By David R. Henry
Version 3.0, Revised 31 August 1999
1. Berserk fun added.
2. The Dedicated Typo Patrol. Huzzah!
A lot of people seem to get confused when they first encounter a Legend of the Burning Sands combat. In particular, the act of engaging, and what exactly immunity to engaging damage does for you, seems to trip a lot of people up. Hopefully, this FAQ will clear up the matter so that more people can stop worrying about minutae and start enjoying this fine game. Cheers!
Combat starts when somebody decides to start it. Most people don't seem to have problems with the assigning phase of combat (sending your units to what city section), or that ground units assign before flying units, or that the attacker assigns before defender. It's what these units do when they get there that causes the trouble. So let's say that a city section has been picked to be resolved, that both sides have units there ready to rumble, and, now, what do we do?
The Defender gets first chance to play an action. Yes, there are cards that change this. This is a CCG; there will always be cards to change any given general example. This FAQ will only concern itself with situations that are assumed not to be filled with a bunch of weird card-specific counterexamples.
Where were we? Oh, yeah, that Defender person. Well, the Defender gets first chance to play an action. Actions in combat that are possible include:
It's the last one we're really concerned about here. The ability of the Defender to engage for damage first is a big advantage in LBS; indeed, the major advantage of flying units is that they can usually attack without being smushed themselves by a defending army, since they usually choose an undefended city section to pick on.
So you engage for damage. How much damage can you engage for? What can you engage?
Well, you can only engage cards from one unit at a time, and you do so by bowing those cards. You can engage any Hero, with or without adding in any Followers on that Hero. You can even engage the Followers without engaging the Hero if you want to. You can engage one Follower, or three. You can engage the Hero and one Follower first, and save a second Follower for a later round. Any possibile combination of Hero/Follower can be made... so long as the cards are from one unit. You can't bow the Hero from one unit and the Followers from another.
When you engage is also when you play Reactions that change the Strength of your engagement - such as the classic Wisdom of the Stars. This is also the time your opponent will play Reactions that decrease the total Strength (sometimes called "damage" on the cards) of an engagement - the classic example here would be blowing up a Wheat Field.
In any case, after all your bowing and fiddling and playing Reactions, you will finally end up with a total engagement for X amount of Strength.
So, you've engaged for X damage. What does that mean? That means the other army has to eat the damage... but only if it isn't immune to it.
Immune to it! What does that mean? Well, in LBS a card is immune to any damage which is less than its Strength. For instance: Sabina is a beefy 3 Strength Hero. Argoun is a bit more svelte, at 2 Strength. Argoun engaging for 2S damage is a laugh to Sabina; she's immune to it, and doesn't have to suffer it if she doesn't want to. Note that the immunity is figured only after any and all Reactions to it have been summed out. Argoun engages with a Wisdom of the Stars for 4 Strength... but Sabina's player destroys two Wheat Fields to reduce that back down to a 2S engagement again. All Reactions are done, so the final strength of the engagement is 2... which Sabina is immune to.
But be careful with your assumptions, here! Just because a card is immune to damage doesn't mean that you can't choose the card to suffer the damage in place of some other target on your side. Why on earth would you want to do that, you ask? Well, this is mainly a concern with the Defender. Why? Because in a battle against a City Section, the City Section itself (and its all-important water tokens) are also assumed to be in the battle. Which means that the defender must often make some tough choices. Read on ahead to the next section or two to figure out why, but for right now, remember this: Immunity means that you don't have to select the Hero or Follower in question to be the target of an assigned engagement, unless you want to.
Now, when a Hero engages with their Followers, or multiple Followers engage, you can add up their Strengths for one big engagement! Argoun normally is beneath Sabina's notice, but give him even a lowly Moto Steed, a 1 Strength Follower, and they can engage together for 3... enough to kill the haughty Assassin. To make up for the fact that they help on engagement, Followers help with immunity, too. Any Hero becomes immune to engagements that any one of their Followers would be immune to. Argoun is normally a 2S, but if he's leading some Elephants, a 4S Follower, then the Elephants grant him their immunity to engagements at less than 4S. However, the Moto Steeds we mentioned Argoun having earlier would not gain the immunity advantage from their fellow Follower, the Elephants. Followers only pass their immunity up to their Hero, not to their fellow Followers.
And, as a final reminder to my gentle readers: Immunity is only figured out now, in this stage. Once you start actually assigning damage to opposing cards, then all immunities for that combat have been determined, and other changes to card Strengths during damage assignment (say, two Eylas on one side, one who dies before the other) will not change immunity.
Hey, are we up to the killing Hero portion of combat already? Why, yes we are. When your enemy has generated their "cloud" of engaging damage, the damage has to go somewhere. But where?
Well, anywhere on your side, really. Again, you don't have to select one of your immune cards to take the damage, but it generally has to go somewhere (but see below for special bits about this!). You have to kill off as much Strength of cards as the Strength of the engagement. Someone engages you for 7S, you have to eat 7S of your own cards. There's a little bit of solace, here... if you kill a Hero (and only a Hero) with the damage inflicted, you have the option of discarding (to your Saved pile) a card from your hand, that will absorb an additional amount of damage equal to the Fate of the discard. You may do this each time you kill a Hero: you could kill Adnan (0S Hero), discard a 3 Fate card, and kill another Adnan and discard a 4 Fate card to eat a 7S engagement (replacing Adnan with Heroes with actual Strength is also an option). But you have to kill a hero before you discard that Fate card, and you can only do it once for each Hero dying.
But enough about Heroes dying... what about extras? Yes, Followers can die just as easily as Heroes, and they'll eat up damage just as nicely, too. The only weakness, as it were, with Followers is that you can't spend a Fate discard to reduce the engagement after killing a Follower. Only Heroes get that special option when they die.
Immune cards need not have damage assigned to them at all, but if you do decide to assign damage to them (and it's always an option you can use), they eat their full damage as normal. Even more important, however, is that any card that takes even 1 point of piddly damage dies. Even mighty Gaheris, Moto Clan Champion, Le Beef Supreme, will die if you assign a 1 point engagement on him. Why on earth would you ever assign a 1 point engagement on Gaheris, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked! Read the very next section and find out!
Well, this is where it can start to be painful being the Defender. Because the Defender, you see, is assumed to have a City Section at the battle as well as any defending army... and even if their entire army is immune to the engaging damage, their water tokens and City Section may not.
The Attacker, on the other hand, has no City Section at risk. This means that immunity is usually worth a lot more to the Attacker than the Defender. If you're confused, let's run through some examples to show you why...
Sabina (3S) is attacking. Argoun (2S), her eternal enemy, is defending. Defender gets first action. Argoun _could_ engage for 2S, but has no Reactions in hand to make him beefier, and Sabina is immune to a 2S engagement, being 3S herself. So the Defender passes. Sabina engages for 3. Argoun dies nobly, and the Defender plays a Fate discard for 1. Simple and straightforward. Now let's jazz it up.
Two Chandras (1S) are attacking the Moto's last city section, which is defended by mighty Gaheris (5S), but nobody else (the Moto have been having a spot of bad luck this game). There is one water left on the site. Gaheris, not being stupid and being the Defender, engages for 5 damage. Pow! One Chandra dies hiedously, and, since that player lost a Hero, they play a Fate discard... for 4 Fate value. That eats the entire 5S engagement, which means one Chandra is left to fight. That Chandra engages for 1. Gaheris, being 5S, is immune to it of course. However, if the Moto does not make Gaheris eat the damage, then the City Section or water tokens there must take the damage, if possible. And if the Moto loses their last water token... they lose the game (we'll assume they have no Heroes to play to raid more water). Complaining furiously at the clever Assassin's trap, the Moto player destroys Gaheris, saving his water for another turn.
Let's reverse the process to see immunity from the attacker's side. Gaheris is attacking this time, and the properly frightened opponent is blocking with his largest unit, Abresax (4S). Abresax engages for 4 damage, but Gaheris is immune to 4S engagements. And since Gaheris is attacking, not defending, there is no City Section for him to worry about, so the entire 4S engagement is lost. He then engages for 5S, probably nuking Abresax and one Fate discard.
That's the payoff for getting to go first as the Defender. You can draw the first blood, but your immunity is a lot less powerful. If someone engages for an amount you're immune to, you will still have to take it on your City Section or water tokens if you choose to save your Heroes/Followers. A tough choice in a fiercely-fought midgame; save your big beefy guy on defense, or take him out on a 2S engagement from a weenie horde to save your water? It is on such choices that the selection of legendary new Sultans shall be made.
A special form of engaging damage in LBS is Berserk. Berserk cards must have the Berserk Trait, and while they can choose not to use it, there's no real disadvantage not to use it, so most of them always do.
Berserk is special in that any card that is hit by Berserk damage cannot use Fate discards to help reduce the damage. Someone with Berserk 4 hits you, and your entire army of 2S, 1S, and 1S Heroes dies (if your opponent didn't have Berserk, you'd probably have only lost one Hero, and discarded a Fate value to make up the difference).
But how does Berserk work with normal engagements? Well, there's nothing stopping you from engaging Berserk cards with normal cards. But if you combine Berserk and non-Berserk cards for a single engagement, then the entire engagement becomes non-Berserk. Sorry, but you know how tough it is to keep a head of froth. To gain the benefits of Berserk, you have to only engage Berserk cards. Otherwise, all other rules for engagements work normally.
OK, so we've got down immunity, engaging damage, the respective advantages and disadvantages of being the attacker and defender, frothing berserks... by the Sun, is there anything else left to cover with this FAQ?
Well, yes. There's a very special form of engagement in LBS which slightly tweaks the rules. It's called "Archery", and you'll see a few Heroes and Followers who have it (other cards might grant Archery as well).
You'll note that in general combat in LBS, melee is an inelegant affair. Even the lordly Gaheris isn't particularly concerned over who he hits with his 5S engagement; he just sort of lazily swings and smiles as whole cavalry divisions die. Not so the Archers. Heroes and Followers with Archery can choose to use Archery when they engage. They have to say they're using it as they engage, and they can't change their mind afterwards. Furthermore, Archery engagements puts a crimp in the otherwise free-for-all rules on how many Followers behind a Hero can engage: if you want to use Archery, only Followers or Heroes who all have Archery can engage together. This doesn't mean your Hero has to have Archery themself to allow their Archer Followers to team up - Argoun leading two Archers can have the two Archers engage for 6S Archery easily enough, and then save up his own 2S engagement for later.
With all these restrictions, why bother with Archery? Well, because it's the only way for you to engage and have _you_ decide which card in the opposing army takes damage, as opposed to the player of that army. You engage Yesugai, Moto Clan Archer. Instead of just causing a generic 2S attack which the opposing player can split up as you see fit ("Oh, dear, I guess Adnan bites it and I play a 2 Fate card. Now Janan Barakah engages all my army for 56S."), you, the Archery-using player, can point out who gets the hit ("Yesugai plugs Janan Barakah like a gasping tuna. Suffer!"). As you can see, this allows you a good deal of control over what is going on in a battle; at least, more than most non-Archery engagements.
Now, Archery does have its limitations. Beyond somewhat limiting what Followers and Heroes can engage together, an Archery engagement must target only a Hero or a Follower. You can't target anything else with an Archery engagement. And before you can shoot down a Hero, you have to shoot down all the Hero's Followers as well. Even the Trained Peacocks will nobly take the shot to save their master's life, first. Archery can only target one card at a time. If you're going to shoot those 0S Trained Peacocks with a 6S Archery attack, you get one really dead Peacock... and the rest of the damage is lost.
And, like all engagements, Archery is still subject to immunity. Gaheris laughs off 3S Archery engagements, just like he laughs off generic 3S engagements. You are free to target immune cards with your Archery engagements, but if the controller of those cards doesn't want them to suffer the damage, then they won't. In general, don't waste your time doing it.
But the uses of Archery generally overcome its limitations. It's not usually the way to kill off huge Heroes; what it's good for is tallying off the annoying groupies who follow in a big Hero's shadow, to help them and otherwise eat Engagement strength. Nepherus, for instance, often tags along in the shadow of Senpet armies, there to destroy any offending Defensive Omens that might be played. A generic engagement might not hit Nepherus; any Archery shot of 1S or higher will kill him. Adnan often joins many armies, there to die (with his Fate card clutched boldly to his bleeding chest) in place of Heroes the player actually cares about. Use Archery to ignore the sacrificial lamb Adnan and get rid of the Heroes who are a real threat.
You'll also note, I'm sure, that some Archery cards have bonuses or penalties to their Archery trait. For instance, Ramontet says "Archery +1." That means if and when he engages for an Archery attack, his Strength is raised by 1, and only for that Archery engagement.
But wait! How does Archery and Berserk work together? It's actually rather easy to get a Berserk Archery attack (give any Hero with Archery some Elephants, and only engage the Hero). And, for what it's worth, you can do that (just remember that while you can engage non-Berserks with Berserks, you cannot engage non-Archers with Archers). It's just rather pointless, as Archery engagements only kill one target anyway, and so the ability of Berserk to negate your opponent's Fate discard to suck up damage doesn't make much of a difference.
And that's the end! I hope this was useful and easy to understand, and may Lady Sun bless you in all your endeavors and engagements.
drh
"Don't drive too slowly." -Kate Bush