Exploding So Hard You Live: Drache Troopers and Servant of Dark Powers

[Kharnage]

I'm not sure what the order on all of this is, but I know when Nekima dies, if she black bloods on something and kills it, it'll heal her out of being dead. 
With Drache Troopers, let's say I stacked on some mines, and he explodes on death, dealing 4 damage and 2 burning to models near him, killing a nearby model, and he has the Servant of Dark Powers upgrade. Servant of Dark Powers says when he kills things, he heals 2. Is he now alive? 

[solkan]

1 hour ago, Kharnage said:

I'm not sure what the order on all of this is, but I know when Nekima dies, if she black bloods on something and kills it, it'll heal her out of being dead. 

Please see the Damage Timing rules.  Black Blood is a Damage Timing Step 5 effect.   If you want to debate whether Nekima is officially Killed or “not yet Killed” in that situation, you’re welcome to do so.

1 hour ago, Kharnage said:

With Drache Troopers, let's say I stacked on some mines, and he explodes on death, dealing 4 damage and 2 burning to models near him, killing a nearby model, and he has the Servant of Dark Powers upgrade. Servant of Dark Powers says when he kills things, he heals 2. Is he now alive? 

Please turn to Killed, paragraph three and four.  How did the Drache Trooper get killed?  No one heals out of a direct kill effect.  If the Drache trooper was reduced to 0 wounds, it would heal out of being killed due to the Unnatural Vigor ability.  Even though the Drache Trooper is at Step 6c.

If someday someone produces a model with a trigger like “Sadistic Glee:  After killing, heal target 1 then laugh.” that would stop the damage sequence at 6b (assuming the attack didn’t have a direct kill effect to mess with people).

Note that if you’re looking at the Damage Timing rules, step 6a is when things like the Jackalope’s Demise(Eternal) or the Coryphee’s Demise(Broken Down) get resolved, pulling those effects to the front of the line.  That isn’t saying that the only allowable time to heal a killed model is 6a.  (Same goes for the second paragraph of Killed.)  In other words, the second sentence of 6a is entirely redundant.

 

[Kharnage]

10 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

The active wouldn't actually matter here, but Adran actually has the right of it. I was just lazy and didn't actually think about the scenario all that hard.

It does matter. Because demise "when this model is killed" and Teach Them Fear "when a friendly model kills an enemy model" both occur simultaneously in step 6c, so the active player resolves their step 6c effect first. 

[Kharnage]

2 minutes ago, solkan said:

Note that if you’re looking at the Damage Timing rules, step 6a is when things like the Jackalope’s Demise(Eternal) or the Coryphee’s Demise(Broken Down) get resolved, pulling those effects to the front of the line.  That isn’t saying that the only allowable time to heal a killed model is 6a.  (Same goes for the second paragraph of Killed.)  In other words, the second sentence of 6a is entirely redundant.

Interesting point. Though, is there anywhere else that it specifically says "if it heals, it is not killed" other than step 6a of the damage timing? Otherwise, it's possible that the model would heal, but being killed would resolve anyway, yeah? Or is there a "If a model is above 0 wounds, it isn't considered killed" clause somewhere else? 

[Adran]

It says it in the killed section as well, but there it specifies that if it is healed so it isn't killed then any other effects from it being killed don't happen. 

I think you have to follow the timing chart, and healing from killing from an after killing effect is too late to stop you dying. Or deal with a paradox. 

[Kharnage]

The problem is, the general rule of "if a model killed by reducing to 0 wounds is healed, it is no longer killed" doesn't have a timing. Because it's a general rule under Killed on page 25, it would go off any time, even during 6c. @solkan is right, 6a second sentence is redundant. So the Demises would happen, then the healing from killing would happening, then all other queued death effects would stop, as per the wording under killed "If a model is Healed after it was killed as a result of being reduced to 0 Health, it no longer counts as killed (and is not removed from the game). Any other effects that would happen as the result of the model being killed do not occur".
So, the Drache Troopers can be Phoenix Troopers, rising from the ashes of their own Demise.

[Gnomezilla]

...until the abomination pops (if the abomination still pops) and you stop healing.

[Kharnage]

2 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

...until the abomination pops (if the abomination still pops) and you stop healing.

True. The "After Killing" trigger would occur in step 6b, generating a no-heal aura, and the Drache Trooper would not heal in step 6c. Though the summoned Abomination, and Leveticus, would both suffer the Demise effects

[solkan]

37 minutes ago, Adran said:

It says it in the killed section as well, but there it specifies that if it is healed so it isn't killed then any other effects from it being killed don't happen. 

I think you have to follow the timing chart, and healing from killing from an after killing effect is too late to stop you dying. Or deal with a paradox. 

It’s not creating paradoxes.  If a model heals and that cancels the Killed state during Step 6, then you stop resolving other Killed-related effects.  That’s how the “paradox” resolves—you finish resolving that effect, the model is no longer Killed, and then the damage sequence ends.

6a is so that people have to work really hard to get credit for killing Leveticus, not to make Demise and Replace effects the only possible way to heal a Killed model.  Too many healing shenanigans are intended to try to claim otherwise.

 

[Adran]

10 minutes ago, solkan said:

It’s not creating paradoxes.  If a model heals and that cancels the Killed state during Step 6, then you stop resolving other Killed-related effects.  That’s how the “paradox” resolves—you finish resolving that effect, the model is no longer Killed, and then the damage sequence ends.

6a is so that people have to work really hard to get credit for killing Leveticus, not to make Demise and Replace effects the only possible way to heal a Killed model.  Too many healing shenanigans are intended to try to claim otherwise.

 

The paradox is if you have servant of the dark powers and heal after you have resolved the demise effect to cause a death, how can you not do any effects that result from you being killed. 

[Kharnage]

40 minutes ago, Adran said:

The paradox is if you have servant of the dark powers and heal after you have resolved the demise effect to cause a death, how can you not do any effects that result from you being killed. 

I would say it's because of "There are some game effects that can Heal a model after it has been killed. If a model is Healed after it was killed as a result of being reduced to 0 Health, it no longer counts as killed (and is not removed from the game). Any other effects that would happen as the result of the model being killed do not occur." The underlined bit makes it stop the resolution of effects entirely once the heal occurs.

[santaclaws01]

7 hours ago, solkan said:

Please see the Damage Timing rules.  Black Blood is a Damage Timing Step 5 effect.   If you want to debate whether Nekima is officially Killed or “not yet Killed” in that situation, you’re welcome to do so.

 

Here's where he's getting that from.

 

[Kadeton]

I'll be very interested to see how this one ends up being ruled.

Personally, I don't think this particular interaction (or indeed any interactions where a killed model ends up healing after Damage Step 6a) was accounted for in the rules. My strong suspicion is that the eventual ruling will not allow the model to survive, and that in fact Step 6a will end up being the only time that a killed model can avoid being killed.

The lack of a specified timing on the "healing after being killed" rule can be accounted for by there being a precise timing specified for it in the Damage Timing structure (i.e. p. 25 specifies how it works, and p. 34 specifies exactly when it happens). This would make the 6a wording not "redundant" at all, and it would also cleanly avoid "paradoxes".

Or I could be completely off-base, and Drachen Troopers can explode and re-form their bodies as often as they like. Dark Powers, indeed!

[Gnomezilla]

Oh no. What if both the initial exploding model and its victim have heal-on-kill abilities? 😱

A dies, A explodes, kills B, heals A.

B dies, B explodes, kills A (if it has exploded for 2), heals B...

But then A dies...

Is this the proper interlaced sequence of simultaneous events?

[santaclaws01]

10 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Oh no. What if both the initial exploding model and its victim have heal-on-kill abilities? 😱

A dies, A explodes, kills B, heals A.

B dies, B explodes, kills A (if it has exploded for 2), heals B...

But then A dies...

Is this the proper interlaced sequence of simultaneous events?

Looks like it.

[Gnomezilla]

2 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Looks like it.

@Kharnage is trying to explain to me that if the active player explodes first then there is no loop. I don’t quite follow him yet but the logic seems sound.

[Adran]

19 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Oh no. What if both the initial exploding model and its victim have heal-on-kill abilities? 😱

A dies, A explodes, kills B, heals A.

B dies, B explodes, kills A (if it has exploded for 2), heals B...

But then A dies...

Is this the proper interlaced sequence of simultaneous events?

I think it goes

A dies, A explodes, damages B. B reaches 0 wounds. B explodes as killed, can't hurt A as A is still killed,  things that happen after B is killed happen so A heals. B is removed.

 

[santaclaws01]

6 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

@Kharnage is trying to explain to me that if the active player explodes first then there is no loop. I don’t quite follow him yet but the logic seems sound.

The active wouldn't actually matter here, but Adran actually has the right of it. I was just lazy and didn't actually think about the scenario all that hard.

[santaclaws01]

5 minutes ago, Kharnage said:

It does matter. Because demise "when this model is killed" and Teach Them Fear "when a friendly model kills an enemy model" both occur simultaneously in step 6c, so the active player resolves their step 6c effect first. 

Yeah my bad again. Realized that as I was replying to your other question you just asked since I had skipped over that damage timing is resolved for everyone at the same time step by step instead of each individually.


Moral of the story, don't kill a bunch of models at the same time who all can kill other models when they themselves die(and in turn heal)  which also kills models who heal on killing models unless you want a massive headache.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Haha, what a weird quirk of the rules.

EDIT: I posted a more precise version with the exact model in question below if you want to skip this post and read the more precise version in the next comment. Leaving this up as I reference parts of it.

I can see the argument presented here, but am confused as to why the heal effect necessarily resolves?

• 6a: resolves heal effects on the killed or replaced model
• 6b: resolve any after killing triggers
• 6c: any effects that resolve after the model is killed resolve
• 6d: remove the model

Let's say B kills A, and starts the chain. Here is what I see happening.

• A6a: resolve heal effects on A.
• A6b: resolve after killing triggers for B (that is, things with a suit, NOT things on front of card with no suit).
• A6c: resolve things that happen on death (A explodes, kills B).
• A6d: remove model A.

Check game state, B has been killed and not been resolved. Resolve it now.

• B6a: resolve heal effects on B.
• B6b: resolve after killing triggers (there are none, unless a suit is involved. Even if this results in a heal for A, you can't heal a model after it is removed from the table).
• B6c: if B6a didn't heal this model sufficiently to stay alive, it dies.
• B6d: remove model of applicable.

The conventional wisdom seems to be the order is:

A6a > A6b > A6c > B dies, resolve all B6 stuff, heals A back up.

I see it as A6 resolving completely, THEN B6 resolving.

See beta rules page 34 - when an effect resolves, the entire effect resolves. If B dies during resolving A's death, you have to finish resolving A's death before resolving B's.

If disagreeing, please cite the rules of the move in question. I'm on my phone and can't look up models and their moves easily!

But to me, the key question seems to be can one model's death start resolving while another model's death is still resolving? I'd say no (from page 34 of beta rules), in which case these heals might be in the pipeline, but not actually resolve before the model is removed.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Got a hold of the Drachen Trooper rules, so to put it all together.

Drachen Trooper, note this is NOT a trigger. It is an effect, I believe is the language the game seems to use:

Quote

After this model is killed, models within 2" suffer +2 damage and gain Burning +2. This model does not Drop any Markers when killed.

Servant of Dark Powers upgrade (again, not a trigger, just an effect)

Quote

After killing an enemy model, this model heals 2.

Right, so now we can run this through the process:

• 6a: resolves heal effects on the killed or replaced model
• 6b: resolve any after killing triggers
• 6c: any effects that resolve after the model is killed resolve
• 6d: remove the model

Drachen Trooper dies to an enemy attacking (you originally said mine, what's a mine?). So I'll just work with dying to an attack for now. Let's assume another Drachen Trooper with the same upgrades. Drachen B attacks Drachen A.

Sooo...

• A6a: Drachen A has heal effects effects resolved. It hasn't yet killed anything, so doesn't heal up at this stage.
• A6b: resolve any after killing triggers (unless the enemy model has some, there's no triggers).
• A6c: any effects that resolve after Drachen Trooper is killed resolve (blast damage happens, other model takes lethal damage). EDIT: Actually, I think Drachen B heals up at this stage, so likely never even reaches a death chain of its own.
• A6d: remove the Drachen Trooper A.

Oh damn, model B has died (EDIT: or possibly not, see above).

• B6a: Drachen B has heal effects resolve (it just killed a dude, so it heals up). It doesn't die, so the chain terminates.
• Or if Drachen B doesn't have the heal upgrade, it goes through the chain until B is dead (which would heal Drachen A at B6c, but Drachen A is already off the table).

What am I missing here? At what stage does Drachen A actually get to heal up? It doesn't happen at A6a (he hasn't killed anything yet), it doesn't happen at A6b (the upgrade power is not a trigger. Heal effects get resolved in 6a). It doesn't happen in A6c (he kills Drachen B, but the resulting heal happens at stage B6c). 

The heal would happen in B6c if it reached that point, but the Drachen A is removed before that point ever happens anyway.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Also worth citing this part of page 34 of the beta rulebook:

Quote

When a model suffers damage, it follows the timing structure below. If multiple models suffer damage at the same time... resolve each step below on every model being damaged before moving to the next step.

Quote

Sometimes, an effect will create additional effects as it resolves. In these cases, fully resolve the initial effect before moving onto any additional effect. Additional effects are then resolved in the order they were generated, after any effects which had been previously generated have resolved.

So when resolving step 6, you're supposed to resolve it entirely for a model before moving on to the next one. So I think my interpretation of resolving A6d before B6a is correct.

And actually, if a few other models all died alongside Drachen A, I think you'd have to resolve their deaths before Drachen B as well (as it's damage is received after others, so it doesn't even get to step 1 before all the other models get resolved as well I think).

[santaclaws01]

@Maniacal_cackle the sequential effects timing rule doesn't apply to damage timing. If it did then Demise abilities literally wouldn't work, since they wouldn't even be able to begin resolving their demise until after the model is removed as killed, at which point it's too late.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

@Maniacal_cackle the sequential effects timing rule doesn't apply to damage timing. If it did then Demise abilities literally wouldn't work, since they wouldn't even be able to begin resolving their demise until after the model is removed as killed, at which point it's too late.

If the Drachen had a demise ability, it would fit either into A6a (if a heal) or A6c (effects upon death), as demise is an ability that is associated with the model's own death. If a demise was happening related to another model's death (such as "demise: heal all models within 4 inches", then it wouldn't be relevant).

So I'm not sure I understand your claim that the interpretation I've proposed above precludes demise abilities. There's nested layers here. You resolve the death in the listed way (which specifically includes text that would include the model's demise ability, but doesn't seem to care what is going on with other models at the time).

[Kadeton]

15 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

Oh no. What if both the initial exploding model and its victim have heal-on-kill abilities? 😱

A dies, A explodes, kills B, heals A.

B dies, B explodes, kills A (if it has exploded for 2), heals B...

But then A dies...

Is this the proper interlaced sequence of simultaneous events?

Yep, that sort of nonsense is a big part of why I think it will eventuate that models cannot avoid being killed after 6a, even if they heal.

In that case, this would resolve as:

A is killed.
A has no abilities that heal it upon death, so resolves on-death effects.
A explodes, reduces B to 0.
B is killed.
B has no abilities that heal it upon death, so resolves on-death effects.
B explodes. (A heals, but it no longer matters because A's window to survive in 6a has already passed.)
B is removed.
A is removed.

Clean. And roughly what you would intuitively expect to happen.

Here's a theoretical: if Demise (Explosive/Flaming) didn't specify that the model didn't drop Markers when killed, and we allowed models to avoid death by healing after 6a, then the Drachen Trooper could both drop a corpse and still be walking around. Not sure if that makes the problem clearer? By allowing post-6a-death-avoidance, Schrödinger's Drachen Trooper is both dead and alive. That seems clearly unintended.

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Kadeton, I thought of Schrodinger too xD

Although I still don't get what the justification for resolving B's death in the middle of A's death is. True, the rules of damage progression clearly intend that if models suffer damage at the same time, you resolve them side by side.

But if a model receives damage after another, then you have to fully resolve the damage to the first one is my interpretation. From what I can see, the two models aren't receiving simultaneous damage (one of them happens after, as a result of damage to the first one). As a result, they're resolved sequentially, not simultaneously.

That is, you complete steps 1-6 for the first model, and then move to step 1 (soulstone use) for the model that took damage from the first model's death. You don't even start the process for the second model until the first model is off the table from what I can see?