I was wondering what happens when you draw 4 relic cards at the beginning of the intrigue phase.

Can you discard them and draw 4 new cards?

Another question that bugs me is what happens if you do not want a card effect to take place?

Can you say that you do not want to use the ability on the card (i.e. swap stack cards) or do you have to use it?

n4rwoo said:

Well two both of your question I would point you to p. 8

"During a player's turn he must perform on of these actions: [...]

• Discard one card from from his hand to his Discard Pile withput applying any effects."

As I understand, if you have four relic cards, that is your only option. So this round is a lost round for you and the second question is also answered with this.

Sorry for answering that late, but I just got the game :).

If you play with the Militia cards, you can discard the relic and bring in a soldier (or hopefully the Captain) to potentially help you out.  I would recommend playing with this option just for these types of situations.

Ruskicowboy said:

True, always use Militia. Keep in mind though that the revised rule require you to discard a "Stake Card" to recruit one militia, so you can't discard you Guild's starting Relics for this purpose.

ZephonSoul said:

Oh didn''''t catch that a STAKE card is required for the help of the melitia. Thanks for pointing that out.  However I''''m using this thread for clarifying an event card.

According to the rules the militias help end after the resolution phase and they return to the milita pile, which is fine and understandable. However one event card says that all milita cards should return to the pile at the beginning of the intrigue phase and militias facor can''''t be won. Why should a card state that all militia return to the pile in the intrigue phase (I''m writing out of memory here). It''s implying that the militia are stayin if the stake card is not won, but the rules say otherwise. Maybe it''''s just over careful for "houserules", but it confuses me more. Right now I go by the rules (also we didnt add the event deck to our games so far), but maybe I understand something wrong.

Any intel on that would be nice, even if that just confirms my modus operandi.

 True, but you may want to discard only one card at a time, this might cause your opponent to play differently than if you reveal your weak hand instantly.