Combat question and newbie suggestions

[Raumohir]

Hi everyone, just finished my second game. I love it, can't wait to start showing it to others. Kudos!
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Here's the question we ran across:
Say I have a 3/3 troop, no special combat abilities, but he has a Holy Long Sword (+1/+1 when in melee). He gets assigned against a ranged attacker.

Do the bonuses not apply at all, or do they kick in for his melee phase in combat? I assume when the ranged attacker is dealing his ranged damage, my defense is 3. But when my melee guy deals his melee damage, is his offense 3 or 4?
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Also, and maybe this should be in another thread, I had two quick suggestions on rule wording that confused us:

I had a hard time grasping that defenders also attack, in the sense that they get the chance to deal damage too. It still sometimes confuses me that "attack" is used both for dealing damage, and for "declaring an attack against a target player or wanderer row." Maybe another word like "invade" would be better for the declaration phase? That would be much more clear, for me, anyway.

Also, some abilities refer to a movement phase. We spent our first game looking for a movement phase and decided it was the same as the City Maintenace Phase, since that's when you could move troops and items around. Maybe calling it a Movement step, since it's in the Combat phase would help. Or maybe we're just dumb, lol.

Sorry for the long post. It's because I care. I'm signing up to be a Seeker next. Thanks again, for a great game!

[jtkauff]

[Raumohir]

Ah, thanks. That makes a lot more sense!

I'll definitely be introducing this to friends & family over the break. And I'm looking forward to the expansion....