Retaliation

Retaliation refers to the counterattack of a stack that has been the target of a melee attack. All creatures have one retaliation per combat round with the exceptions of several creatures: Griffins, which have two retaliations per combat round; Royal Griffins and Fangarms (available in the Horn of the Abyss expansion), which have an unlimited number of retaliations per combat round. With the Counterstrike spell, it is possible for a hero to magically add one or two extra retaliations per combat round. For Griffins this means three or four.

Some creatures have special ability typically phrased as "no enemy retaliation", which does not allow the stack(s) they attack to retaliate against them. This also means, that the attacked stack will not lose one of their retaliations for that combat round if attacked by a creature stack with no enemy retaliation. In practice this means, that creatures with no enemy retaliation cannot be used to prevent an enemy creature from retaliating that round.

Special abilities related to retaliation

Creatures with no enemy retaliation:

•  Sprite
•  Harpy Hag
•  Cerberus
•  Vampire
•  Vampire Lord
•  Psychic Elemental
•  Magic Elemental
•  Naga
•  Naga Queen
•  Devil
•  Arch Devil
•  Hydra
•  Chaos Hydra
•  Corsair
•  Sea Dog

Creatures with more than one retaliation per combat round:

•  Griffin has two retaliations
•  Royal Griffin has unlimited retaliations
•  Fangarm has unlimited retaliations

Spells related to retaliation

•  Blind
•  Counterstrike