Buhallin

I'm going to assume this is a case of cross-posting, and you missed my quote above. You know, from the RM

Emphasis mine. The reduction from using a soulstone happens before the wounds are actually inflicted. So if a master has 3 wounds left, takes 6 in a hit, uses a soulstone to reduce 2 of those they still take 4 and die.

This is a restriction on Instinctual - you normally can repeat actions just fine, but Instinctual requires that your second (0) be different. Other models (such as the Coryphee, I believe) have a different ability which gives you extra (0) actions which can be the same.

Uhm... How is dropping destructible terrain in a spot not objective denial? Or putting a tough model there to defend it? How else would you suggest someone go about performing objective denial?

I'm iffy on diving into the general issue, I'd much rather just wait for Kel to clear it up, but this point isn't necessarily the case. We've established that Rg and range are not interchangeable terms (thanks to the Silent One). I don't see any reason to think that Dg and damage (or Damage) are inherently interchangeable either. It might just be shorthand, or it might be an intentional distinction. Or it might be an accidental distinction that they decide to let mean something I can't think of any other places where they use Dg in place of damage in an ability description, but maybe/hopefully someone else has an example. And not that it matters, but there's been long-running confusion between what's damaged, what's wounds, what's the entire damage process, and what any given thing is referring to when it says "damage". Hopefully they can clear this one up quickly - I've played it as damage inflicted (e.g. 6 healed in the OP's example), and would like to know if I was wrong.

One thing to be careful of - the outline on pg 51 of the Rules Manual is missing steps which are included on pg 52-53. Confused the heck out of me looking for the rules for additional requirements and successful casting

I know it can certainly come to pass, but wouldn't you be able/better off just using Lure for this 90% of the time?

Whoops. That's what I get for dropping that into the "Standard Responses to Standard Questions" bucket without looking deeper. My apologies for the misdirection.

Unless an ability specifies a duration or ending time, it ends during the closing phase. So Chameleon, like most, works only for the rest of the turn you activate it in.

They really aren't good damage dealers. But I do like them for their debuffs... The -2Df is useful against hard-to-hit targets, and Rabies has a nice place in a crew that leverages Terror or other willpower-based tricks.

I've become more iffy on the Shafted+Lure combo lately because it's 2 AP for a very good chance of doing 3 damage to a single model, and realistically paralyzes it at best. Good, but still expensive. How does adding a Drowned improve that? You're now looking at 3 AP - 1 AP per damage is NOT a good combo, much less great, and even if you get the paralyzed it's expensive enough that I'd question whether it's a "good" combo.

Yes. It prevents cheating, but not adding a stone.

For anyone NOT looking to hobbyhorse a ruling that has already been made - yes, activation order would be the easiest option, if not explicitly spelled out. Numerous other cases utilize activation order when something like that has to be decided, notably environmental effects. And I'm willing to bet that's even simpler than continuing to argue this one.

1) Models cannot go below 0 wounds. So he takes the hit, goes to zero wounds, uses Slow to Die for a healing flip and goes back to 1/2/3 wounds as appropriate, and survives. 2) Since he's at zero wounds when he makes the Slow to Die action, further damage to him doesn't actually do anything, and he doesn't "die more" or get another Slow to Die action.

Duels resolve in activation order when it matters. Several of the other terrain effects (e.g. Earthquake) also use activation order to determine the order. I cannot point to chapter and verse in the RM, but I believe it would be reasonable to use activation order in this case (and any others where there isn't an actual active player to determine timing).

Correct on all counts. Unless it's an opposed duel, things like Stubborn don't work. Bete Noir is great against both crews. She's absolutely stellar against living models, and can easily lock down a Mature with her paralyze-on-hit. Undead Psychosis is awesome too, especially against Lillith. You remove her ability to get into melee, and she's pretty much hosed at that point.

Or even has Hoffman in front. Just so long as you meet the requirements by the end of the push (in base contact) it's all good.

On the original topic - the only thing I really dislike at the moment is the Bury mechanic taking models out of the flow of time. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and I think is going to get more and more problematic over time. Even though it's not a disaster, I do wish they'd fully write off and move on from Book 1 - get the rest of the minions into the PDFs, and maybe even release the fluff stories. When I explain the game to new players it is problematic to have to point out the few models that aren't in the PDF, and that they have to spend $35 for. Honestly, if most people are playing a single faction it's cheaper to buy the models to get the stats rather than the book.

If you don't care about playing any of the models in the new book, why do you have to buy it? You can still play crew of models from Books 1/2 perfectly well. And just to forestall the obvious and save us a bit of back-and-forth: Of course you wouldn't know what your opponents are going to put on the table, but since you helpfully brought up the Warhammer example how would you deal with that there without buying every new codex that came out?

Ratty's (thankfully) cleared up the core question, but I'm going to take one more stab at this to explain why. Models are not inherently prevented from taking actions outside their activation, nor does it require some magical incantation of specific explicitness to allow them to do so. The rules define when models can do things - move, strike, charge, gain counters, etc etc. In many cases, these rules are tied to actions, which are in turn tied to activation. Assuming no other abilities, why can't a model charge outside its activation? It's not because it's outside its activation - a model with no AP left cannot charge either, even if it's during its activation. It cannot charge outside its activation because nothing says that it can. Why can't I charge without taking a Charge action or using some other ability that triggers a charge? Because nothing says I can. And that's the core of the issue that you and Q are both reading wrong. If you can find a rule that inherently restricts what a model can do outside its activation, feel free to quote it. But there isn't any such rule. So to this back to the original issue, why can a model pick up a counter outside its activation? Because the counter rules say "at any time" and there's no other restriction placed on that.

Sorry, but this is completely wrong. Many, MANY models have optional effects which they MAY activate outside their activation. That is just as much a choice, and it is in no way bound to the model being active. Just skim the abilities, I'm sure you can find examples. What makes you think it's technically not an effect? EVERYTHING in Malifaux is an effect. Damage is an effect. Moving is an effect. Gaining counters is an effect, and destroying counters is an effect. Anything that changes the state of the game is an effect. The wording here is pretty much exactly the same as any other effect which causes a model to gain a counter. How is "gain 1 Blood counter" an effect, but "immediately gain that counter" not an effect? If you want to get really, REALLY picky, the definition for effect says "a game term referring to anything that changes a model's state" and you could ALMOST argue that something that changes a counter isn't an effect. That might cause problems for something like Last Rites, that hits counters only, but gaining a counter changes the state of the model picking it up - it has one more counter than it did previously.

Ah, hadn't realized they were separate. I can't see any reason why that wouldn't work. I doubt anyone would argue that you couldn't attack with an Alpha'ed Datsue-ba because it might summon a Gaki. The action is independent and isolated. At least I'd assume so - we never did get any more response on that previous discussion

There is no requirement there that a model be active or activating. Malifaux doesn't provide for models acting AT ALL, EVER, without very explicit permission. But the above seems to me to qualify as pretty explicit permission. What are the conditions? That the model be touching or moving over a counter - nothing else. What can it do? Immediately gain that counter. I'm honestly not sure where you're coming from on this one, Q, but you have to either be saying that the above rule has some timing restriction which isn't apparent, or models aren't qualifying for that opportunity for some reason. Can you elaborate a bit more, maybe? Useless? Hardly. Trust me, corpse counters end up on the ground quite often. McMourning is really, REALLY good at what he does? But even then, it's a poor comparison, because Body Parts does explicitly require that the exchange happen during his activation.

I don't have the text/wording for the Rat handy, but so long as it's an immediate ability, I think yes.