[cloudhu78]

Ok, this ability is weird. I guess a lot of people would be starching their heads and wonder why sometimes it just refuse to work! In my army I used this ability heavily and found the following rules:

On turn 1, you have Royal griffins rush into enemy lines, and lost 10 of them. You can resurrect those griffins right away by Valhalla. This always works, 100% of the time.

What if you wait till the Royal griffins take another turn? You will find you can still resurrect, but sometimes not the full amount. The catch is that on turn 1 when you send griffins to attack, any griffins killed by that enemy retaliation cannot be resurrected now.

Let’s see the simple flow for better demonstration:

Start of Turn1->Griffins Attack1->Enemy Retaliation1->Enemy Attack1->Start of Turn2->Griffins Attack2-> Enemy Retaliation2->Enemy Attack2->Call of Valhalla

As long as you lose no griffins on “Enemy Retaliation1” phase due to retaliation, the Call of Valhalla at end of “Enemy Attack2” phase will always fully resurrect the griffin stack. However, if you did take some lose on that “Enemy Retaliation1”, then Valhalla must be used before “Griffins Attack2” phase to avoid unrecoverable lose. This means that the game count that “Enemy Retaliation1” as happened before the end of Griffin’s first move, and call of Valhalla only allows unit to move once before any lose become unrecoverable.

To make the matter more complex, the Valhalla ability has another mechanic not in its description, “Hidden Cooldown” of 2 turns - a unit received a Valhalla cannot be targeted by another Valhalla till it has at least moved twice. Expand the above flow:

Start of Turn1->Griffins Attack1->Enemy Retaliation1->Enemy Attack1->Start of Turn2->Griffins Attack2-> Enemy Retaliation2->Enemy Attack2->Call of Valhalla-> Start of Turn3->Griffins Attack3->Enemy Retaliation3->Enemy Attack3->Call of Valhalla2?

At this point, you will find Valhalla cannot target the griffin at all, but it does not mean the griffin loses are unrecoverable, just wait for another turn.

…->Start of Turn4->Griffins Attack4-> Enemy Retaliation4->Enemy Attack4->Call of Valhalla2

Now the Call of Valhalla2 would work, but be careful: on the “Enemy Retaliation3” phase, make sure to avoid any lose! Any lose on that phase will be unrecoverable by Valhalla.

To sum it up: Valhalla allows unit to move once after taking casualties, while retaliation strike by enemy count as the unit has already taken that “buffer” move. Valhalla cannot target the same unit until it has taken 2 moves after receiving the previous Valhalla.

Final note: Understanding of the mechanics gives a lot of tactic applications. For example you can “Wait” on griffins’ turn to avoid ending that Move phase, then phantom a stack of Maidens to Valhalla, thus bypass the “Unrecoverable Retaliation Death”. You can also use paladin to give griffins another move to “speed up” Valhalla’s hidden cooldown.