declared in the reverse order as they are
printed.
(amendment to original version of Annotation 24): As an exception, if
one of the effects of a card is an attack, cards may be played that
cancel the attack, cancel one of its strikes, or that otherwise are
playable during the strike sequence--see Annotation 18.
Annotation 27: If a card has optional effects, the player playing the
card must choose which will take place. He must do this at the time the
card is played, not when it is resolved in its chain of effects. When
such a card is resolved, if any active conditions for the choice of
effects do not exist, the card has no effect and is discarded. The
player may not at this point choose to implement an alternative effect
of the card.

Trophies

Creatures whose marshalling points are listed with an * give
marshalling points when used as trophies.
Defeated Dragon manifestations can be used as trophies.
@ Can be discarded to satisfy thief creatures.

Under-deeps

Marshalling points with companies at an Under-deeps site do not count
only for the purposes of calling the Free Council. They do count at the
actual Council itself.
When a company's site of origin is an Under-deeps site and the
company reveals a new site at the start of its movement/hazard phase,
the company is declaring it will make a roll to determine if the
movement was successful. No cards can be played between the site being
revealed and the roll except for Reach of Ulmo.
If you move to an Under-deeps site from a tapped surface site, the
tapped surface site is dicarded at the end of the company's
movement/hazard phase. The discarded surface site is not available until
it is returned to your location deck.
At an Under-deeps site, after a successul rescue attempt, a character
can tap for a minor item only.

Wizard

You may put two of the same Wizard in your deck, or you may put one
copy each of two different Wizards in your deck.

------- "The Crossing-guard of Mordor" -------
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien http://www.cstone.net/~ichabod
ich...@cstone.net Me:CCG Official Netrep
"It's for discipline that the Lord scourges his worshippers" Jdt 8:17 -- Check out my Shadowfist, INWO, and MECCG traders on my web page --