Forward Sentries

Legend of the Five Rings card from Web of Lies, Enemy of My Enemy

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Reserve, Formation

Card Text

Battle: If you control two Personalities with Cavalry, Scout, Harrier, and/or the printed Tactician keyword at the current battlefield, put this card into play there. Discard your other Formations there. You may take an additional Battle action.
Battle: Twice per battle, if this card is in play and you are meeting the conditions to put it there, target a Personality and a battlefield; the first target may be at any location if this battlefield is the second. Move him to the battlefield. If you do not control him, straighten his unit.

Focus Value

2

Legality

Age of Enlightenment (Lotus), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rulings

• The two Personalities need not share the same trait. [ZF, web, 8 February 2005] Rules Archive, August 18, 2007, p. 18

Rules Q&A

• Q: I am playing Lion and using the Gosoku Sensei.
  I discard the favour to lock down a personality in the Limited phase.
  I attack with some tacticians and play Forward Sentries.
  I then target the personality I locked down to bring into the opposing defending army.
  A: They move in, but the effect to Straighten them Fails.
  To override an effect that says, "May not straighten," you need an effect like Desperate Wager or Soul of the Clan that says, "even if they cannot straighten." Martin Lund, "Rules for 30 January 2005", 4 Feb 2005
• Q: I looked here and used the search forum, but I didn't see anything.
  My question is: for the use of cards like Rain Of Death or Forward Sentries is the additional text on Void/Water shugenja considered "printed on" the cards?
  A: No.
  Printed: Means the same as “base,” even on cards that do not literally have their base stats printed.
  Base: "Base" refers to a stat, keyword, ability, or trait that exists on a card or other entity as printed (following the most recent printing) or initially created, without modifications from effects.
  And Pale Oak Castle's effects modify the Personalities. Alex Jones, "Pale Oak Castle", 5 Feb 2009
• Q: This topic was a consensus a long time ago about forward sentries but really wasn't confirmed officially.
  Basically my question my playgroup wants to confirm is the relevence of doing battle A at an unopposed province, play forward sentries and move an enemies personalities from province B to province C is legal.
  old topic:http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11734&highlight=forward+sentries
  Forward Sentries
  Rarity Common, Fixed
  Edition Web of Lies
  Text Reserve Formation
  Formed by 2 Personalities with the Cavalry, Scout, Harrier, or printed Tactician traits.
  Battle: Twice per battle: Target a unit and a battlefield. Move the unit to the battlefield. If you do not control the unit, straighten it.
  A: Lotus Rulebook page 51 and 56.
  56 is the page with the formation info, relevant here for the fact that the formation enters play at the current battlefield.
  51 is the rules of relevance and presence. An action satisfies the rule of relevance if it is on a card at the current battlefield. Obviously you are going to have presence if you are able to form the formation.
  All you have to do is target a unit and a battlefield. Yes, your example is legal. Chris Fuchs, "Forward sentries and relevence", 7 Apr 2006
• Q: If I bring in an oppoents bowed unicorn personilty into a battle with foward sentries, can he use the range attack reaction granted to him by Latomu?
  A: Diamond rules, pg. 54: no. Zen Faulkes, "Forward Sentries and Latomu", 30 Mar 2005
• Q: This means that you must have two personalities with the same trait, or that two of your personalities can have any of the traits?
  A: The latter. Note that this is a correction of my earlier post (not long enough to be called a reversal, really), confirmed by the Rules Junta. Zen Faulkes, "Forward Sentries", 8 Feb 2005
• Q: This means that you must have two personalities with the same trait, or that two of your personalities can have any of the traits?
  A: Let's try again... You need 2 Personalities with the same trait.
  (And yes, the creation of this forum have created a dramatic increase in the number of questions, which is resulting in a lot of quick reading and more errors than I'd like. I'm dancing as fast as I can here...) Zen Faulkes, "Forward Sentries", 8 Feb 2005
• Q: Pale Oak Castle says that Phoenix Clan shugenja have "additional text"...
  Forward sentries refers to "printed tactician"... Would phoenix clan personalities played through Pale Oak Castle be considered to have "printed tactician"?
  A: If it's not there in ink on the card (or rather, in the text in the Oracle of the Void 🙂 ), it's not "printed". Alex Jones, "Sun and Moon #rules-questions", 13 Apr 2021