Mathematics and Animal Husbandry battle abilities

[progressions 2,181]

Hello all,

I have a question about the battle abilities from the Mathematics and Animal Husbandry technologies.

Mathematics

Mathematics has a resource ability which reads "While involved in a battle, deal up to 3 wounds, spread across enemy units however you choose."

When exactly during a battle can one play this card?

For example:

Battle begins and my opponent plays a 2 ST pikeman as the first front.

May I play the card now, and deal 3 wounds to that pikeman and kill it? Or do I have to play a unit (either starting a new front or joining an existing one) before I can use the ability from the card?

The rulebook says something like "Resource battle abilities are played before and after attacking a front, not during". I'm not clear on what this means.

After my opponent attacks a front but *before* I have attacked a front, is it valid to play it? I'm not sure I understand the distinction between "before and after attacking a front" versus "during" it.

Animal Husbandry

Animal Husbandry has an ability that's not a resource ability. It says "Once per battle, heal up to a total of 3 wounds from your units in play."

Can this be done literally at any time during a battle? If so how do you resolve conflicts about who does something first?

We had a situation where I wanted to use the Mathematics ability to deal damage to a unit, and my opponent wanted to use the Animal Husbandry ability to heal damage.

Which one gets to do it first?

Isaac

[DoomTurtle 0]

When a unit is played, you immediately resolve any damage/death that occurs.  In between playing units is when you can use resource abilities.  So yes, after your friend played his first unit, and before you played one, you could use mathematics to damage it.

It is the same for healing, after determining if any units died, you can then heal surviving units.

As for ability order, I guess it would just be whoever said they were going to use that ability first gets to use it, but must be resolved competely before the other ability.  So if you used mathematics first to deal 3 damage to a unit to kill it, he couldn't interrupt it to heal before the unit was removed.  If mathematics did not kill it, then it would be a legal move to heal.