Melee

Here we are again, exploring the basics of Warhammer: Diskwars. Now that your disks bravely survived clouds of arrows, devastating bolts of magic and a horde of green guys riding boars, it’s time for fighting. Today, with the help of your friendly Troll, you’ll learn the secrets of melee combat.

Clicca QUI per l’articolo in italiano

NOTE: This article has been slightly modified from its first published edition, thus some of the comments below may no longer apply. To see what has changed and the reasons behind the changes, please read here.

Damage

Before confronting with melee, scrums and such, let’s quickly talk about damage, as it is a concept that crosses both the Activation Phase and the Melee Phase.

Damage is assigned on disks in the form of Damage Tokens as an effect of ranged attacks, disk abilities, command card abilities and melee combat. Whenever damage is assigned to a disk, an equal number of Damage Tokens is placed on that disk as a reminder.

Damage stays on a disk until it equals or exceeds (at any time) that disk’s Toughness. When this happens, all the damage tokens are removed and the disk suffers a Wound. This generally means the disk has to be removed as a casualty, but some disks have a Stamina value, which allows them to withstand more than one wound before being defeated: a disk is removed as a casualty whenever it has suffered more wounds than its Stamina.

Figure 1: The Bloodcrushers manage to pull out a lucky impact on Karl Franz, for a massive 6 damage. Karl Franz already had 4 damage token on it, so after the hit he has suffered a cumulative 10 damage. Five of them (equal to his Toughness) are enough to cause a Wound on him, while the other five are discarded.

Note that all damage dealt by an attack or ability is simultaneous, so if it’s enough to wound a disk, any leftover damage is wasted, even if it exceeds the target’s Toughness. On the other hand, damage inflicted by different effects, even if originated from the same disk, is applied at different times, and players have to check if a wound is inflicted after each instance of damage.

Figure 2: Thanks to the Mobile keyword, the Steam Tank is able to make a ranged attack against the River Troll (1), causing 2 hits for a total of 6 damage, enough to wound the troll, and then to flip in order to apply another 3 Impact damage (2).

In the End Phase of the round, all tokens except for wounds are removed from disks in play, and that’s includes damage, so any damage that’s not enough to inflict a wound in a single round is discarded.

This is important, so better stress it: as damage that isn’t enough to cause a wound only gets removed in the End Phase,  all damage dealt during the Activation Phase is not removed from the disks when the Melee Phase begins. So, any damage from Impact, Magic, Ranged Attacks and whatever other shenanigans you were able to pull off will stay on your enemies until the end of the round, and it will add to the damage your troops will deal in close combat.

Damage in Warhammer: Diskwars comes in three varieties: Arcane, Phyisical and untyped. All of these work in the exact same way as described above, but have different interactions with some unit abilities, namely the Immune and Resistant keywords: a unit which is Immune/Resistant to a certain type of damage will suffer damage of other types as normal.

Figure 3: Damage icons. Left to right: untyped damage, Physical damage, Arcane damage.

Immune (X): A disk with immune (X) cannot be targeted or damaged by X (keywords, Physical Damage, Ranged Attack, etc.).

A disk immune to a specific type of damage is never damaged from attacks and effects that deal that kind of damage (though it can be targeted by them, unless it’s also immune to that specific effect or attack). This means, for example, that Teclis, who is immune to Arcane Damage (but not to ranged attacks), can be targeted by a ranged attack from the Flamers. He will not suffer any damage but if a critical hit is rolled, he will receive an activation token, as the two effect are distinct.

Resistant (X). A disk with resistant (X) takes only half the amount of damage each time it is dealt damage by X, rounded up (keywords, Physical Damage, Ranged Attack, etc.)

All damage dealt in a single instance (i.e. from multiple hits on a ranged attack or from multiple melee attackers) is added up before halving.

Engagements

Now we are almost ready to engage in melee combat, but in order to do that, we need to talk about engagements: an engagement is created every time a disk is pinning an enemy. As we will see later, in the Melee Phase disks will attack enemies they are engaged to.

Engaging is reciprocal: whenever a disk engages another, they both count as having engaged each other. This means that any ability that has the conditional text “When this disk engages an enemy” can also be read as “When this disk is engaged by an enemy”. Also note that when a disk with such an ability engages multiple enemies at once, the ability simultaneously triggers once per engaged enemy.

Figure 4: Archaon moves to engage two enemies, the Militia Spearmen and the Sky Cutter, with the same flip (1). Both the High Elf disks take 2 Impact damage from Archaon, and the special ability of the Chaos Hero triggers twice, dealing an additional 2 damage to the Spearmen and Sky Cutter, and also to the Maiden Guard, which are within short range from Archaon. Next, the Sun Dragon pins Archaon, engaging it (2). As engaging is considered both when pinning and when being pinned, Archaon’s special ability triggers again, dealing 1 damage to each of the High Elf units.

In an engagement, a disk that is pinning an enemy is considered to be the attacker, and a disk that is pinned by an enemy is the defender. As disks will rarely tend to fight one-on-one, a single melee combat may include multiple attackers and/or defenders.

Figure 5: In the above engagement, 3 Orc disks are pinning 3 High Elf disks. The Orcs are the Attackers (black arrows) and will deal their Strength damage, while the Elves are the defenders (white arrows) and will deal their Counter Strength damage.

A disk that is both the attacker and the defender in the same combat (as it is “sandwiched” between two enemies, pinning one and being pinned by another) is called an embattled disk. As a disk can only either be an attacker or a defender in an engagement, an embattled disk is considered to be part of two separate engagements, one in which it is the attackers, and one in which it is the defender.

All disks that can be traced back to a single common attacker or defender, in a way that no disk is embattled, are considered to be part of the same engagement. This may seem tricky but, once you get a hold of it, it’s actually pretty easy to visualize, so let’s try with an example:

Figure 6a: Here is our example scrum.

Ok, don’t panic. Don’t. Panic. Trust the Troll, it’s easier than it seems.

First of all, we have to identify the embattled disks. Can you see them? They are highlighted in Figure 6b.1 below: The Wolf Riders, Grom the Paunch, the Knights Panther and the Hellstriders.

Then, starting from one of the embattled disks, let’s say the Wolf Riders, we need to start establishing attacker-defender relationship in a way that no disk is both the attacker and the defender against disks engaged with it. So, for example, we decide to start with Wolf Riders as attackers.

• Wolf Riders as attackers implies Hellblaster volley Gun as defender in the same engagement [6b.2]
• The Hellblaster Volley Gun is also defending against the Boar Boyz, thus they are involved in the engagement as attackers [6b.3]
• Boar Boyz as attackers means Knights Panther as defenders, as the Boyz are attacking them too [6b.4]

Figure 6b: Embattled disks (1), and step-by-step procedure to identify an engagement (2-4).

In the end, using this procedure, we can identify other four distinct engagement in our example, as shown in Figure 6c.

Figure 6c: All the engagements in the scrum are finally identified.

As you can see, even if some of the four embattled disks shown above are part of the same engagement, each embattled disk is involved in one engagement as the attacker, and in one as the defender.

Note that the command card Blood for the Blood God will allow a player to resolve an engagement in which one of his Chaos disk is involved, as if it were in the Melee Phase. Remember that in this situation the engagement is resolved as a whole, so all disks in the engagement will attack, not just the chosen disk and the ones directly engaged with it.

Continuing the example shown in Figure 6c, should the Chaos player reveal Blood For the Blood God, he or she could choose to resolve engagement A, C or D, as any of these includes a Chaos disk.

Engagement Resolution

Players resolve engagements during the melee phase in the order chosen by the First Player, with the only restriction that any given engagement must be fully resolved before passing to another one.

During the resolution of an engagement, each attacking disk will deal its Strength damage to one of the disk it is pinning (the player controlling the disk chooses if there’s more than one eligible target) and each defending disk will deal its Counter Strength damage to one of the disk pinning it. Disks cannot choose not to attack: they have to deal their damage when in melee, if able.

Each disk can only deal damage to a single enemy during an engagement (but in a future round, if the engagement still persists, it can choose to damage a different enemy). This, of course, unless the disk has Frenzy:

Frenzy. A disk with frenzy can attack all disks it is pinning, instead of just one disk.

Note, however, that Frenzy applies when the disk is the attacker: when the disk is defending, it deals only its counter strength damage to a single disk that pins it.

Figure 7: Being subject to Frenzy, Azhzag the Slaughterer will deal its Strength damage to both the Bloodcrushers and Archaon (dark green arrows), while he has to choose which disk, between the Kurgan Marauders and the Plaguebearers, to deal its Counter Strength damage to. As the Black Orcs do not have Frenzy, they can only attack one enemy disk.

Damage dealt in melee combat is Physical Damage and is simultaneous: if more than one disk attack the same enemy, add their damage together before reducing it for any eventual Resistant keyword, and most importantly before checking if a wound is inflicted.

Two keywords, Slow and Swift, alter the timing of attacks within the engagement:

Slow. A disk with slow deals the damage from its specified strength value after other disks in melee combat that do not also have slow. This means that a disk with slow can be removed as a casualty before it deals its damage.

Swift. A disk with swift deals the damage from its specified strength value before any other disk in melee combat that does not also have swift. If this is enough damage to remove an enemy disk as a casualty, then it does not deal its melee damage.

So, if there are disks with different attack speeds, the attacks are resolved in the following order:

1. All the Swift disks deal their damage;
2. All the surviving disks without either the Swift or the Slow keyword deal their damage;
3. All the surviving Slow disks deal their damage;

Within each step damage is dealt simultaneously, but players check to see if wounds are inflicted after each of the three steps, so a disk that has a Stamina Value could suffer more than one wound from attack with different speed. Disks that are destroyed before they have a chance to attack won’t inflict their damage in the respective attack step.

Note that the Swift and Slow keywords specify if the keyword applies to either Strength, Counter Strength or both: if only one is shown, then the other kind of attack is resolved with “normal” speed.

Figure 8: Grimgor’s Swift (Strength) keyword allows him to attack before the other disks, and to deal 6 damage to the Bloodthirster and wound it. In the next attack segment, both the Bloodthirster and the Black orcs can attack. The Bloodthirster chooses to deal 5 damage to Grimgor, while the Black Orc’s 6 damage are enough to deal another wound and kill the daemon. This is possible because the damage from Grimgor’s attack is assigned in a separate instance from that of the Black Orcs.

Scrums

A combat which involves at least one embattled disk (i.e. a disk that is both pinning and pinned by enemy disks) is called a Scrum. As a disk can only be involved in an engagement once, either as an attacker or a defender, a scrum is always composed by at least two distinct engagements.

Scrums are resolved top-down, resolving one engagement at a time starting from the ones in which embattled disks are a defender. Note that the first player can choose to “jump” and resolve other engagements outside the scrum (even in other scrums), as long as the engagements within each scrum are resolved in the correct order.

Summarizing, when resolving a scrum, do the following:

1. Identify which disks are embattled;
2. Identify the separate engagements which compose the scrum,
3. Resolve the topmost engagement in which an embattled disk is the defender (disks attacks based on their attack speed: swift, normal, slow as explained above);
4. Resolve the engagement in which the embattled disk involved in the previous step is the attacker (still following attack speed order);
5. Resolve the engagement below that, and so on.

Figure 9: Here we have a scrum in which disks with different attack speeds are involved (1). As the scrum must be resolved top-down, the first engagement to be resolved is that between the Stone Fangz Shaman and the Plaguebearers. The Plaguebearers are Slow, so the Shaman attacks first, dealing 2 damage (2), then the daemons respond with 5 damage, killing the Shaman (3). Then we resolve the engagement between the Plaguebearers and Grimgor Ironhide, which has a chance to attack first (still due to the Plaguebearers’ Slow keyword) and deal another 4 damage (4). The Plaguebearers are destroyed before they have a chance to attack Grimgor. Finally, the third engagement is resolved: The Swift attack from Grimgor and the Swift counterattack from the Militia Spearmen are simultaneous (5). The Orc Hero chooses to damage the Swordmasters of Hoeth, who are destroyed. Note that the Swift keyword on the Swordmasters would be of no benefit in this situation, as it only applies on Strength damage, and not on Counter Strength.

Remember that (barring Frenzy) a disk cannot deal damage to more than one enemy in an engagement. As an embattled disk is part of two distinct engagements, it will be able to deal both its  counter strength damage when defending and its strength damage when attacking (and also note that it has been confirmed by the designers that the scrum resolution example on page 20 of the rulebook is incomplete, as the River Troll should deal its strength damage to Teclis).

It is possible that, during a scrum, disks become engaged because interposing enemy disks are removed from play. In this situation, this new engagement is not resolved in the current Melee Phase. Only engagements that were already established at the beginning of the Melee Phase have to be resolved in that phase.

Note, however, that “when this disk engages” abilities (i.e. Archaon’s or Tyrion’s) will trigger when a new engagement is created this way.

Figure 10: Though overlapping the Steam Tank, Tyrion is only engaging the Marienburg Swordsmen (1). When the scrum solves, Tyrion destroys the Swordsmen (2) and, as they are removed, he finds himself engaged with the Steam Tank. His special ability immediately resolves (3), and a lucky roll allows him to deal a automatic wound on the tank. Then the scrum continues, but as Tyrion wasn’t engaged with the Steam Tank at the beginning of the Melee Phase, neither disk can damage the other, so the Steam Tank has to attack the Ellyrian Reavers (4).

The End Phase

After all engagements are resolved, the Melee Phase is over, and players enter the End Phase.

During the End Phase:

• All tokens (except for Wound tokens) are removed from disks in play: this includes damage, activation tokens, empowerment and special tokens from command cards;
• Players retrieve their hand of command cards from their discard piles.

After tokens have ben cleared and cards have been retrieved, the round ends. If this was the fifth round, then the game is over, players reveal their objective cards and calculate Victory Points, otherwise the next round begins with a new Activation Phase.

And with that we concluded the all the sequence of play, from the Activation to the End Phase. What’s left is the pre-game: join me next time, as we’ll talk about Deployment (and a little about Reinforcing).

Clicca QUI per l’articolo in italiano