Archie - Flurry and heal, but dead target.

[asrian]

This came up today. A wounded Archie activated.  With his last AP he did one close combat attack, and one-shotted and enemy model. The player (me) then discarded for Flurry (does not specifies same, or any target, just discard to perform this action again), heal (when he discards he heals) and ended his activation. 

 

Now, my logic was: Flurry does not specify picking a target, and on a different logic point, charges give a push + close combat attack that you don't have to actually take (but it, unlike Flurry, says you don't have to take the accompanying attack). 

 

I can see the argument for both views on if this Flurry+Heal, but no target could be both valid and invalid (and I felt gamey doing it). 

 

What do others think? Rules backing views would be great. 

 

Thanks.

[MajorUndead]

After a quick look I'd say you can do the flurry in these conditions.

In the rulebook pdf, page 23, section " RESOLVING ACTIONS", in " Step 3: Targeting" :

"If the Action requires a target, the target must be declared at this step. The target must be within the Action’s range as well as within Line of Sight of the model taking the Action, unless specified otherwise. If an Action has no legal target, it fails [...]."

The rule seem to say you can declare an action even if you are not able to target a valid target (and then the action automatically fail), rather than say you cannot declare an action at all if you have no valid target.
So I'd say doing flurry to attack nothing is possible.

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Morgan Vening said:

There seems to be two issues at play here.

What does "resolving an action" mean, and what the meaning of "fails" means in the context of the second para of Step 3 on page 23.

For the bench’s consideration, earlier in the Action resolution rules (Step 2):

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If the Action has any costs in italics, they must be paid now. If the costs are not paid, the Action fails; skip steps 3, 4, and 5.

Then, in Targeting (Step 3):

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If an Action has no legal target, it fails; skip steps 4 and 5.

The end result is that very few effects should be set into motion if the Action fails in one of those two manners.

But, also, look at Perform Duels (Step 4):

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If the initiating model does not succeed on the duel, the Action fails and Step 5 of resolving an Action is not performed.

All three steps use the same word “fails”.  More importantly, After Resolving triggers exist and refer to that same word:

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After resolving: These Triggers happen after the Action is complete, regardless of success or failure, but only if the model that declared the Trigger is still in play. If the Trigger has a target and that target is no longer in play, the Trigger has no effect.

 

If you don’t pass the necessary duel(s), the action fails.

if you can’t declare a legal target, the action fails.

If you can’t satisfy the costs, the action fails.

 

The terminology appears to fit together properly.  The declaration of an action does not require or expect prior knowledge that the action’s resolution will get to Step 4.  I expect in many casual games, steps two and three will be frequent causes for “take backs” but the rules work fine without those.  

[Figgyfigs]

I'm inclined to agree. The way it's written, you can declare an action, but then if you don't have a target, the action goes off with a failure.

The result is that Archie can discard to heal seemingly at-will, so long as he attacks first, which is something that I feel like shouldn't be happening, but...🤷‍♂️

[katadder]

40 minutes ago, Figgyfigs said:

I'm inclined to agree. The way it's written, you can declare an action, but then if you don't have a target, the action goes off with a failure.

The result is that Archie can discard to heal seemingly at-will, so long as he attacks first, which is something that I feel like shouldn't be happening, but...🤷‍♂️

well on this theory he can attack thin air, but it fails, then he can flurry.

so for that reason I would have to say you cant flurry without a target to attack

[Figgyfigs]

In terms of the spirit of the rules, I agree with you 100%. I would love to see Wyrd amend this with a rewrite or errata/FAQ.

Right now, there's way too much wiggle room for RAW lawyers to abuse these loopholes.

[santaclaws01]

22 minutes ago, katadder said:

well on this theory he can attack thin air, but it fails, then he can flurry.

So what if he can?

26 minutes ago, katadder said:

so for that reason I would have to say you cant flurry without a target to attack

So you would also say a model can't take the charge action if they can't attack someone.

[Morgan Vening]

If Archie wants to spend an AP attacking nothing and a card discard to heal, I don’t have an issue with that.

[solkan]

59 minutes ago, katadder said:

well on this theory he can attack thin air, but it fails, then he can flurry.

so for that reason I would have to say you cant flurry without a target to attack

Why should Flurry be any different than Onslaught?

Because keep in mind that there actions with the Onslaught trigger:

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 Onslaught: Take this Action again, targeting the same model.

Because of the game mechanics, you end up with the following sequence:

1.  Kudra (the randomly selected model with the action with the Onslaught trigger) declares Venomous Strike against a target that has three wounds left.

2.  During the duel, declares the Onslaught trigger (Note that it's built in.  This will be common.)

3.  Kudra gets lucky and flips severe or the red joker for damage, killing the target.

4.  Onslaught, as an After Resolve trigger, occurs and instructs Kudra to take the action again.

The Action mechanics have a built in mechanism which allows models to declare actions, discover that there are no valid targets, and fail at the point where the rules explicitly make a provision for the action to fail.

If that's not good enough, see the Swift Action or Quick Reflexes triggers which end up in similar scenarios.  And also note that neither Onslaught or Quick Reflexes themselves target models.  If they did, triggers like Pouncing Strike
 

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Pouncing Strike: Place this model in base contact with another enemy model within 5" and LoS. Then, take this Action again, targeting that enemy model.

For that matter, it should be possible to contrive a scenario where Mouse's Emergency Surgery runs into the same problem:

1.  Mouse declares Emergency Surgery, targets a lone other friendly model nearby.

2.  Declares Swift Action trigger (hoping to heal the model again)

3.  In a game of hundreds of different model abilities, someone manages to push either Mouse or his only possible target out of range.

4.  The Swift Action trigger resolves, Mouse is required by the effect to declare Emergency Surgery, and has no valid target for the action.

---

As silly as it may seem, Flurry or even declaring an attack with no one in range has to be legal.  It's almost always pointless, but there are going to be situations that require it to fail cleanly, and situations like this where there's a very minor advantage to "wasting" an action or ability to trigger something else.

 

[katadder]

5 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

So what if he can?

So you would also say a model can't take the charge action if they can't attack someone.

Charge says push upto its move in inches. It then may take a action.

So completely different thing.

[Morgan Vening]

There seems to be two issues at play here.

What does "resolving an action" mean, and what the meaning of "fails" means in the context of the second para of Step 3 on page 23.

However, the second para of Step 5 says...

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"A model is considered to be resolving an Action during every part of the “Resolving Actions” process. For instance, if a model was in Hazardous Terrain (pg. @@) during any part of the “Resolving Actions” process, the effects of the Hazardous Terrain are applied to the model after the Action resolves."

Now let's check what Hazardous Terrain says...

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Hazardous Terrain: After a model moves through or resolves one of its Actions while in Hazardous Terrain, it suffers the effects of the Hazardous Terrain after the current Action or Ability is resolved (to a maximum of once per Action or Ability).

That's enough for me, IMO.

If any part of the Action triggers Hazardous Terrain, then it also counts for Flurry. And doing any step of Resolving Actions, including Steps 1-3 count for Hazardous.

Now, that's not to say it couldn't be cleared up a bit, and if that's not the intent, that's one thing. But I'd be absolutely confident ruling that as the way things work, as written.

[santaclaws01]

2 hours ago, katadder said:

Charge says push upto its move in inches. It then may take a action.

So completely different thing.

Fair point, but there's still no stipulation in the rules that "do X to do Y" predicates that Y is possible to be able to do X.

[Maniacal_cackle]

On 6/24/2019 at 3:47 AM, Morgan Vening said:

If Archie wants to spend an AP attacking nothing and a card discard to heal, I don’t have an issue with that.

A major application of this is when Archie is spending a turn moving.

Charge > attack > flurry/heal  > move > leap is definitely a maneuver I'd use at times. I often run him on a flank, so he sometimes has to spend a turn repositioning.

There are also the cases where he is at 1 life and wants to avoid enemies until he is back up to 5-7 or so (with gst, he heals ~4 a turn, so it can be correct to take a turn off to heal).

If it is a legal move, it definitely has applications.