I just started learning the game and I want to make sure I am resolving a fear card properly
The card reads as follows;
"In each Land, defend 1 per Dahan"
Questions
1) "In each Land" - does this refer to any Land on an Island or just the Lands currently in the Ravage phase
2) "defend 1 per Dahan" - does this mean in lands where there is a Dahan and let's say a Town, the town takes 1 damage before the Ravage phase takes place ?
Thanks in advance for your help, cheers!
Rob
Although the answer to question 1 does mean every land, it will usually only affect the lands that are about to ravage. (There are a few power cards that trigger extra stuff or damage to Dahan.)
In answer to your question 2, Defend does not cause damage to Invaders regardless of its source. But in the example where there is a Town and a Dahan, the damage done will be (2 from the Town - 1 from the Dahan) = 1, which means both that the Dahan will survive to counterattack and kill the Town, and that the land will not have Blight added.
Welcome!
1) Technically it means every land, but I can't think of any reason why it would matter in lands nor affected by the ravage card, unless you're playing with Branch and Claw.
2) Defend reduces the damage that invaders so, it doesn't damage them.
If you have a land with 1 Dahan and 1 town and no defense, the town does 2 damage to the land and Dahan (both, simultaneously) which causes blight and destroys the Dahan, and the Dahan doesn't have a chance to retaliate.
In the same land if you do have 1 defense, then the town does only 1 damage to the land and 1 to the Dahan, which doesn't cause blight or destroy the Dahan, so the Dahan survives and retaliates for 2 damage, destroying the town.
EDIT: Ninja'd!
It's worth noting that Fear cards like this are a good reason to try and stack Defence on a land about to Ravage even though you know you're not gonna be able to defend it enough to stop the Blight. In a recent game I played there was something like seven or eight damage due to be dealt in the upcoming Ravage but I could only manage about five points of Defend with my own Powers - I did it anyway and then we had both Canny Defence and the above-mentioned Fear card came out, and as the land in question had a couple of Dahan in it, this was just enough to save it from Blighting :D.
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This seems off to me -- how likely is it that a fear card will actually help you out here? And if it doesn't you've wasted energy and card plays on doing absolutely nothing when maybe you could have prevented a ravage/blight on a future turn but using a slow power (or maybe even playing those defense cards on a later turn before reclaiming). Just because it worked out once, that doesn't seem to me like it's a good idea to just do this whenever.
Depending on the exact configuration, at TLII in a land with Presence and Dahan, it looks to me like approximately half of the Fear cards give at least one Town's worth of effective Defense: https://sick.oberien.de/?query=type%3Afear%20set%3Abase
Ideally you do this in cases where the Defense you have would do something (eg, save some of the Dahan), even if it doesn't go all the way.
...wow. So without crunching any numbers (which I'll probably do later because I'm a nerd) I'm surprised at how many of these things worked. TI also L :-P
At one point during playtesting during the base game, I made a choice to leave myself open to a loss during a Ravage (at terror level 3 with 3 Fear cards), for the benefit of much better control long-term. Then, as a true nerd, I went through and calculated the exact odds I would have lost at that point. (For the record, my chance of loss in that situation, based only on Fear cards and ignoring Events, was 2431/50750.)
Looking through my playtesting reports, that game seems to have been a turning point in upping the Adversaries I was winning against.
So in other words you just needed to not get a natural 1 on your saving throw.
I don't think she's advocating purposefully playing otherwise-insufficient Defend powers in hopes that a Fear card will bail you out. But it's not unusual for the "insufficient Defense" situation to come up. If you (ex:) played many of your good cards last round, but don't want to reclaim, you may have an extra "defend" card that does no good anywhere. Or the Defend card may give you elements you need for a innate, so you play it, knowing that the Defend won't be enough. Or for Spirits with innate Defend like Spread of Rampant Green, they may have enough elements only to trigger a low level of the power. In cases like that, sure -- Defend some land and hope for the best.
Yeah, basically when the most useful thing you can do is throw down some Defend, even if it's not enough, knowing that the Event and/or a Fear card may help you. Or maybe the Power gives some other effect alongside the Defend so you're playing it for that instead (eg the Fear granted by Grasping Tide), or as Robb says, for the Elements. Of couse, sometimes it goes the other way and you pour your efforts into getting enough Defend to protect from a Ravage, and then have the Event/Fear cards stack even more Defend, so you could have played other cards but had no way of knowing that the Defend would be taken care of by outside sources :P.
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