Arena Rex Forums

For the purposes of understanding what order stuff technically happens in when we take actions and make attacks, I want to propose the following chart/overview to see if it makes sense in terms of matching up with how most of us play in practice.

As I see it, the timing chart starts either when someone declares an action, or when a certain trigger makes an action or effect happen. Whenever one of these things happen, you go through all the following steps.

1. Declare or trigger action/reaction. Make sure to confirm that a legal trigger has allowed the appropriate reaction or effect. If not, cancel the declaration.
2. Pay cost of action/reaction.
3. Trigger any triggered effects/reactions based on declaration of action/reaction. This can be your own effect, like Pounce, or an enemy effect, like a reaction. These effects are fully resolved using the the 7 steps before moving on to step 4 of the original action.
Examples: Move reaction or Opportunity Attack reaction.
4. Choose a target for the original action/reaction if relevant.
5. If the target chosen is the target of an attack, then trigger any effects/reactions based on the declaration of an attack against a target.
Examples: Counterattack reaction or Assist reaction.
6. Resolve the action/reaction, modified by any effects that have been triggered so far.
7. Trigger and fully resolve any reactions or effects to the original action having been resolved.

If the action involves an attack, then the resolution of the attack (Step 6) can be broken further down into the following steps.

1. Attacker declares number of Favor dice to add to the attack.
2. Attacker may declare that he is upgrading the attack to a power attack if relevant. Pay cost of upgrading to power attack.
3. Defender declares number of Favor dice to add to the defence.
4. Attacker and defender simultaneously roll their attack and defence dice, respectively.
5. Subtract defenders successes from attackers successes. This provides the base number of damage tree results that the attacker gets to apply during the next step. Frigge's Retaliate ability would trigger and resolve here, if the result after subtraction is zero attack successes.
6. Apply damage from damage tree if applicable.

Andddd... the application of damage from a damage tree has its own sequence of steps.

1. First add any special bonuses based on the pre-existing status of the defender. This would mainly be the special extra push added by attacking an exhausted model. Choose where in the damage tree you want the extra push to go.
2. Add up how many special effects you get from your damage tree results and note down the order they resolve in.
3. Start resolving the special effects (remembering that the first push can be negated by push resistance). These special effects can cause various things to happen:
- If you push an enemy model into a friendly model, you get to add an extra success at the end to the successes you are currently resolving.
- If a result moves either the defender or yourself into a position where you no longer engage it, then stop resolving special effects immediately and move on to step 4.
4. Count up how many damage points are connected to the damage tree results that you resolved in your tree, stopping at the last one you resolved during step 3. Apply all those damage points to the defender as one combined package.
5. Subtract the defender's ARM rating from the damage package, then the defender loses as many Vitality points as the damage points left.
6. Apply any extra effects that were triggered during the attack, such as the fatigue gained or damage taken from being pushed into hazards.
7. Trigger any special effects from the defender's Vitality Track having had damage applied to it. For example, this is when the defender would be able to move away by using the Disengage special ability, or when the defending player would gain Favor from the Vitality track. These are triggered even if the model has lost all its Vitality points, which will be the case for the Morituri death benefits for example.

Then attack has been resolved, and we can return to step 7 of the original overview where we would get to trigger or react to the resolution of an action.

I hope it makes sense. It all usually flows quite intuitively, but occasionally it can get a bit fuzzy what happens in what order, like when you have to choose a target and such.

This is based mainly on the rulebook, the unofficial FAQ and some own my own guesses.

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My Arena Rex painting log

I need look it up, but I believe I saw it posted that the Hazards are triggered last after you get to use Special abilities.
In the rulebook under Living Hazard (PDF, pg 10) it says "If a model is pushed and ends up within 3” of a living hazard as the ultimate result of an attack or special rule, the living hazard will activate and attack the pushed model."

I think Disengage is one such special rule that you can use to move out of the 3" activation zone before the Living Hazard attacks.

Note: In order to maximize carnage, we play it where if you use Disengage after being pushed into the Living Hazard activation zone, the Living Hazard still activates and gets to use its full MOV to chase you. If you manage to move out of its engagement range, then you are safe... otherwise you still get gotten.

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Morituri te salutamus.

Alright, that makes sense. And I like your approach. Then the steps would be:

- Apply normal damage.
- Apply hazard damage/fatigue. Check if living hazard is triggered.
- Trigger Vitality track effects. (Defender may Disengage.)
- Living hazards that have been triggered move and attack.

I can live with that. And I like the concept of once the hazard has been triggered, caught your scent, then it is going to follow you if you try and run away.

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My Arena Rex painting log