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!

A LOOK AT THE COMBAT ROUND

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?

DEFENDER FIRST!

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:

Playing an Open or Battle action from your hand
Using an Open or Battle action from a card you have in play
Bowing one of your Heroes to remove that unit from the battle
Bowing one or more of your cards to engage for damage.

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.

ALL TOGETHER NOW!

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.

YOU CAN'T HURT ME! I'M NIGH- INVULNERABLE!

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.

TAKE THAT, FIEND!

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 Adrian (OS Hero), discard a 3-Fate card, and kill another Adrian and discard a 4-Fate card to eat a 7S engagement (replacing Adrian 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!

OUCH! THAT HURT!

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 (IS) are attacking the Moto's last city sectiol 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 entil 5S engagement, which means one Chandra is left to fight. That Chandra engages for 1. Gaheris, being 5S, is immune t( it of course. However, if the Moto does not make Gaheris eai the damage, then the City Section or water tokens there mu,, 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, Abresa (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, s 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.

And that's the end! If there's any questions, comments, or improvements to be made to this FAQ, please contact the author at dhenry@plains.nodak.edu. I hope this was useful and easy to understand, and may Lady Sun bless you in all your endeavors and engagements

Coming next issue - Berserk and Archery fun!

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com