THE RULE OF ACTION TIMING

Actions may only be activated during the action phase of your turn, when nothing is resolving. The only exceptions to this involve costed actions used “at no cost” during other actions or special triggered effects.

We’ll dive into the exceptions and “at no cost” very soon when we talk about what’s happening to the phrase “as a free action”. “Costed” is our new way to say “non-free” actions.

But let’s focus on the first part. “Actions may only be activated during the action phase of your turn, when nothing is resolving.” This is pretty simple to read, but there’s a lot of implications to unpack.

First, let’s talk about the turn structure. A HeroClix turn is being divided into 4 phases.

Beginning of Turn phase Action phase End of Turn phase Clear phase

The vast majority of the time, you won’t have to pay close attention to phases. You certainly don’t have to formally “pass” from one phase to another, it changes when you do something that can only happen in a later phase. However, the turn structure will always be in the rules to handle questions that arise about what can happen when.

Here’s the first 3 phases: (We’ll cover the Clear phase another time.)

2. BEGINNING OF TURN PHASE

‘Beginning triggered effects’ trigger and resolve now. No actions can be activated now (one exception).

‘Beginning triggered effects’ say “ at the beginning of your turn .” Variations of this phrase are also considered ‘beginning triggered effects’. Those may include “ at the beginning of each turn ” or “ at the beginning of each opponent’s turn ” and other close variations.

The Beginning of Turn phase ends when a character is given an action.

SIDEBAR: If you don’t give a character an action, then this phase and your Action phase end when you trigger an ‘end triggered effect’. If you don’t give a character an action or trigger an ‘end triggered effect’, then this phase and your Action phase and your End of Turn phase end when you begin clearing action tokens. If you don’t give a character an action or trigger an ‘end triggered effect’ or clear action tokens, then your entire turn (and its phases) ends when you declare you are passing the turn. Similarly for the other phases below.

2. ACTION PHASE

The Action phase is where most of the game takes place. Actions can only be given in this phase, and only when nothing is resolving (one exception).

The Action phase ends when a player begins resolving an ‘end triggered effect’.

3. END OF TURN PHASE

‘End triggered effects’ trigger and resolve now. No actions can be activated now (one exception).

‘End triggered effects’ say “ at the end of your turn .” Variations of this phrase are also considered ‘end triggered effects’. Those may include “ at the end of each turn ” or “ at the end of each opponent’s turn ” and other close variations.

The End of Turn phase ends when a player begins clearing action tokens.

The exception mentioned is using costed actions “at no cost” that will be covered in an article very soon. You’ll also note a new templating that will carry over to character cards: ‘beginning (and end) triggered effects’ will be underlined. So you can quickly scan your card to see if anything triggers at the beginning (or end) of your turn , no more hunting through text.

So, in the Beginning of Turn phase, ‘beginning triggered effects’ happen, and that’s it. Those ‘beginning triggered effects’ themselves may contain move and attacks if we specifically want them to. (For example, “ At the beginning of your turn , make a close attack.”) But you can’t activate FREE actions of any kind in response to them or during them. You need to save your actions for the aptly named Action phase, where they are meant to be used. Same thing for the End of Turn phase.

One of the main reasons that “ at the beginning of your turn ” is even part of HeroClix language is to stop effects from “comboing” with others that may be potentially confusing or make them too powerful when combined. Keeping ‘beginning triggered effects’ separate and before you can start normally moving, attacking, or giving actions including FREE actions allows for powerful effects without piling on the confusion.

We recognize that this is a big change, but after testing it and talking to players who’ve played with it, we are confident that it will be much easier for both new and veteran players to understand how timing works and how effects interact if we separate out FREE actions from ‘beginning and end triggered effects’.

Now, some of the important HeroClix rules changes that fulfill our shared goals described in earlier articles are going to either increase or decrease the power level of certain standard powers. In the case of this change, it keeps coming back to one thing: Poison. Poison no longer “combos” with Outwit or Sidestep.

When we introduced Sidestep, we wanted a simple “move 2” power. Making it a FREE action was the simplest implementation of that. Of course, current rules allowed it to “combo” with Leadership and Poison. We didn’t think those “combos” were game-breaking, so we let them stand instead of adding text to Sidestep for the corner case of forbidding them.

Outwit was decided very early in the game’s history to “combo” with Poison, but not as part of a complete HeroClix timing system. With where the rules are heading, it’s a decision that needs to be re-examined.

This is going to remove some of the ways in which veteran players use Poison. We understand that it has lost some familiar functionality. Without “breaking” the timing system just for this one power, there are several potential ways to adjust the text of Poison itself to address this. We listened to player feedback and had some internal debates about what to do with Poison. In the end, though, anything added to Poison was inelegant or brought up other corner case issues, or just changed it too much. So the effect is the same now as it was (barring a few grammar differences):

Poison

At the beginning of your turn , you may deal 1 damage to all adjacent opposing characters.

It no longer combos with Outwit or Sidestep, but everything else about it is the same. The next time we do a rules pass, after these rules have been played for a while by everyone, it will be a goal to focus on ‘standard power’ power levels and Poison is one power to be examined closely.

That’s all for today. Keep on Clixin’!

Quiz answers for current (2015) rules:

Your beginning of turn trigger? – YES Your end of turn trigger? – YES Your beginning of game trigger? – NO Your opponent’s beginning of game trigger? – NO Clearing action tokens? – NO An effect that triggered while clearing action tokens? – NO Your ‘after actions resolve’ (now called after resolutions) trigger? – YES Additionally, can you activate a FREE action inside of your other action? – YES, but only “as a free action”. “Free actions” themselves (the kind you give to characters, like Outwit) can’t be activated then. Confused? We’ll clean that up in an article very soon.

Quiz answers for upcoming (2017) rules:

Your beginning of turn trigger? – NO Your end of turn trigger? – NO Your beginning of game trigger? – NO Your opponent’s beginning of game trigger? – NO Clearing action tokens? – NO An effect that triggered while clearing action tokens? – NO Your ‘after actions resolve’ (now called after resolutions) trigger? – NO Additionally, can you activate a FREE action inside of your other action? – NO, but costed actions can be activated “at no cost” in them

PS: We’d like to thank the community for the many thoughtful and supportive emails! We do appreciate it when you call out areas that could use clarification and while many should be addressed in planned articles we are making notes for how to improve from your feedback.