The Riddle of Steel: why not using all dices to attack ?

[BlacKnight]

Here we are again. Sorry for the delay and thank you for your time.

Correct.
If you win, he loses dice, you retain initiative.
If you lose, you lose initiative.

But at that moment, the opponent can not announce an attack (so you are safe while you use it; do not use during RED-RED).

I'm not sure the opponent can't attack during Stop Short or Toss. The latter requires him to dodge, so if he attacks you can make an unopposed roll.
But Stop Short allows him to use his Ref in the contested roll, so nothing stops him from attacking.
And considering that you can't parry his attack, only hope that he loses enough dices due to your move...

It's actually my memory going wrong. The paragraph is the description of Thrust maneuver, page 64. Also FoB, page 39.

It's +1 to REF if you use thrust and opponent uses cut and you tie for initiative (so it's a tiebreaker, not a bonus).

Will have to remember this one for my next game.

Interesting.
Incidentally, I think that the Shock values for thrusts are too high, or the values for cuts are too low.
If you thrust while the opponent cuts you are not going to stop him just by sticking your sword in his belly.

Who wouldn't?

...well, maybe someone who wants to toy with the BBEG.

That sounds like a reversed trope of the villain that can't take the hero seriously

No problem. Here or shall I set up a separate thread?

Also: if you plan on playing by post (as opposed to live table), there is an option to first go through the fight mechanically and to narrate it afterwards. Blow-by-blow combats are better for live tables.

I think we can do it here.
If you don't mind I would make a fight that could happen in a campaign I'm playing in as a player, with another system.

The setting is the Attack on Titan's one, but it doesn't matter if you don't know it.
My character, Oscar, is a young noble that joined the Survey Corps under a false name for various reasons that I won't explain here.
Short story: he's now out in the wilderness with his squad and he wants to take a certain book from captain Valzer.
So, for the sake of our simulation, one evening Oscar finds the captain alone at some distance from the camp and, failing to get the books with words, he unsheathes his sword and threatens the captain.
A fight is thus inevitable.

Relevant Oscar's stats:
Spiritual: passion 4 (being recognized by his father), passion 3 (becoming a great soldier). In this case passion 4 could fire, for background reasons to long to explain, while passion 3 obviously is out. I don't know if being directly in contrast with the situation gives some malus.
ST: 5 AG: 7 TO: 4 EN: 5 HT: 3
WP: 4 WIT: 7 MA: 3 SOC: 5 PER: 5
Ref: 7 Aim: 6 knckdown: 5 Knockout: 6 Move: 8
Sword and Cut: 8 Dagger: 3 Handgun: 3
Combat Pool: 15
Gifts: minor Accuracy
He has a cut and thrust sword. His goal is to retrive the book, possibly without killing the captain.

Regarding captain Valzer, I'll leave her to you if you like.
She's an experienced soldier and known for being resourceful. But probably she hasn't trained for fighting against human opponents with swords (as titans requires completely different weapons and tactics), so she can't brute force this situation.
She would probably not carry swords here, but for the sake of the simulation she could have a sword (or even 2) of the kind used in the setting. Those are heavy one handed blades specialized for cutting, so I think the longsword stats could work for them.
Being cyinical and determinated I doubt she would hesitate in killing Oscar, if necessary to protect the book.